When I walk by myself, technically it is a silent walk, because I’m generally not speaking or singing out loud. I’m audiating. I hear my voices and my songs in my head, but they’re not audible to anyone else (as far as I know).
Yesterday I walked the labyrinth with my mother and a dear friend of hers from Alaska. We walked silently. I’ve not walked it with others silently before. It was an interesting experience. Feeling their energy bodies and seeing their physical bodies as we moved through the walk together. Sweet, quiet, peaceful. Interspersed with the two dogs frisking about around us. My dog, Cinders, and Sue’s dog, Bohdi, both border collies, black with white, balls of energy and light and love. It felt joyful and peaceful at the same time.
Today’s walk brought new thoughts. It occurred to me, as I was standing in the center in the unknown, that this labyrinth, with its three spirals of maidenhood, motherhood and crone, represents a life time, and walking it multiple times could represent a multitude of lifetimes. Each walk is the same in form, and yet not the same. Each revolution has a subtly different feel to me. Tempos change, some walks are brimming with new awarenesses, others are simply quiet, some start out fast and furious.
It made me think about the arc of my life and what that would look like from afar. It made me smile. Made me think of mud and cold and warm sand and breezes. Made me realize that there is a part of me that is longing to walk it in the heat. And that thought is funny, because my preference is not for heat. It’s for cool. This weather, right now, is perfect. Cool, crisp air. It’s funny, the air feels more like autumn than spring and I’m not sure why that is, or what that might mean.
But my feet want to walk the labyrinth when the whole of the walk is warm. I like the contrast, but want to experience the other as well.
