The Journey Begins |
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When I began this two-year journey in 2012, traveling wasn’t new to me. After all, I’d already walked a mile on the frozen Arctic Ocean, sped down sand dunes in the Sahara, and crept along a Moscow freeway during a snowy, five-hour gridlock; but a pilgrimage to visit 50 states and 50 women who had built their own labyrinths was . . . personal.
It was Drew’s spirit of adventure that propelled us to pack up our three kids and fifteen suitcases in 1987 and fly from Arkansas to Alaska to teach. Nine years later, the same tempting spirit tapped him on the shoulder and casually whispered, “International teaching, check it out.”
I could have said “No thanks, not interested” anywhere along the way; but frankly, job offerings in Singapore, then Cairo, Moscow, and finally New York City awakened my own imagination for travel and diversity from a deep, predictable sleep.
Inklings for a journey of my own began more subtly, like a leaf that comes to rest on your shoulder during an autumn walk in the woods. You discover it later, press its golden shape in a book, and forget where you put it. But it remains.
It remains as a question, waiting for a reply that can only come from within.
What is my journey, my very own journey?
It began with my first labyrinth walk.
It was Drew’s spirit of adventure that propelled us to pack up our three kids and fifteen suitcases in 1987 and fly from Arkansas to Alaska to teach. Nine years later, the same tempting spirit tapped him on the shoulder and casually whispered, “International teaching, check it out.”
I could have said “No thanks, not interested” anywhere along the way; but frankly, job offerings in Singapore, then Cairo, Moscow, and finally New York City awakened my own imagination for travel and diversity from a deep, predictable sleep.
Inklings for a journey of my own began more subtly, like a leaf that comes to rest on your shoulder during an autumn walk in the woods. You discover it later, press its golden shape in a book, and forget where you put it. But it remains.
It remains as a question, waiting for a reply that can only come from within.
What is my journey, my very own journey?
It began with my first labyrinth walk.
Shrine of St. Therese
Juneau, Alaska July 2004 My friend, Margie, and I turned off Glacier Highway at Mile Marker 23, onto a narrow dirt road flanked by evergreens. “Tomorrow’s supposed to be a sunny day,” Margie had said when she called the night before. “How about if we take a picnic to the Shrine, walk the labyrinth, then sit on the beach and catch up.” I had been to the Shrine of St. Therese before, but had never noticed a labyrinth. In fact I had no idea what a labyrinth was or why Margie thought we should walk it; but wanting to spend time with her, I said, “Sure!” We ventured down the sloping hill from the parking lot, past the caretaker’s cabin and two-story log cabin lodge toward the rocky beach. Waves from the Lynn Canal pulsed in and out as two eagles swooped towards an acrobatic salmon, came up short and argued strategy. “So, where’s the labyrinth?” I asked. “Behind you,” Margie answered turning her head in the direction of the lodge. Had it been any other season besides Juneau’s brief summer when Sitka rose bushes, columbine, daisies and a multitude of wildflowers formed a lush border around its perimeter, the labyrinth would have been clearly visible. I drew closer until circles appeared, circles within circles. I counted eleven of them expanding from a circular center, all outlined with stones from the beach. Turns alternated with curved stretches from one common entrance. A gray boulder sat in the center. “It’s huge,” I whispered as we approached a simple brown sign with yellow letters, Entrance to Merciful Love Prayer Labyrinth. Even upon first introduction, I felt an urge to lower my voice, like at the front door of a library or the threshold to a forest. “Just start when you’re ready and follow the path,” Margie said, picking up two shells to carry as she walked. I watched her circling peacefully from one turn to the next, hands behind her back, eyes on the path. She stopped occasionally to gaze across the water where a humpback whale might surface unexpectedly or toward the tree-covered island where St. Therese stood hidden atop her granite pedestal. I assumed that Margie would eventually reach the boulder in the center, but the path was obviously in no hurry to take her there. One minute she would be inches away, the next headed toward the farthest edge. Perhaps the center was not the goal. My body knew it was time to begin, before my mind caught up. I stepped onto the sandy path, followed it left, right, left, around the center and on. The rhythm of the turns flowed into me as I found my pace and walked where the path would take me. Margie and I touched hands as we passed once, then minutes later again, on the same path but at different places.There was no expectation to catch up, slow down, to pause or stop. I was free to experience my own journey in my own way. It felt like an invitation that the labyrinth had addressed to me. I had no way of knowing how opening the invitation would change my life. |
The rhythm of the turns flowed into me as I found my pace and walked where the path would take me.
