22. THE ALCHEMY

A private pilgrimage on a public stage

I’m still not entirely sure why I felt so compelled to build that labyrinth in the park. If I’d known the challenges ahead of time, I’d have hidden under the bed. The gifts of innocence and not-knowing are profound. I was driven, energised by my passion for its mystic possibilities to serve as midwife and allow the muse of the labyrinth to sing through me. The experience changed me from being a tourist in my own life, to being a pilgrim in service to something greater. The battle with the bureaucratic maze wasn’t just about the labyrinth but the woman it caused me to become. Their resistance helped build my capacity to recognise when my shadowlands are being activated and to then return to my path.

We all face multiple crossroads in our lives, often reacting with conditioned behaviours. Fear has its logic. Our old patterns know exactly where to step. But if you take a moment to breathe, you might feel drawn towards a different path - the one your heart has been holding like an open door. Labyrinth walking helps create enough internal space for us to tune into that sense of a larger ‘here’ and longer ‘now’.

The labyrinth gave me a visceral understanding of acceptance and flow; a kinaesthetic experience of faith that I was not only held, but blessed by this moment and all the circumstances which created it. We can choose to create the path of our lives as maze makers or labyrinth makers - it’s entirely up to us. We are the alchemists of our own lives and we’re the lead with which that alchemist is working - and we are the gold it becomes.

My path has certainly been convoluted, meandering in and out of moments of awareness. I lived a half-life until the labyrinth, asleep to myself and my needs. I can see the ways I’ve circled back to the familiarity of the maze to find my way forward. I’ve thrown myself out of my story a hundred times by making the other the subject of my sentence. However, that capacity to vacate myself also enabled me to become a vessel for that labyrinth to be born. My deep emotional attachment to it, which caused so much distress, ultimately protected the project. My passion for it may have triggered multiple fears but also gave me the courage to keep moving forward. In the end, my too much/not enough-ness served me well. Our strengths and weaknesses are so often the same thing.

My primary filter is now about flow. Does this choice create or obstruct flow? I still slide between fear and love, absence and presence, but no longer see them as right or wrong, just different ways of travelling the Möbius strip of my life. The inner and the outer continually overlap as I wend my way. The maze moments of resistance show me where I’m stuck and the labyrinth moments of surrender return me to flow. When I choose a path, it feels like a labyrinth. When I allow someone to talk me into walking their path, it ends up feeling like a maze. Perhaps we need the contrast of both paradigms to find our way - the wandering and the arriving, lost and found, until we can accept and include all of it.

A few years ago, I was asked where the next labyrinth would be built. The woman assumed it was what I did in the world - build labyrinths. I said I had no plans to build another one. Mistaking my reluctance for lack of confidence, she began to encourage me toward that seemingly obvious goal. I found it hard to articulate at the time but now feel clear that while there are those whose life’s purpose is to build labyrinths, it’s not mine. My journey with this particular labyrinth was a private pilgrimage on a public stage. I wasn’t building a business - I was healing my heart and holding a lantern for others to do the same.

If we want to create a more inclusive and expansive world, the labyrinth is an excellent teaching tool because it shows us that it’s possible to transcend our differences and walk in peace. Sydney Labyrinth hold group walks at the Centennial Park labyrinth on the first Sunday of every month. Walking in community in this peaceful, gentle way, allows us to reflect and connect as we walk our individual paths together - to simply be and let others be. The ability to accept and flow around the eternal ‘other’ in our lives is a tremendous good upon the earth. As Gandhi said, ‘There is no path to peace. Peace is the path.’

This was the final chapter of Paving the Way. Thank you for reading.

May your path be nourishing and inspiring.

Emily