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Creative Living Courier from the Academy of Creative Living
March 30, 2006
Greetings! Welcome to the Creative Living Courier! An extra welcome to all our new subscribers. We are glad you have joined us. The Creative Living Courier email newsletter helps Right-Brain people thrive in a Lief- Brain world. It brings you
The recent 2006 Winter Olympics had me captivated.
Watching people going after their life-long dreams
reeled me in. Sometimes Favorites showboat
their way to disgrace; some people who are
disqualified or fall in one race or performance pull it
off the next time; people who are unknown may rise
to win the Gold. Every night I would say, “I’m not
going to
stay up late again to watch,” and every night I
could not pull myself away. Something reached deep
within, and touched my own hopes and dreams.
I recall that there was a time when I refused to set goals. The pain of missed goals, failed plans, and waylaid dreams was too much. And yet, looking back, I realize that I did make some plans. I did set out to achieve and accomplish things. I just did not do it “officially”. The pain (that I had hoped to avoid) was still there when I didn’t get as far as I wanted to, or when it seemed that I had almost made it, only to have my path turn and head in the opposite direction.
I have searched for a Freeway in Life that will take me directly to my goals.
Do not pass GO, do not collect $200; just GET
THERE! Instead, it seems that I am on a Blue
Highway. You know, the winding, narrow blue lines
on the map. The Freeways are bold double lines, the
main highways are red, but the back roads are blue:
lonely stretches of road, full of twists, turns,
disconnects, pot holes, and dead ends.
Yet it is on Life’s Blue Highways that I often find the greatest blessings, if I’m open to them. I’ve learned that life is not a maze; it’s a labyrinth. Life often feels like a maze, but in the end, it’s not. A maze has multiple entrances and exits, as well as many options of turns inside it. Some turns lead nowhere; others lead onward. But where is onward? In a maze, you can wander forever and get nowhere. A labyrinth, in contrast, has one entrance, and one path that leads in convoluted fashion toward a center point. And to reach that center, one has just to keep moving on the path, and eventually, the center is reached.
Labyrinths Intrigue me.
They pull me in, deeper and deeper into the turns
and switchbacks, seeking the Center. Like other
Right Brain people, I can see the Center, and I get
the overall picture right away. I start out confident
that “this will be a piece of cake.” It’s the going
round and round, this way and that, getting stopped
by the wall, the path turning away from the center
that gets me off balance. The path leads away from
the goal-how can that be? I find myself wanting to
climb over the wall, cut across the paths so I can go
straight to my goal, regardless of the path. I’m often
tempted to question myself, and the goal. I must
decide again, “Do I really want this?” Is the goal
worth the trip? It’s good practice for life. I’ve
noticed that some people in the Olympics have
sacrificed years of their lives to achieve this one
goal. How important are my goals to me? Which
ones are worth sacrificing for? What is worth
sacrificing for a goal?
As I move along the meandering path, I continue to alternate between hope and despair. In the midst of the turns, suddenly, there it is! The Center, at last! And, as I reflect on my journey, it dawns on me that there have been no dead ends, no missed exits, no lost causes in it, or in life. Everything has been a part of the path. And I have learned that things are not always what they seem. I can be, by all appearances, going away from my goal, and yet be almost there. At other times, it can look like I’m almost there when I have only just begun. And neither is better than the other; they are just different places on the path. This teaches me (over and over and over) to trust the path, and trust the process in life. All I need to do is to keep walking, pay attention, stay on the path, and I’ll get where I need to be.
A labyrinth also shows me that bigger, faster, stronger, is not better (or worse) than smaller, slower or weaker.
There is also no right or wrong way to walk (or
crawl, run, slither, dance, slide, skip, or whatever) on
the path. Walking it also helps me listen to that Still,
Small Voice Within, and follow Its direction. When I
do, I learn that I am where I am meant to be, when I
am meant to be there. I know of no better way to
silence that Critic shrieking in my ears about the
Freeway, and how I “should” be zooming along it by
now.