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The leaf remained pressed in my metaphoric book until the day our son, Jason, handed Drew and me his dog-eared paperback, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson.
“Read this,” he said. “It’ll give you an idea about the journey I’m going to take.”
The Appalachian Trail, “the longest hiking-only footpath in the world,” 2160 miles from Maine to Georgia.
He would hike for six months, with partners and alone, equipped with a bulging backpack, fit body, sturdy shoes and an open spirit.
Except for bears and black flies, I was intrigued - or more accurately - I was jealous. Each day of Jason’s route would be known, could be plotted on a map; but his unique walk was uncertain, to be determined by his choices and encounters. What would he learn about himself? What would he write in his journal each night before falling into an exhausted sleep?
I longed for such a journey that resonated so deeply in me that I would walk every step of the 2160 miles to experience what I was supposed to experience. I wanted to travel to places I had never been, learn things about myself I had never learned, meet people and hear their stories. It sounded like a journey I had already taken from Arkansas to Alaska, and on and on; yet infinitely different. This was not a journey of employment, cultural enlightenment, or even adventure (although doubtless it would have its share). It was a journey into myself.
But I had no clue what it could look like. Jason’s journey was not mine, of course, since I hate snakes, sweat and toilets without protective seat covers (much less without seats). So I waited, waited with active expectation while I eased into retirement, wrote every day, played with grandchildren, walked labyrinths. . . lived my life and listened.
Then one morning as I gazed out the window of our Manhattan apartment at the crisscrossing traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge below, I heard it. A voice that sounded strangely like my own, but my mouth hadn’t moved. I circled around to confirm that I had no unexpected company, then listened with heightened intensity.
“You love labyrinths. You love to write,” the voice repeated. “Write about labyrinths....one in every state.”
The adrenaline rush pushed “YES!” out of my mouth with the force of a champagne cork. “Yes!” I shouted. “This is it. This is my journey. I can do it!” From the first moment, I had no doubt - questions, but no doubt.
Surprisingly, within an hour I had sketched out the framework for the journey. I could access the locations, contact information and types of labyrinths from the online Worldwide Labyrinth Locator (www.labyrinthlocator.com). I would select ones built outdoors, by individuals with stories to tell about labyrinths they built in their yards (or land they frequented), not professionally built nor commercially connected. The “built and/or envisioned by a woman” criteria would surface seven visits down the road when I noticed the pattern, a pattern I would follow faithfully for forty-three more states.
I needed to announce my idea to someone, to make it real in the world outside my own thoughts and walls of our apartment. I called Marian, my friend of 30 years in Connecticut. She was driving in a state where talking on the phone while driving is illegal; but she picked up anyway, just long enough to say, “Let me pull over.” (We have some of our best conversations while she’s sitting in her car in a parking lot.)
She listened to my gush of words, from idea to details, without interruption then said, “Twylla, this is wonderful! I love it. And I could go with you.”
“Read this,” he said. “It’ll give you an idea about the journey I’m going to take.”
The Appalachian Trail, “the longest hiking-only footpath in the world,” 2160 miles from Maine to Georgia.
He would hike for six months, with partners and alone, equipped with a bulging backpack, fit body, sturdy shoes and an open spirit.
Except for bears and black flies, I was intrigued - or more accurately - I was jealous. Each day of Jason’s route would be known, could be plotted on a map; but his unique walk was uncertain, to be determined by his choices and encounters. What would he learn about himself? What would he write in his journal each night before falling into an exhausted sleep?
I longed for such a journey that resonated so deeply in me that I would walk every step of the 2160 miles to experience what I was supposed to experience. I wanted to travel to places I had never been, learn things about myself I had never learned, meet people and hear their stories. It sounded like a journey I had already taken from Arkansas to Alaska, and on and on; yet infinitely different. This was not a journey of employment, cultural enlightenment, or even adventure (although doubtless it would have its share). It was a journey into myself.
