January 16, 2014

Walking the Labyrinth for Personal Transformation

By Margaret Rappaport

Signals from just outside our ordinary awareness are faint. We can barely recognize them. Personal change is nearby but rarely are the messages blaring. We may begin with thoughts and feelings but we have to make more of an effort to connect with our inklings and intuitions. We have to let go of preoccupations with the “whys and wherefores” of everyday life. We have to spend some time being receptive to the unconscious, the macrocosmic mind, the artistic mind that creates images. Wishing to transform some part of ourselves requires imagination and a mobilizing of personal creativity.

We may be seeking education or guidance. We might want our everyday life and relationships to be different but can’t envision it. Our sexuality may be puzzling. Our ambitions might seem out of reach and still they don’t let us alone. People’s progresses aren’t determined by our DNA and so we constantly need updating. That is easy to say, not very easy to make time and design a place for doing it. Transformation is especially hard because it demands that we take a different route from those we use to solve problems or design our plans. If we desire personal change we have to take the risk of being inactive, quiet and wait for what occurs to us. The two outstanding risks lie in not anticipating or liking our own creative outcomes and having nothing occur to us for a long time. And furthermore it’s something we have to do for ourselves.

Happily we can make use of the labyrinth as a meditative tool. Walking the labyrinth for personal transformation centers our attention and presents the ambience for reflection. It is amenable to secular or spiritual attitudes and therefore it is personally customized. The labyrinth is a secure physical place to let images flow slowly or fast and furiously because it contains and embraces us. We are free to wander in body, mind and spirit. Whether we meet ourselves, each other, or the divine spirit, we can be assured that what happens will have meaning and will be important. A flash of insight, a sunlit image, a whispered sound, a breeze might convey a treasure for us. Another’s smile, a hug from someone passing us on the pathway, a pleasant glance across the labyrinth may offer all the support we need to confirm our transformations.

Margaret Rappaport, Veriditas Certified Labyrinth Facilitator