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A journey to the center

Natural Health , July-August, 2005 by Elizabeth Barker, Labyrinth walking

gOING AROUND IN CIRCLES never felt so constructive. A labyrinth leads its visitors down a single spiral toward its center and back out again. Unlike a maze, there are no wrong turns or dead ends scattered throughout a labyrinth--rather, it`s a continuous path designed to slowly unwind your mind and bring you deeper calm and renewed energy.

Labyrinth walking, which has been practiced in various cultures and religions since 4500 B.C., provides a form of meditation that psychologist Ann Kearney-Cooke, Ph.D., likens to a mini-pilgrimage. "There`s something about walking in a spiral along a set path that helps you move from everyday life into a sacred space," she says. "It can bring you knowledge you didn`t know you had." Kearney-Cooke, author of Change Your Mind, Change Your Body, leads labyrinth-walking retreats at Red Mountain Spa in St. George, Utah, where she encourages participants to concentrate on a question that`s been troubling them. To find your own insights, Kearney-Cooke suggests these strategies:

* If you feel stressed or scattered at the start of your walk, choose a word or phrase to meditate on. "Focus on your feet hitting the ground, aligning your pace with your breath," she suggests. "Some people also bring along sacred texts and pause to read them at different points on the way."

* When you reach the middle of the labyrinth, stop, close your eyes, and relax for a minute or two. Then turn to face five different directions in succession, pausing at each. "Think about your gratitude for the minerals of the earth--the rocks and the mountains," says Kearney-Cooke. "Then turn and think about your gratitude for the animals. After your third turn, think about the people in your life, your family and friends. Turn a fourth time and think about your gratitude for mentors who`ve inspired you. After your final turn, focus on your gratitude for the divine."

* As you exit the labyrinth, ask yourself how you can integrate your newfound insight into everyday life. "Consider where you want to be heading with each and every step you take," Kearney-Cooke advises.

Circles of Serenity

To find a labyrinth near you, go to labyrinthsociety.org, or visit the following destinations:

Harmony Hill Retreat Center, East Meredith, N.Y., features a healing garden with a fieldstone patterned after the famous labyrinth at France`s Chartres Cathedral (607-278-6609; harmonyhillretreat.com).

Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, has a terrazzo stone path out in front that is also patterned after Chartres; it`s open to the public 24 hours daily (415-749-6300; gracecathedral.org).

Earth Sanctuary, Medina, Wash., constructed its tree-sheltered, flagstone labyrinth as a meditation tool (425-637-8777; earthsanctuary.org).

Cherry Point Farm and Market, Shelby, Mich., has a lavender-bordered labyrinth on its 600-acre orchard (23862029; cherrypointmarket.net).

Spirit Bear, Atlanta, is home to a seven-circuit labyrinth (one for each major chakra) with a gazebo at its center (404-222-9595; spiritbear.us).

Outside the Window

Frontiers , 2002

It`s not as if I don`t care or anything, he says, and he thinks he has me then.

I`m worried about you, he continues, and I tell myself, Who wouldn`t be? Who wouldn`t be worried about his wife who left a melodramatic note about her dying mother, disappeared for two weeks, and was found by a maid in a hotel room in some far away city, lying dead drunk in her own vomit, a bottle of pills not having finished the job?

Oh, I`m home now, or as close to home as I`ll be getting for a while, and I reach forward and pull a cigarette from his pack on the table between us, smiling sadly as if he weren`t talking about me, as if we were discussing some mutual friend who had gone overboard, frightened and lost in the cold cold sea.

But it is me he`s talking about. I know that. A me of the past, who had ceased to exist by the time I opened my eyes in the emergency room with all those intent faces above me, brows knitted, creased with the effort of trying to save my life. And for what? I wanted to tell them not to waste their time, not to bother, a tube shoved down my throat like some colicky horse who got into the grain on purpose.

My robe falls open and I don`t try to close it; it`s hot in here anyway. My husband averts his eyes; they let me wear one of my own nightgowns today. I`m a lace princess, a buxom boudoir mama in a chair outside her private room. The walls are painted bright green with big shiny stick-on flowers.

He asked me why, but what can I tell him? What does he know about it? What does he know about anything? Because when I opened my eyes and saw all those people working over me, I knew I`d just do it all over again, it was only a matter of time. Where, when, and how was the problem. How to do it and not get caught.

Rebecca, he says, and I hate the sound of my name in his voice, I hate my name in any voice because it sounds so phony, my name sounds like such deceit. Rebecca, he says again, you know I love you.

And I smile again that same saddened smile because he really thinks he does, he really thinks he feels something, he probably does really feel something, and smiling is the only way I can fool him. So they`ll let me out.

He lights my cigarette, and I notice his hands are shaking. Poor, poor Robert. Why does he bother? Why care about me when I don`t care about myself? I`ve no idea what he sees in me, so I wonder about him, how smart he really can be. Doesn`t my name in his voice sound strange to him? Does he really see a person when he says it -- Rebecca. Who is Rebecca?

Bob, who`s Rebecca? I ask him, and then I`ve got him, there; he has no answer. He blinks a few times, his eyes unfocusing, something running click, click, click through all the terminals in his brain, click, click, click, synapsing, his mouth half-opening, closing then, and suddenly his eyes focus, find me again, he`s got an answer, and he says, Why you`re Rebecca, as if that were any kind of answer at all.

I`m Rebecca. And I know he`ll tell the doctor about it, my asking. I`ve slipped. Because I really don`t even want to know anymore. I really don`t care. I don`t want to be Rebecca anymore, whoever she is; I don`t want to be anything but part of the blackness that I know is out there, that I have always known is out there, hiding behind every word we speak, every gesture we make, every breaker we nail up against the wind. It suddenly struck me one day in front of my third-grade students -- what was I educating them for? So that they could go out there and die.

But I know I must placate him; I must smile sadly as if I know I`ve been bad and regret it. I must say, Yes I know you love me. But it wasn`t because of that.

What was it then? He wants to know, and I wish I were so simple-minded, so simple-hearted. I wish, just for an instant, that I didn`t know the blackness is there. So I could relax, so I could look at him honestly and say it was a mistake.

Richard Brautigan killed himself. Robert read it in the paper one evening and said: "I didn`t think he took himself so seriously" before tossing the paper aside and sitting down to a full meal with dessert.

You think too much, he says, and I nod my head at both him and a passing nurse. Each believes it`s a private nod for each, and both smile, two fooled with one slight movement of my head.

My mother is sick, I say, as if that explains anything, but he latches onto it, an equation he understands.

Then why did you offer to go take care of her? he asks, so earnestly I`m embarrassed for him. To hide it, I drag on the cigarette that`s almost burned to the filter between my fingertips. Why did you say you were going there and never show up?

Is he really so stupid? Does he really think I don`t know it`s malignant, inoperable, just a matter of time before I`ll be putting her in the ground under that double headstone that`s been waiting for her since my father died two years ago? So I think of an answer that will make sense to him since he needs a puzzle to put together, since he needs to know why when there is no why, there`s only a how I haven`t discovered yet.

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