But I had no clue what it could look like. Jason’s journey was not mine, of course, since I hate snakes, sweat and toilets without protective seat covers (much less without seats). So I waited, waited with active expectation while I eased into retirement, wrote every day, played with grandchildren, walked labyrinths. . . lived my life and listened.
Then one morning as I gazed out the window of our Manhattan apartment at the crisscrossing traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge below, I heard it. A voice that sounded strangely like my own, but my mouth hadn’t moved. I circled around to confirm that I had no unexpected company, then listened with heightened intensity.
“You love labyrinths. You love to write,” the voice repeated. “Write about labyrinths....one in every state.”
The adrenaline rush pushed “YES!” out of my mouth with the force of a champagne cork. “Yes!” I shouted. “This is it. This is my journey. I can do it!” From the first moment, I had no doubt - questions, but no doubt.
Surprisingly, within an hour I had sketched out the framework for the journey. I could access the locations, contact information and types of labyrinths from the online Worldwide Labyrinth Locator (www.labyrinthlocator.com). I would select ones built outdoors, by individuals with stories to tell about labyrinths they built in their yards (or land they frequented), not professionally built nor commercially connected. The “built and/or envisioned by a woman” criteria would surface seven visits down the road when I noticed the pattern, a pattern I would follow faithfully for forty-three more states.
I needed to announce my idea to someone, to make it real in the world outside my own thoughts and walls of our apartment. I called Marian, my friend of 30 years in Connecticut. She was driving in a state where talking on the phone while driving is illegal; but she picked up anyway, just long enough to say, “Let me pull over.” (We have some of our best conversations while she’s sitting in her car in a parking lot.)
She listened to my gush of words, from idea to details, without interruption then said, “Twylla, this is wonderful! I love it. And I could go with you.”
This book is a chronology of my journey across the United States to walk labyrinths and collect stories, beginning on Miramar Beach, Florida in May, 2012 and ending on Maui, Hawaii in July, 2014. It would have been decidedly easier to simply select labyrinths from the World Wide Labyrinth Locator, walk them, then check them off my list and move on. But I knew that it was through the women’s stories that I would realize my own.
I was taking a chance that the women I contacted, who knew nothing about me, would actually say “Yes” to my email inquiry or phone call. They could have easily ignored an unknown name or number or politely refused my request. An occasional message bounced back or answered with a robotic, “The number you are calling is out of service.” Of the 50 women I eventually visited, however, every one of them not only said “Yes,” but a variation of “How exciting!” “I’m honored!” “Can you stay for lunch?” I asked to stay an hour. Most places I left after two, three, even four. Our common thread is a path - a peaceful, mindful walking path. A labyrinth. The women trusted, as did I, that our connections to the labyrinth would connect us to each other. It did and still does. Throughout the journey, I linked the women to one another via email and updates on my blog, “New York City Reflections.” I passed on one woman’s story to the next and to the next. We are a community. The final commonality is the four questions I asked each labyrinth creator:
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Our common thread is a path - a peaceful, walking path.
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Their stories are grouped in chapters, according to the trips I made, nineteen of them. I have attempted to capture the essence of each woman’s story rather than provide a systematic rendering of answers to four questions. They tell their own stories in their own words. Experiences from my own journey are sprinkled throughout in journal entries and En Route Reflections, moments to pull off the road and take in the view.
Whether you’re on a journey of your own or pondering the possibilities;
already connected to labyrinths or curious about them;
a labyrinth builder or wanna-be builder;
searching for a tool of meditation, stress reduction, spirituality;
or
like to hear a good story.....
join us, all fifty-one of us, as we tell you ours.
Whether you’re on a journey of your own or pondering the possibilities;
already connected to labyrinths or curious about them;
a labyrinth builder or wanna-be builder;
searching for a tool of meditation, stress reduction, spirituality;
or
like to hear a good story.....
join us, all fifty-one of us, as we tell you ours.
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