17
Your Destination Is Your Origin
You are coming close to the beginning! Your path to self-discovery is one of beginnings and endings that in time merge into a complete state of self-knowing and being. You may think that this book is nearing an end, yet it is the beginning of something new and wonderful for you. In the words of T. S. Eliot in his poem “Little Gidding,” “What we call the beginning is often the end / And to make an end is to make a beginning. / The end is where we start from” (Eliot 1943). Further on in the poem, Eliot writes, “We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.” Your journey of exploration is just beginning.
In regards to this book and your labyrinth journey, you have come full circle. You have entered the labyrinth to access its wisdom, and you have returned. You have experienced beginnings and endings. Your experiences of these beginnings and endings are a microcosm of the endlessness (and beginninglessness) of oneness. You have experienced the alpha and the omega. You are back where you started, and yet you are not. For just as the exit of the labyrinth is the same as the entrance, you have changed, you have moved on, and you are now seeing the same place through different eyes.
You are not exactly the same person or soul that commenced this journey. You have evolved. You are never the same. All of the time there is movement. All of the time there is change. You have moved. You have changed.
You are unique. Only you have the qualities that you possess in the quantities that you possess them. You bring something special to the world. You bring your presence to the world. You are the only one who can do what you are here to do. You are the only one who can bring what you are here to bring. You are the only one who can share what you are here to share. You are the one.
In your journey of self-discovery, there is only you. While this may be a great source of reassurance, it also carries with it great responsibility. No longer can you wait for someone else to do something for you. The only one who can take your steps for you is you. While there is help along the way for you, it is up to you to take the first step. The more steps you take, the easier the next one gets. You now know that you have to take the steps that will bring you into contact with the people you have to meet. You have to take the steps that will bring you to the places you have to go. You know that you have to live and operate from that space of knowing deep within you that leads you to every place and everyone you are meant to meet on your soul’s journey.
Your labyrinth path to self-discovery has brought you to a special way of knowing and being. When you think about who you are and what you are doing, you may feel like shouting a great big YES. You then start living your life in the knowledge that every moment is significant. Live in the vibrancy of every moment, in the wonder of every moment, in the aliveness of every moment, and every moment becomes vibrant, wonderful, and alive.
The Magic of the Labyrinth
There is one last aspect of the labyrinth that I want to bring to your attention. When considering the many settings and situations in which people have used the labyrinth over the centuries and millennia, there is undoubtedly a magical aspect to the labyrinth that cannot be fully explained. The magical qualities of the labyrinth have been called on in many different situations and uses.
Labyrinths have been used as protective symbol at doorways and entrances to homes, churches, and cathedrals. In parts of India there is a tradition of painting geometric and complicated art forms, including labyrinths, with rice flour on domestic thresholds. It is known by different names in different parts, such as “muggu” in Andhra Pradesh, “kolam” in Tamil Nadu, and “alpana” in Bengal. The threshold is a significant concept in the Hindu worldview. It not only represents a passage between one space and the next, but is seen as a bridge between the physical and the spiritual realms. The use of symbols on the threshold sanctifies the space and can affect the well being of persons crossing the threshold. Such symbols are believed to trap bad luck, illwill, and negative energy while also helping to cleanse and imbue the person passing over the patterns with good luck, positive energy and renewed spirit. The use of the labyrinth symbol in such spaces is another example of its cleansing and healing properties.
Hundreds of years ago, Scandinavian fishermen also used the labyrinth as an entrapment device. They built labyrinths on shorelines with the intention that any malevolent spirits that were attached to or following them would be ensnared in the coils of the labyrinth, so the fishermen could safely go on their fishing trip. Similar accounts exist in Sweden where the labyrinth was used as binding magic by shepherd boys as protection against wolves, and in Lappland for magically protecting reindeer herds against wolverines.
Scandinavian fisherman also believed that walking or running the labyrinth was beneficial to collecting strong winds. According to Pennick, the Scandinavian labyrinths were used for “raising the wind magically, giving protection against the perils of the sea and also increasing the catch” (Pennick 1990). Helen Curry writes that “wives of fishermen would run the labyrinth when bad weather approached and the fishermen were out on the water, to propitiate the storm energies drawing them away from the boats and into the labyrinth where they would do no harm” (Curry 2000).
The magician priests of the Batak tribes in the northern Sumatra part of Indonesia had small bark books of spells, some of which included images of the classical labyrinth. Next to the labyrinth in one of these books is an inscription that is translated to read, “This is the drawing that should be made on protective leaves, to send evil spirits home, to avert the magic of strangers” (Pennick 1990).
