The Labyrinth
Why a simple prayer labyrinth at a retreat center in Pike National Forest made me cry...
Cathedral Ridge is a 160-acre retreat center located in Pike National Forest, just north of Pike’s Peak. Owned by the Colorado Episcopal Diocese, its mission statement is “to provide both a sanctuary and a stimulating environment in which lives are transformed in relationship with God and one another.” My mom and I, with other members of St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Centennial, spent the weekend of July 5th-7th there. We engaged in community-building activities, such as games, archery, and nature walks, as well as some much-needed relaxation time.
Relaxation isn’t difficult to find in a place like this. Surrounded by miles of seemingly unbroken pine forest and rolling mountains, one feels swaddled in the nature sprawled around them, in the dip of a vast bed of deep green stretching as far as the eye can see (from the vantage point of the lodge, at least).
The sun emerges in the morning like a jewel in the soft crook of the nearby peaks, casting its final muted glow like a veil over those same peaks in the evening.
The property itself includes a lodge and dining hall for guests, several tranquil walking trails, and two outdoor “chapels” within easy walking distance of the lodge. A few feet from one of these chapels, nestled in a little clearing quietly humming with new life, is a small prayer labyrinth, made by volunteers—Rev. Kim Seidman, St. Tim’s current pastor, among them—during quarantine, 2020.
On the morning of the 7th, at around 7am (an hour before breakfast), Mother Kim led a group of us down to the labyrinth, located near the entrance to the retreat center. A narrow dirt path led us along the edge of a low area populated by tall grasses, wildflowers, aspen groves, and pine trees—one of which is apparently seven or eight centuries old, predating Columbus! It’s one of those charming little nooks only found in nature that you can be certain is also home to the Fae.1 The path ends at the edge of the clearing, and you can see the chapel and labyrinth cozily tucked in together.
According to Grace Chapel, the prayer labyrinth “is simply a place to walk and pray. There is nothing mystical about it. It gives you the freedom to walk around while focusing your mind on God - and not worry about getting lost.” Unlike a maze, which is what most people think of when they hear “labyrinth,” (and is more of a game or puzzle) there is nothing to be solved in a prayer labyrinth. Mother Kim described it as a way of having a free-flowing dialogue with God.
She explained that this particular labyrinth is known as a Baltic or “Goddess” labyrinth. Because this particular labyrinth has two “mouths” (entrances) that both lead to the center, no matter which end you choose to go in, you will eventually come back out the other. The Reverend Dr. Lauren Artress, whose home parish is Grace Cathedral in San Fran, uses three simple words to sum up the process of using this type of labyrinth for prayer: Release, Receive, and Return. As you walk the winding path you release your storm of prayer, doubt, and conflict into the ether for God/the universe to absorb. You then quiet your thoughts and allow yourself to receive whatever answers may come back to you at the labyrinth’s heart. Finally, you exit the labyrinth and return to the world with what you have been given.2
I don’t know exactly what came over me when I entered that labyrinth. Maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t had breakfast yet—my brain is pretty effectively useless when I haven’t eaten—or the slight chill in the air that penetrated the only warm piece of clothing I had packed. Maybe it was the fact that, in a few days’ time, I would begin training for a job which I still worry I don’t have the requisite stamina for. The things that have overwhelmed me the past months. The genocide. The environment. My body. My future. All of these at once.
Perhaps the graceful calm of that place, the quiet buzzing and chirping of the creatures that lived there, lulled me into a sense of security that I don’t often feel. As I walked the path and let my thoughts and fears loose, I felt like I was being listened to, although I was silent. Like someone was there, hovering just above my head, nodding along as I emptied my soul to God. Both He and She. I could hear Their voice clearly in my head. My past and present in concert. In harmony.
I didn’t try to reason with myself what they might want to hear, what god was to me, if it was real or just a coping mechanism. All those silly things the brain does to force out even the possibility of magic. I forgot it all. Maybe I was half asleep still. None of that mattered. I let it be loud in my head, filling that room with everything I had kept inside me like insects in a jar. It’s one thing to let your friends, family, and therapists look through the pristine glass, everything on display because you can’t bear to keep it all to yourself. It’s another thing to be able to unseal the jar and release all of those things into a much bigger space, where they are received and heard with understanding. No judgment. You know that when you are done they will all come back to the jar, because a creature like fear is a hard thing to set free. But for now, you let them flit and float around, careening from corner to corner in a room so big you can’t even see the ceiling, or the walls, or the floor.
When I reached the center, it was like a switch had been flipped. My voice fell silent. Their voice filled my body like breath fills a lung. They told me…well, I won’t actually say. The moment was too precious, too personal to be given up to anyone else. All I will say is that, when I threw my voice far beyond myself, into that fathomless room, the echo returned as two: mine and Theirs. When I called out, there was an answer.
I started to cry as I made my way out of the labyrinth. My peace of mind had been stirred like a fish pond. Waves of gentle tears spilled out of me. I sat down on the ground, in a warm sunbeam breaking through the trees, closing my eyes. Now the Voice and the Presence were One: a mother. The sunbeam was Her. I pulled my knees up and she held me like a baby. Humming a song I knew. Saying it’s okay, it’s okay.
Waking from that dream, I stood and walked into the trees. I had to get away from the group for a little while. Let the Voice dissolve in my body. Listen to the song of the forest.
So many little things are growing in that tiny corner of the world: new growth fed by the black, decaying leaves left behind by winter; brown-eyed Susans, violet harebells, sweet woodruff, a kind of fuzzy leaf apparently called “lamb’s ear” that my mother used to stroke my cheek when she saw me crying.
When I’m feeling lost, or overwhelmed, or afraid, I can always go back to that chapel in the wilderness, the sweet smell of early summer, the song of quiet it taught me. I can find my way through the labyrinth, find myself at the center. I can meet Her there. Where everything’s more quiet than here.
[addendum…]
Like ghosts, I’m not 100% sure if fairies are real…but I hope they are.
THANK YOU for sharing your prayer experience, Celeste....How perfect and profound, every moment, the progression and sense of embrace at the end. So, so uplifting.
Beautiful.