Dear Pagans,

So my experience of walking the labyrinth is staying with me.  The sensation of timelessness and isolation, the sense slow deliberateness as I twisted and turned round the circle to the center, and then the sense of building speed as I traveled outward once more.  The sound of the water burbling in the fountain, the heat of the day, and the light of the sun.

The memories of it speak to me of the experience of turning inward and doing the inner work one must do to heal and grow, the winding path one takes when one starts to build ones relationships with the Divines and the All That Is and the Spirits of the World Around Us, the twists and turns that we encounter as Pagans as we try to live our virtues and values in our own lives and in a world where honor and integrity and compassion and hospitality are so often looked upon so cheaply, and the strange way in which our journey inward and our inner work must, inevitably lead us back to an outward journey and re-engagement with the world.

My journey through that labyrinth is staying with me, and the experience of it and the memory and the symbolism and metaphor of it are weaving their ways through my heart and mind and soul and writings and thoughts.  It’s as if that moment and that experience is another surprise gift from the Divines, like my recently emerged sense of the Numinous presence of the Gods…

I remember when I wrote of that, I said…

“I don’t know if this awareness will continue or if it will waver in or out, or if I will wake up tomorrow and have no more sense of the celestial than before.”

And Terri said,

“It should last. Sure, there will be times when it fades into the background a little, but then it will surprise you by descending like a cloud from seemingly nowhere, when you’re in the middle of doing something else – take an instant out to savour it when it washes over you in your everyday life, and you’ll be building up a new habitual set of patterns-of-mind.“

… So now I am savoring the labyrinth and its sensations and lessons.

Looking back upon it, I was aware of the numinous presences in that moment.  But since that awareness is now always upon me, only a thought or a breath away, in some ways I am less aware of it.  Irony that what seems an especial gift may serve to devalue itself … I must work on some mindfulness meditation for my experience of the presence of the Divines.

I am also trying to be more mindful of these moments and mysteries and synchronous seeming coincidences around me…

For example…

I wrote earlier this week about Cultural Misappropriation, and then about the Labyrinth as journey and the importance of our choices in our journey, and then I go to WitchesVoice and find this excellent article by Nasionnaich!

So I now fully expect to publish this post and find at least a couple of posts in the Pagan Blogoshpere about unexpected initiations into mysteries or labyrinths…

Keep grounded, Keep centered, and Remain mindful of the Universe as it speaks with you!

Peace,
Pax