Walking a Chartres Labyrinth: An Unexpected Journey to Peace

For most of my life I have wanted to walk a labyrinth. When depicted in art or presented in photography, labyrinths enchant me with their mesmerizing curves or angles which flourish from an opening straight line. When described, mentioned, or examined in fiction and nonfiction, they intrigue me with their spiritual connotation.

A labyrinth represents a quest to find the center of a geometric shape. Often a labyrinth traces a circular pattern. Nevertheless, angular labyrinths also are constructed. Interior and exterior labyrinths exist. The courses of an exterior labyrinth may also feature elevated paths flanked by channels of water and, therefore, may require intermittently or consistently special attention directed downwards to guard against slipping and dunking shoes or feet.

I have always felt that one day I would walk a labyrinth but I had no idea when or where the venture would occur. Last Thursday I was committed to meeting deadlines when the thought persisted to check on the location of the nearest Episcopal church. Finally giving in to this mysterious thought, I discovered that an Episcopal church was only a few blocks away from the university library where I was ensconced. But why was I prompted to discover its location? It apparently only has Sunday services so I was puzzled by the urgent prompting of my unremitting thought.

Then I noticed the word "labyrinth" near the end of the side bar. Immediately clicking on the long-cherished word, I was delighted to discover that Christ Episcopal Church indeed has a labyrinth. Although eager to come face-to-face with this labyrinth, which is outside, I felt compelled to stay at my computer station to complete my personal obligations.

"Tomorrow I shall have the time," I whispered to the enticing image of a bench on the edge of the labyrinth which appears on the church's website and which now firmly resides in my heart, mind, and soul.

But on Friday my efficiency wavered, and by late afternoon I was not at a good stopping point.

"Tomorrow is the day," I softly promised the image which beckoned me to rest on the bench with the labyrinth at my feet.

On Saturday everything took longer than it should have because the computer kept freezing on me and then crashing. Once again as the day darkened, I reluctantly shrugged off the idea of taking a break to visit the labyrinth.

"Tomorrow for sure," I quietly chanted.

My progress on Sunday was not as fast as I wished, but still I hoped to complete the project while the afternoon was young. Alas, when the late afternoon sun haloed me with its lengthening rays which stretched from billions of miles away to warm my back and dazzle the images on my screen into coruscating patches, I accepted gracefully the day's chaotic path away from my heart's desire.

Envisioning the labyrinth's center, I sighed, "Tomorrow is another day," and prepared for a long night to journey's end of my current project. Bleary eyed and with aching wrists from interminable keyboard dances, I finally finished at 20 minutes past midnight.

When I am tired and have been listening to audio books while searching the internet or researching, my entire head seems to empty into nothingness. Into that vast vacuum, which feels like a dark, endless abyss, my voice, unused to utterances, echoes in my efforts at speech. My sister magically appeared as I exited from my carrel, and in answer to her soft questions, my voice sputtered and stumbled in crescendos of vowels and consonants. As heads turned, I felt like a braying donkey. Amused giggles told me that my symptoms were immediately recognizable as one who has lasted beyond the limits of endurance in a university library setting. I remember those days, which haunt me from time to time in perilous, ridiculous dreams --- long afterwards --- of forgetting and missing classes and exams!

This morning the shadows which have been engulfing my life were still there, and yet I felt the sunlight before it even touched me.

"Today!" I whooped as I skipped to my car. My happiness increased as I realized that no frost plagued the windshield so the scraper could continue its idyll behind the driver's seat.

"Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day!" I greeted the towering Eastern white pine, which figuratively shelters my heart from every storm with its soft needles and gently swaying branches. Many times I rest against its trunk, burrowing my back into its bark, as I survey the play of light on the hilly pasture to the south.

Details actually remained for followup and final closure of the previous day's victory. The minutes raced into hours. Soon four hours had been carved from the afternoon. I had to run two errands, and I began to consider that the labyrinth would have to wait one more day.

When I stopped to confer with my sister and to let her know of my temporary departure, Deedee asked, "Are you going to the labyrinth today?"

Fretted with worries over the fading light, I hypothesized: "It might have to wait until tomorrow."

Knowing how much this venture meant to me, Deedee slowly posed the question: "Are you sure that you don't have time? You were so looking forward to it."