When I reach a labyrinth’s center, even It eventually can seem like a jail, and it’s time to turn 180 in order to leave and begin the path back. Again, this is much like life: in every developmental phase–from infancy through old age and death–this is what is required. To learn to walk, we must give up being held all of the time. To become independent adults, we must give up dependency on our parents. Every goal accomplished leads to a place and time when we must give up some of it, and we must leave some (or all) of it behind in order to move on. We must take the knowledge, the victory, the blessings, the peace, the healing,– whatever we gained in the Center, (our goal, after all)– and take it back into our world. We cannot stay on the mountain top forever. After we have traversed the deep dark woods and defeated the dragon, we must return with the treasure to heal the kingdom. We have to come out of the center of the labyrinth and resume our lives again.
When I have made the decision to get up and get going again, I want to get there right away.
Do not pass GO, do not collect $200; just GET
THERE! Sound familiar? What? Follow that winding,
frustrating-for-no-reason, forever-long path again?
Why not just jump over the walls, and make quick
work of going back? The labyrinth also shows me
that if I skip the full return trip, I bypass the process
that builds the essential knowledge and skills to
complete my return and effectively share what I have
learned. Sometimes this is the most difficult and
foreign part of all, for there is little example of it in
our modern world.
It’s good to see real-life examples of people who have successfully completed their journeys, and some who have tried to take shortcuts. That’s part of the ‘pull’ of the Olympics, I suppose. Besides seeing it, I also need to learn things with my body and soul. I need to actually walk the labyrinth, and to have its lessons seep slowly, step by step, deep into me. I suspect–no, I know–that there are many others who learn best in this way, too. Maybe you’d like to experience one for yourself. Maybe you already have; I’d love to hear what you’ve learned, too.
Did you know that there are labyrinths almost everywhere?
They appear throughout the world, in petroglyphs,
coins, cathedrals, meadows, gardens, tattoo
patterns, hilltops, and pot shards. They are as old as
5,000 years, and as new as today. They can be
found on every continent and many islands of the
world. Apparently, about three hundred years ago,
labyrinths fell out of favor, and many were removed
from cathedrals and other places. Fortunately, many
remain and new ones are being built, so we can learn
from them-apparently the same things people needed
to learn all through history.
There are at least four within half an hour’s drive of me; two are even outdoors, and available all the time. If you’re wondering about your location, there’s a website that has a worldwide searchable database of labyrinths. Just click on this link to go there. . However, there are times that I’d like to walk one when the weather is bad, or in the middle of the night. I would love to have one that can be with me anywhere I am. Remember the slogan, “Let your fingers do the walking”? I’ve found that I can “walk” a Finger Labyrinth with many of the same results as walking with my feet on a full-size labyrinth. labyrinth searchable database
Finger labyrinths can be purchased from a variety of sources, but even better, I can make my own. And so can you.
No artistic, mathematical or creative skill is
necessary. The most common form of labyrinth has
become known as the classical labyrinth. They are
also the simplest and easiest to make, and once you
learn it, you can do it anywhere. Why, you can
doodle one while you’re in a boring meeting and no
one will be the wiser, except you! You can make one
out of any material that strikes your fancy. You can
draw, paint, carve, rout, sculpt or stitch them. You
guessed it–my favorite media is fabric. Scraps left
over from another project, of course. The one shown
here is a three circuit labyrinth that I drew with
marking chalk, then followed the chalk with short,
wide zig zag stitches. Now I can even walk the
labyrinth in the dark, because the stitches guide my
fingers. If you would like to have directions for
drawing your own finger labyrinth, just call or email
me, and I’ll send them to you (FREE, of course!).
Walking a labyrinth, with feet or fingers, helps me remember (again and again) that no matter where life’s path seems to lead, if I just STAY on the path, and KEEP GOING, I will reach the Center. As I pay attention, and keep walking, Wisdom shows up again and again. This gives me the courage to dream and vision again, and to set goals that I will move toward (or away from before I reach it, as the winding path leads), and you can, too. I now know that as long as I’m on the Path, putting one step in front of the other, listening to that Still, Small Voice, that I will arrive at the Center, and also Return again, and you can too. In the workshops and retreats that I facilitate, and in my counseling office, I also find that walking a finger labyrinth can be powerful to help participants understand, accept and proceed with their own process and their path through life. You know, maybe I have found the Freeway of Life after all! Could it be that the Blue Highways–the Labyrinth of Life’s Back Roads–are just what I was looking for after all? Sharon Barnes, MSSW, LCSW -- The Scrap Lady!
The Academy of Creative Living
email:
sharonbarneslcsw@cs.com
phone:
303-987-0346
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