It was something I had dreamed of doing since I was a child to walk the Chartres Labyrinth. This desire was nurtured in my childhood fascination with medieval practices and their worship of God. In the divine right of Kings to manage and control whatever they could grasp and hold. All power rose to a pinnacle that was demonstrated in the hubris of Heads of State anointed by God. When I read about medieval life it seemed a simpler time but more chaotic than the world I grew up in. Even within the chaos they had a certainty in their acceptance of penitence, repentance and prayer.
The medieval pilgrimage was the ultimate statement of belief and faith. That journey of moral or spiritual significance demonstrated their piety. That journey reinforced their connection to the divine. It gave the pilgrim certainty in a world that was inexplicable, it reinforce the value of pilgrim in the greater scheme of this divinely created world. I wanted that certainty, I wanted my significance to be confirmed, that I existed in the world beyond my fleshly package.
The divorce papers were sitting on the kitchen table. When I opened the envelop I felt the pain of years of submersing my total self to a controller the holder of power in our relationship. Someone I was never able to satisfy, everything I gave him was rejected as not good enough and I turned myself inside and out to strive to make what I gave him good enough. Until I no longer knew who I was and I didn’t recognise the woman I saw in the mirror. Then he threw me away as being worthless.
I sat at the table and my finger traced the path of the labyrinth moving through each of the four quadrants until I reached the centre, the place of enlightenment. My hand rested over the finger labyrinth, my index finger touching the centre. Staring down at the labyrinth I felt myself being to disconnect my mind floating free of my body and I saw myself in that medieval cathedral. I felt weight of history, the power of belief, the sacredness of the journey when reaching the centre
Without giving myself time to slide back into the lethargy and darkness that had enveloped my soul; I logged onto the computer and booked and paid for an airline ticket to Paris. In my head it was as if tornado had blown in spinning every negative thought and emotion into a vortex. Leaving a calm centre where I beheld possibilities. In a frenzy I raced around packing, informing services I would be gone and shutting up the house. Four days later I boarded the plane for France. I enclosed myself in a cone of silence; I was a pilgrim on a search for myself.
Once in France I was grateful that so many French people spoke English as I only had schoolgirl French. Once in the room at the hotel I crashed, the frenzy that had carried me through to this point disappeared and jet lag kicked in. The next morning I caught the train from Paris Montparnasse to Chartres. It got me to Chartres around noon. I wanted immediately to go to the Cathedral my pilgrimage called to me in a loud clarinet call. Its brightness kept at bay the darkness of self hatred, doubt, depression and all the ghosts of past possibilities.
Eyes focussed on the goal I made my way to the cathedral. In my head I could see the finger labyrinth on my kitchen table and my finger touching the centre, the place of enlightenment. I was lucky it was Friday and the labyrinth was open for walking. I entered the cathedral through the Royal portal and I could see the labyrinth laid out.
I bowed my head and called to that brightness inside of me and I started walking the labyrinth. As I walked in meditation I was alone. I moved though the curves and quadrants focussing on my search for enlightenment, the ability to understand my world and in that understanding improve my condition. To heal the wounds inflicted upon my mind, body and soul. I walked the labyrinth slowly, inside my head for many hours. I eventually came to the centre.
My awareness focused outward, I felt my mind, and soul spiralling out of my body up into the gothic arches into the centauries of faith, belief and certainty. These qualities like ichors attached to my mind and soul and were carried back into my body. The fluid that flows like blood in the veins of the gods became my own. I felt the beginnings of a certainty. Wholeness would be mine in the days to come.
Quietly I left the centre and started the reverse journey of the labyrinth; the unwinding of the darkness. Unlike the medieval world today there is not a defining belief in God but in the turns of the labyrinth I found the power to understand my universe and through that to improve my condition. The journey is only beginning.