In another Indian connection, women in India have used the labyrinth to relieve pain, particularly in childbirth. The Chakra-Vyuha form of the labyrinth was used to focus the mother’s attention. It involves rubbing ochre (saffron) with water and using this to draw the labyrinth pattern on a metal plate. It was then rinsed off and given to the mother to drink.
In England, there are accounts of wise women using what were called “Troy Stones” to achieve altered states of consciousness. The Witchcraft Museum in Bocastle, Cornwall, houses one such stone, which is a piece of slate about 15 x 45 cm on which is carved a classical labyrinth. Nigel Pennick related, “The wise woman would trace her finger over the labyrinth, back and forth, whilst humming a ‘galdr’ (ceremonial call), until the transcendent state was reached” (Pennick 1990). This Troy Stone was handed down from wise woman to wise woman, and the galdr used was kept secret. A related use of galdrs comes from Scandinavia where they were used by women for the practical purpose of making childbirth easier.
When all these protective and magical uses of the labyrinth are taken together, the labyrinth emerges as a powerful symbol for healing, transformation, transmutation, and protection. Similar modern uses of the labyrinth are beginning to emerge. The common practice of walking the labyrinth to ask a question and seek insights into specific situations could be viewed as a form of invoking the magic of the labyrinth to gain beneficial outcomes. My own Melchizedek Labyrinth Healing therapy is taking the use of the labyrinth to a different level of magic. The exercise at the end of this chapter is based on the traditional invocative uses of the labyrinth and designed to bring about positive transformative change in you, which brings you closer to self-realization.
It’s a Dead End!
While walking a public labyrinth on the streets of Cork during a labyrinth festival, I was stopped by an elderly passerby who had been observing my walking and studying the labyrinth pattern. He loudly announced to me, “It’s a dead end!” and indicated by his expression that I was engaged in a fruitless and futile exercise.
Having considered his observations many times over the years, I am grateful to this gentleman for helping me to see my labyrinth walking and my life in different ways to how some others see them. Perhaps on an immediate physical level, labyrinths and life look like dead ends. Yet, when you step beyond the threshold into the world of the unseen, the world of energy, the world of spirit, you are beginning a journey of exploration with infinite possibilities.
One man’s ending is your beginning. The labyrinth is a multi-dimensional device where you can experience endings and beginnings on many different levels and dimensions. So just as the physical path of the labyrinth appears to end, a new path on another level or dimension is available to you when you are ready to enter it.
Every moment that you experience, every thought that you have, every word that you speak, and every action that you take is a new beginning. It is your choice whether you choose to see your life as a series of endings or beginnings.
Having travelled the path of the labyrinth in this book you may be asking yourself the question “Am I there yet?” This frequently posed question is one for the linear mind and presupposed a goal somewhere in the distance. Yet, the labyrinth is not linear. You are not linear, and your soul’s journey is not linear. In seeking something outside of yourself, even via the labyrinth path, you are distracting yourself from the knowing that the ultimate “there” is “here” within you and all around you. Therefore, the question to ask yourself is…
“Am I here now?”
Exercise: You Are Oneness
This exercise is one that takes you to new levels and dimentions, and at times will bring you into a transcendent state where you experience oneness. Just as every labyrinth walk is different, each time you do this exercise you are different and so will have a different experience.
You will need a classical finger labyrinth, perferably one that you created earlier imbued with your energy. You can also use the labyrinth on page 259, one that you have printed on paper, or a finger labyrinth with a groove that you can trace with your finger. Before you begin, take a few moments to allow yourself and your breathing to settle. Then start tracing the path of the labyrinth at a speed comfortable to you. As you trace the path of the labyrinth say out loud: “I am Oneness.”
Keep repeating these words in the form of a mantra while you trace the path of the labyrinth with your finger into the centre and back out to the outside. When you come back out to the entrance begin tracing the path inwards again so that your tracing is a continuous flow of following the path inwards and outwards. Trace the path while repeating the invocation until you feel that you do not need to do so anymore. When you finish your exercise take some quiet time for reflection.
Reflection
Sit quietly, allowing whatever thoughts, ideas, and anything else that arose during the exercise to come to the forefront of your awareness. You may find that you just wish to sit with the energy of the exercise and remain in that state for a while. If you consider that you had no experience—even better. Sit with this experience of nothingness.
When you are ready to begin writing, do so, and keep writing until you have nothing left to write.
Finally, give thanks for the labyrinth in your life.