By Rob Merritt
Folk long to go on pilgrimages when the winds of May ease up to the pine grove and the
sunlight warms and dries the pine needles we will lay stones upon.
What do you pine for? The sacred is in the longing.
When you walk in a labyrinth, you meet yourself going out as you are coming in and ask
your shadow how to learn from where you have been.
A penitent, I join a community of folk
laying stones
for a neighborhood labyrinth
in the woods
while circling my internal labyrinth
of hurt I caused,
carrying the question of “why” to the center,
hoping the switchback of begin again
will give me the courage to divulge you the blue answer:
I never asked myself, “What am I doing?”
Sunrays on the soft, brown needles help
make the pines purer
as I exit in the reverse direction.
Learning to listen is so damn hard.
Don’t look down so much.
I feel the back of my eyes.
The labyrinth journey requires three labors:
Release
The structure of the inner ear is a labyrinth;
what music shall we listen to, as we walk?
“Whiter Shade of Pale”?
“Into the Mystic”?
“The Long and Winding Road”?
The faint noise of streets?
The patient spiders?
The center can receive many questions.
Where is home?
What adjectives nail you?
Whom have you hurt and whom have you healed?
How can ancestors be felt?
How do they make a difference?
Whose footprints do you walk in?
Release your reticence.
Receive
Remember the place, not where you started
but where you learned the most
about love and betrayal and paying attention.
Places you have lived answer questions
poorly posed on unpaved roads,
where every night lit an orange candle in windows
you failed to recognize first time around.
Is home where you were born,
where you will die,
or this moment now?
Receive responses.
Return
Tell me in the woods.
your answers you make,
what thread you hold
through the turns and restarts to find
your way back to the entryway.
local spiders bless . You exit, holding an answer in your heart that connects to someone you just passed on the path.
That is sacred.
