Walking the Sacred Labyrinth

Circles within circles,
Journeys within journeys,
Which is greater: where we are going,
     or how we are going?

Circles within circles;
Journeys within journeys
Which has deeper meaning: how we are
    going or where we are going?

I want to walk as a child of the light,
Free from paralyzing fears, power struggles
    Self-indulgence, all addictions;
I want to walk as a child of the light,
Having faith that my path, marked by sudden
    reversals, confining limits and exhausting
    length, will bring me to the center, the
    unseen kingdom of God, wholeness and
    holiness.

Circles within circles,
Journeys within journeys,
I am centered; I am still and I know that the Lord is.
I am at peace with my smallness, my greatness.
I accept the gracious grace of God.
I believe.

Circles within circles,
Journeys within journeys,
Do we choose how we are going or where we
    are going?
I want to walk as a child of the light,
Spiraling back into the world, belonging to God,
     yet longing for community, responding to the
     call to be a visible sign of God's love.
I want to walk as a child of the light; I want
    to follow Jesus;
Having faith that my life has meaning, a purpose,
     having faith that I can be transformed,
     guided by love to love.

Circles within circles,
Journeys within journeys,
How are we going, where are we going,
Why are we going?
The answers are found in God.
God is the journey and the journey's end.

                    Janet Stephens, February 24, 1995

Dragonflies, My Daughter and I

Dragonflies, like tiny silent helicopters,
dance above the newly sheared grass
of the labyrinth as my daughter and I
enter. We've walked labyrinths before,
yet never together. This mid-June
afternoon in the Massachusetts countryside,
laden with the promise of summer's bounty,
beckons us on a journey remminiscent of one
traveled by seekers in century's past.

For mother and daughter it is the new
of today, the serious blue of the sky
with whimsical white fringe of clouds,
the welcoming wonder of this place
and the rarity of this shared experience.

Like Ariadne's thread we weave our way
in and out circular paths, carrying thoughts,
prayers, hopes and dreams as dragonflies
accompany us along the twists and turns.
Becoming aware of their lightness, I long
to shed my shoes. As I sit on the stone rose
design at the center, I remove my shoes
for the return and marvel at my lightness
as the warm, freshly mown grass
rises up between my toes.

Apple trees shade an outer edge
of the path and I glory in the coolness
and dampness of the ground. All along
the path there is my daughter, at times close
enough to touch, and then our paths diverge,
rather like our current lives. Slipping
into my shoes, I now hold fast the memory
of this labyrinth walk with my daughter,
the attendant dragonflies and a welcome
lightness almost beyond words.

                         Frances Norton Honich

Inspired by labyrinth walk at Center of Westwoods,
West West, MA, June 16, 2006