Labyrinth as Life Review
At the stunning Gothic cathedral in the French city of Chartres there is, embedded in stones on the floor, a circuitous labyrinth. People come from around the globe, like pilgrims of old, to walk the winding path to the centre, and then re-trace their steps out again. In medieval times this walk was symbolic of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Today, it is still a spiritual journey for those who make their way to this sacred space, as well as to those who have found other labyrinths closer to home. They have been carved into grass, printed on heavy canvas, and created on beaches where the image washes away with the tide.
In the centre the stones at Chartres are arranged in six petals, like a rose. Many labyrinth aficionados think of the petals are representations of the various ‘kingdoms’ on planet earth and beyond…mineral, vegetal, animal, human, angelic and divine.
One day, as I was “walking” on my finger labyrinth* at home I imagined the petals as a template for life review. Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, in his remarkable book “From Age-ing to Sage-ing” suggests we divide our lives into periods of seven years and look again at the significant events of each of them. Others suggest using the decades of our lives as a somewhat easier template for consideration. It might be easier to remember what we were doing in the 1960s or 70s or 80s, especially if we think of the music of the time.
I regularly use a wooden finger labyrinth as a meditation practice, “walking” around the pattern of twists and turns with a finger. One day, as my index finger arrived at the rose of my replica of the Chartres labyrinth, I wondered about another division for life review:
child 0-12
adolescent/teen 12-19
young adult 20-29
mid-adult 30-59
older adult 60-79
elder 70+
With our increased longevity there seems to be some question, and difficulty, about how to describe ourselves in our ageing years. Some researchers even classify us into youngest-old, ages 65 to 74 years; middle-old, 75 to 84 years; and oldest-old, 85+ . Certainly there are markers of significant change as we age that may place us in one of those more refined categories of ‘old’.
The petals on the labyrinth seems a joyful way to consider and review a life. Standing in our power in each petal we can embody our joy and sadness, our successes and failures, our connection and loneliness in each phase. We can review the experience of our physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual states in each petal/stage of our circuitous life path.
Life review is an essential process, especially as we live into the last two petals. To look back is to enable our ability to step forward with awareness, with passion, with our wisdom. We can, after a review, bring to the present the lessons of our experience, the forgiveness we offer to ourselves and others, and truth of our gifts.
Most importantly, we might find a sense of relief, a burden lifted, by seeing honestly the whole of our life experience. This is to step into the very centre of the rose of the labyrinth. This is the truth of who we are, in this moment—the wholeness of the path and the centre, the winding way and the rose.
(Labyrinth resources at www.veriditas.org and www.labyrinthsociety.org. Wooden finger labyrinths can be found on Etsy and Amazon. https://amzn.eu/d/iftmfon)