The grey of the bench and the distinctive Hokie stone coloring of the center danced before my eyes. I breathed easily as my mind suddenly took a back seat.

"Yes, I think perhaps I can fit it in. After my two errands, there still may be light. They won't take that long," I surmised.

Hope floated in my heart as I exited the library. My errands flowed efficiently to completion. As I crossed Main Street, I realized that I had not rechecked the route. The oversight could prove hazardous in a college town that is like an iceberg for me: only a few well-travelled routes are familiar to me.

"I will just know when and where to turn," I heard myself saying.

In a few blocks, the thought came to me to turn onto a side street. I did not see a street sign, and there were no spires or towers peeking through trees or over roofs. Nevertheless, I strolled in the new direction. At the intersection, I looked to my left, and there was the church. I wondered exactly where the labyrinth was situated.

And then I saw it, and I was not disappointed. As I walked to that hallowed area, I felt overwhelmed at the prospect of this dream, so long held, coming true so unexpectedly and so easily. A brochure entitled "The labyrinth at Christ Church" caught my attention. I had not read the description on the church's website so I was surprised to discover that this labyrinth was built as "a place of peace and healing" specifically in response to the tragic events which transpired on the nearby Virginia Tech campus on April 16, 2007. Before the day was over five faculty members and 27 students were dead, seventeen were wounded, and the shooter committed suicide. An hour away I watched the television in stunned disbelief. Such an implacable wind of unthinkable devastation blew through charming Blacksburg that day.

Now four and one-half years later, I learn of this monument to peace and healing, and I admire the unflagging spirits who contemplated the project. A labyrinth perfectly expresses the metaphors, symbols, allegories, and lessons of human life. Before my foot ever touched its first stone, I knew that the journey to the center would take me on a pilgrimage to peace. Because a labyrinth is not synonymous with a maze, the mind is not beset with decisions with seemingly unalterable consequences that may end in blind alleys. All the work of the journey unfolds with each step. There is one way in, and there is one way out. Although no trickery unsettles the walker, attention is necessary, especially for the exterior labyrinths with mini moats. This labyrinth was flat on the ground, just like its prototype, the famous labyrinth in the Chartres Cathedral (Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres) southwest of Paris.

The Chartres Cathedral, mainly constructed in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, is an architectural jewel after my own heart. I have a special affinity for the middle ages. Despite the griminess of so many aspects of medieval life, an incredible belief in a higher power expressed itself in incomparably beautiful art and literature. Medieval faith soared elegantly like their spires to the heavens and left palpable traces of great depth and beauty in artistic and literary creations.

I had never specified to myself that my first labyrinthine encounter would be on a Chartres design but the hope must have quietly resided in my heart the whole time. I know that I regretted not being able to trace that stony path when I did visit the cathedral so long ago. My thought had been that on such a pilgrimage I might actually have been able to sense the hopes, thoughts, faith, and release of all those pilgrims who preceded me. Perhaps, I had hoped, something remained suspended in the air to waft deep truths into the hearts of seekers such as myself.

Ultimately I did not need the pilgrimage to invoke the ethereal gifts at Chartres, for, like the Oracle at Delphi, there is something in the air there. That same indefinable, ineffably beautiful intangible which has the power to transcend time and space to open hearts in Chartres and at Delphi also refreshes and refines the air all around the labyrinth at Christ Episcopal Church in Blacksburg. When I was in Chartres and at Delphi, I could not find words for the experience, which was otherworldly. Afterwards I recognized that what was lingering in the air was faith, which is never without hope or charity. They all three abide everywhere. Somehow some time after the Renaissance the simplicity of drawing close to those three virtues was lost. Now everyone has to find their own way back to faith, hope, and love in an extraordinary journey of discovery that, taken measure for measure and with full commitment, brings astounding rewards.

