Of all the wonders that we Pittsburghers rarely see, perhaps the most poignant are those we walk past every day. Recently, I took a turn through "Jessica's Labyrinth," which is located in front of Chatham University's admissions building. It's a sneaky little thing. No hedges. Nothing upright to give it away. Rising up into consciousness at the crest of a nondescript hill with unexpected audacity, this twisting, writhing earth-sketch of a brain is a bit of a shock at first. After discovering it, the mind skips over a quick Q & A session. "Oh, a labyrinth . . . aren't these extinct?" And with episodic mumbling and lip-biting, "What am I supposed to do? Kick it? Laugh at it? Should I stop feeling weird and, uh, walk it? Isn't ambling in circles an act of the insane?"
Walking a labyrinth involves giving oneself over to a unicursal line, a single, non-branching path, different from a maze that splits off in diverse directions and frequently leads to multiple dead-ends. This doesn't happen very often in life. One path, no intrusions or distractions. No options either. Surprisingly, though the labyrinth's course consists of one, sole trail, the path is so circuitous that it serves as a catalyst for a significant type of confusion. Folding back on itself repetitively then yawning across a 60 foot expanse without warning, the labyrinth shifts direction so often that the body is forced to move counterintuitively the entire time. Walking among the turnings, all sense of direction is lost and one loses track of definitions, the shoulds and shouldn'ts of the outside world. Thus the mind becomes quiet, recognizing for once that it cannot guess what is coming next. The disorientation causes the mind to drop all pretext of "knowing." It becomes apparent that there is no knowing. The labyrinth dictates that the walker simply follow the path "blindly" or "in faith." A powerful life lesson. And the exercise becomes a pilgrimage.
Jessica's Labyrinth is constructed of bricks and grass, and a good number of stray weeds peeking up through the cracks. On the trees nearby, cascades of white flowers quiver in the scented wind. Three bird calls filled the pale blue skies with tweeting and cawing and whirrupping as I patiently placed my feet one before another, my pace slowing, slowing as I moved toward the interior. And I was reminded of the very first time I walked the labyrinth, just after I handed in my admissions paperwork to the University to enter an MFA program that all common sense, my husband, my mother, and all practical people said I did not need. It was early spring and there was still the crunch of snow on the ground. The air was crisp enough to draw a sting from the flesh and the sun was beginning to drip and lose color as the day drew to a close. Yet there is an opening in spring that somehow touches the heart, no matter how cold it is. The sky stretches, the lungs expand, and the mind is refreshed with new realizations. Walking the labyrinth in summer, I again felt that same release and renewal. I stood a moment in the center. I breathed and said my prayer to an unnamed, larger being. And as I walked out through the circuitous twists and turns, I valued that I did not know which direction I would go and rejoiced that I had the insight to follow the path before me without weighing and measuring whether it was worth the following.
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