Just Keep Going

On my birthday last month, I decided to celebrate by walking a labyrinth. I have made a little tradition out of it because I find labyrinth walking a beautiful practice to mark time. (You can read my blog post “What’s a Labyrinth” if labyrinths are unfamiliar to you.)  I imagine myself going in at one age, and returning in the other. It’s like closing one year and opening a new one. It’s an opportunity to let go of any regrets and disappointments from the past year as I walk in the center, weave together gratitude and hope once I reach it, then open to whatever may come in the year ahead as I walk out. I’ve found it to be quite a profound and helpful ritual.

I am often working with the feeling of trust, and wanting more of it, so this year I decided to make the walk itself an exercise in deep trust. To foster this, about halfway through I closed my eyes as I continued to walk the labyrinth, whose path is lined by landscape stones on both sides. Any time I bumped into an edge stone, I simply glanced through my eyelashes and got back on track, usually at the turns. 

After a while, I decided that was enough of that little experiment, so I continued walking with my eyes open. At some point, I started to feel like I was on the return trip instead of walking in. I really wasn’t sure if I was heading toward the center or back out toward the entrance! I laughed, realizing I was lost, lost in the middle of a labyrinth that is designed to keep you from getting lost.

Eventually I found out my instinct was correct, as I ended up back at the entrance. I smiled, realizing this is what trust does sometimes. Rather than taking you to the center where you thought you were headed, she sends you right back out into the world again and says, Just keep going.

Funny enough, the same thing happened recently in a live Practice Through session when we did a labyrinth tracing practice. (This is where you use your finger, or a writing utensil, to trace your way through a drawn or carved handheld labyrinth.) Surprisingly, it has many of the same benefits as walking a full labyrinth, as it calms the mind, downshifts the nervous system, and gives you a more meditative state for reflection and prayer. 

We could not believe that every one of us in the Zoom room got a little lost on the path! And though this might seem like a failure, on the labyrinth it isn’t. Everything on a labyrinth walk is open to metaphor. So the question is not, “How did I just mess that up?” The question can be many things, like

~ Can I still trust my path is there, even if I fall off?

~ Can I trust that sometimes I have to wander away from where I thought I was going, in order to find where truly I belong?

~ What is my natural reaction to making “mistakes,” and is it serving me these days? 

This is why when, on my birthday walk, I took the message of the labyrinth to be, ‘just keep going’ when she spit me out and sent me on my way. Perhaps that wasn’t a time to collect myself at the center, but rather be out in the world teaching, sharing, and creating. So that’s what I’m going to do :) 

You Are Invited

to my first

Community Labyrinth Walk

Sunday, November 30, 2025, 4pm

Address: Greenbriar Park, W Slaughter Lane (@ Lindshire Lane), Austin, Texas, 78748

Google Map HERE

Contact number: 646-621-6879

This is a donation-based event with a suggested donation of $15-$25

RSVP HERE

As we enter the final month of December, 2025, let's consider the gifts in our lives and the meaning of the season. Where were you able to walk through darkness and back to the light this year? What are your hopes for next year? What are the blessings in your life right now? How is this time of the year sacred to you? 

This Baltic Wheel labyrinth invites us inward, then sends us on our way to live out the wisdom we receive. 

And if showing up then doesn’t work but you’re curious about tracing a labyrinth, you can always do my Pilgrimage to the Heart: Labyrinth Tracing Workshop on YouTube. Just download this PDF of the Chartres Labyrinth, and you’re good to go! (I recommend tracing in with one colored pencil and out with another–so you don’t get lost!)

Wherever you are on your personal path with trust, I hope you find your way to your center where a quiet seat of joy waits for you this season. And if it’s hard to find your way, just keep going. I trust you will get there when the time is right.

Much love