I find it highly appropriate that my last 'free' day before starting a new job found me wandering up to the peak of Nob Hill, to the meditation labyrinth on the grounds of Grace Cathedral.
The recreation of a medieval labyrinth, installed at the Episcopalian cathedral in 1991, is a recreation of a 13th century terrazzo labyrinth that had languished unused at Frances' Chartres Cathedral for some 250 years*.
The origins of the circuitous route are unknown, and it is not to be confused with a MAZE. A maze is 'multicursal' and allows for multiple paths to the 'end goal', whereas a labyrinth is 'unicursal', with a singular path that leads to the pattern's center. This unveering yet bewitchingly bequiling path seems to be what it's all about: realizing (and accepting) that the path of life is NOT a straight line, nor is it a contest waiting to be bested - it is what it is; a winding road which inevitably leads to its end. What one makes of that end - and more importantly, what one makes of THE ROAD - is where the meditation lies.
I didn't walk the labyrinth that day, that last day of freedom before shackling myself to the next plow of oxen in my career route, but I did contemplate The Path. I do believe that I AM in tune to the realization that the route is what you make of it, and that despite the twists and turns that take you THIS CLOSE to the rosetta center, that the path will - inevitably - wind you back out to its furthest fringe before folding you back into it's core.
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*per article in Commongroundmag.com
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