Moving in Moving Out

Today I joined a group of women to walk an indoor labyrinth in silence.  I love community labyrinth walks.

Not only do you experience the twists of the path itself and it’s movement towards and away from the center, but you also meet fellow travelers, move with them, walk away from them and meet them again.  The moving bodies were a dance, were thresholds and doorways, were eyes filled with love and compassion, strangers or angels coming into presence with me.  The form of the labyrinth itself is truth that I am trying over and over to remember.  We are not lost.  We move in.  We move out.  We move in toward the center of the path, toward the center of our breath, toward the center of love and then back out as we lose our balance, step aside for another, get blurred in the lines and go back the way we came.

This week the darkness has been thick, has left me blinking and reminding myself to breathe.  The darkness has felt reassuring, then terrifying, then peaceful then empty.  I know that there are beautiful things hiding in the darkness.  I know that to sit there I need more than what I know or see.  The next moment is impenetrable.  The next moment may be a cliff edge or a warm bed of leaves in a safe place.  The next moment will change everything whether we notice or not.  The next moment will change everything.  It always does.

So tonight I am sitting in the dark, but not alone.  This transformation is only possible because of love;  because I am held in love, because I reach out, because I open myself when another’s hands find mine groping for something to hold on to.  This is the death I chose, holding hands in the dark with you, with the Universe.  I know that I cannot get lost.  I know that I am not alone.  I am moving in.  I am moving out.