Labyrinth Day 16

Oysterville.

I rushed through making this chalk labyrinth on Clark Street in Oysterville. Even though this is essentially a ghost town I had to step aside for four different cars to pass by when drawing it.  After making it, I walked it quickly, too quickly to feel settled and so I walked up the road to the beach to draw one there.  It was a sweet, soft evening on the bay.  I came across the faint imprint of the small labyrinth from Day 10.   

I made today’s labyrinth further up the way, and in the midst of drawing it in the sand and oyster shells I looked up to discover a hunter passing by me.  With a rifle.   We exchanged hellos as he walked quickly without any apparent interest in what I was doing.  Had he not been in such a hurry, (or maybe if he hadn’t been carrying a gun?) I’d have invited him to walk the labyrinth.  Thinking about it now, I wish I had invited him.  Instead, I watched him walk away past the sea farm.

I finished the labyrinth and took lots of time walking it.  On this day, with this particular labyrinth, the prayerfulness of making it and walking it merged for me.  The focus of this practice in preparing for the installation has been making a labyrinth.  Some of the labyrinths I’ve made can’t be walked. The prayer in making each labyrinth has varied a little each day but is always with intention related to the work of this project – an offering, an act of praise, an opening to Divine presence and guidance…..  The walking is a bonus, usually centering and calming.  This day while walking the labyrinth something stirred in me, deeply, especially as I stood in the center of the labyrinth where I stayed for along time.  Tenderness.  Awe.  Gratitude.  (I wasn’t shot by that hunter)   The experience, a kind of opening up in my heart, took me pleasantly by surprise.  Exactly how am I being affected by this labyrinth process and project?  In ways I hadn’t expected?   What am I expecting?  Can i put it into words?

Chalk Labyrinth on Clark Street in Oysterville

Leftover labyrinth from Day 10

The hunter who passed me with a rifle, yes, a rifle.

On the Willapa Bay in Oysterville

Labyrinth detail, oyster shells and sea glass

Me and my labyrinth. Haha!

Labyrinth Day 15

Paper and Pencil.  An eleven circuit labyrinth.

Eleven circuit, pencil and paper.

Eleven circuit, pencil and paper.

Eleven circuit, pencil and paper.

I finally took a pass at making an eleven circuit labyrinth, patterned after the famous labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral in France.   For the October 3rd Communion installation I plan to use a modified seven-circuit labyrinth and so have focused mostly on the that pattern.  However, in getting to know the labyrinth, the feeling and spirit of it, I’ve wanted to spend at least a little time getting to know the mechanics of making one that is eleven circuit.  It’s such a complicated pattern, I can’t imagine tackling it on a beach without a lot more practice on paper.

Labyrinth Day 14

On the Willapa Bay at the Port of Peninsula.  Not so obvious by the photos but it was a wet day with too much to do.   I was at the Port bailing our small wooden boat and grabbed the moment to make a labyrinth, two as it turned out, in the spongy beach just north of the Port.  

 

Labyrinth Day 13

Yesterday evening I made the day’s labyrinth out of stuff stashed in two badly neglected desk drawers.  The drawers were a mess of special things and I-don’t know-what-else-to-do-with-this things.   In some ways, making this labyrinth out of all this little stuff is similar to the October 3^rd installation, but on a tiny scale.  It was pretty fun to make it I have to say.  I expected it to be tedious, but on the contrary, I was totally into it.  I didn’t want to stop.  I worked with it late into the night.  It reminded me of making little town and forts in the dirt when I was a kid.  It’s very meditative making labyrinths, and working with personal things charges the process with an even more sustaining energy.  Since it’s not on a large enough scale to walk, I went through it with my hand a few times.  It was kind of hilarious, gliding my fingertips through this pathway of personal trinkets, receipts, cards, pens, pencils, rocks, toys, and whatnot.  I loved it.  It was kind of like playing with all this stuff I’ve been hanging onto – and maybe I’d been hanging onto it because it called to me in that way, a playful way.  But I never make time to horse around with stuff like that!  I just save it, because for one reason or another I like it, even though I may never look at it again and it will start taking up space, and crowding me out of my own life. Not so fun then.

As will be true with the October 3^rd installation, each item conjures a memory or represents some moment, some experience, some idea.  Now here’s a red flag: I didn’t want to take it down today.  And I haven’t yet!  I went out and made two more waterside labyrinths today in the sand, and I still haven’t discarded this tabletop one.  I’m going to do it tomorrow.  I must.  I don’t have a plan for what I’ll do with the items.  I have to dismantle it and part with most of the stuff, recycling some of it and trashing some of it.  I’m keeping the binoculars!  And the crystal!  Anyway, the process of discarding these items is one I look forward to – letting go and making way. 

Oh, the black cat is our Sister Mary Pruitt.  So far she’s walked it (in a cat-type way) without destroying it.