As I stood in awe hours ago at the fulfillment of one of my deepest hopes, I remembered my favorite verses from the Atharva Veda, a sacred text of Hinduism which enigmatically conserves an ancient wisdom. As I recalled the verses, I felt the presence of my mother. It is her birthday today, and I miss her. In losing my way sometimes, I somehow missed out on so much of her wisdom. Fortunately respect for this universe and for the value of life which has been gifted to us are two pieces of knowledge which were instilled in me by both my father and mother. So when conversations with my mother about a country she had never visited in this existence but whose essence she inescapably knew kept directing me to deepen my understanding, I followed my heart and studied with exceptionally wise teachers. As a result, I found the perfect description for the truths which await each person's awakening and which especially congregate in holy places:

"If there was something in the air,

If there was something in the wind,

If there was something in the trees or bushes

That could be pronounced and once was overheard by animals,

Let this sacred knowledge be returned to us again." (Atharva Veda, VII, 66)

Despite the uncertainties which have cast irreverent shadows across my life lately, I found a measure of peace as I walked the labyrinth today. It was a peace beyond all understanding. There are points on the path where, as I looked around, I could not perceive the points of conveyance which were ahead of me but which I knew had to be there. I traced the path three times. Each time, despite having experienced the continuity and the reality of the uninterrupted flow from opening to center and back to the beginning, I was confronted with the same puzzlement of glancing at future spots but not being able to discern the easy transition because of the obstacle created by the angle of my view. Greatly loved words penned by the apostle Paul which have assured countless generations floated across my heart:

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known." (1 Corinthians 13:12)

As far back as I can remember, I have been fascinated by labyrinths but never really understood the reason. Today I embraced that fascination with full understanding of the sheer brilliance of the elegant simplicity of the labyrinthine design. Human life is characterized by seeming uncertainty. Unexpectedness visits every life on this fragile yet strong planet which floats so beautifully along its appointed path through the universe. A twist of fate, a turn in the road, a rumbling of the earth, a swelling of the ocean's waves --- who can predict fully and completely who and what blows through our lives or buffets us? Focusing on that question troubles all immediate answers and often warps the will.

A well-known labyrinth myth concerns the Minotaur, a ravenous freak with the head of a bull atop a man's body who lived on Crete at the center of a labyrinth which was designed as an elaborate maze. Theseus, the mythical founder-king of ancient Greece's glorious city of Athens, successfully tracked the elusive Minotaur with the aid of a ball of thread gifted to him by Ariadne, daughter of Crete's King Minos.

For me, the Minotaur symbolizes raging, rampant fears. As I stood and then kneeled in the center on my first circuit, I realized that there was no Minotaur awaiting me in this labyrinth, nor, for that fact, in any labyrinth. Any Minotaur that I might encounter would be of my own making. Such a Minotaur would be invisible and intangible: the fearful concerns which fret on the boundaries of consciousness and which are fueled by unresolved questions. Any Minotaur that entered the labyrinth with me was quietly and smoothly discarded along the serpentine, stone path.

What I learned from the labyrinth today is that the angle of view may color perception but does not change the essential design. A labyrinth is designed for flow and not as an obstacle course. The impediments are sense-based, unreal, imaginary. A labyrinth perfectly illustrates the apostle Paul's wisest of observations:

"For we walk by faith, not by sight." (2 Corinthians 5:7)

Uncertainties may not have dissipated today by listening to the whispers of my heart but something important emerged: a glimpse of peace. Interestingly, the labyrinth garden contains a Peace Pole, which, according to the brochure, is one of tens of thousands of such poles in 180 countries all over the world. Its message, "May peace prevail on earth," takes on special significance when considering the unthinkable tragedy which motivated the garden's creation and dedication. Peace is achieved step by step, one step at a time, with each heart beat. As the Chinese proverb recognizes:

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

Think about starting a journey of the heart with that first, one step and see where it takes you.

This hub is dedicated to the memory of my mother, who "walks in beauty" through sparkling reminiscences, bestowing exquisitely wise, loving gifts: "all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes." (Lord Byron, "She Walks in Beauty")

This hub is also dedicated to all who were and are affected by the unimaginable events which tragically disrupted the peace, wisdom and beauty of the Virginia Tech campus on April 16, 2007. I dedicate the peace which graced me today to their well-being as well as to the well-being of those whom I love and thence in ever expanding circles ever outwards to the well-being of all, with the hope that peace prevails on earth.

My special thanks to talented artists/photographers who make their fine images available on the Internet.

My special thanks to Christ Episcopal Church, Blacksburg for envisioning a labyrinth for peace which is open and available to all at any time.

Copyright Monday, December 5, 2011 by Stessily