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,...

A baby giraffe’s life begins with a six-foot drop

— a head-over-heels tumble to the earth —

where she’s caught by tall grass, tended by her mother, and

soon begins the intrepid act of standing and walking on her brand-new, wobbly legs.

I am happily home from my Paris/Chartres trip for my Labyrinth Facilitator training, and I have to say it was a wonderful experience. Being back at Chartres Cathedral felt more like home this time. It was as if I never left! There is a beautiful timelessness there that I find very comforting. 

And yet once again, I was struck by my body’s response to the space and to the labyrinth. 

As I walked the labyrinth the first time, I couldn’t believe how shaky my legs were. Yes, it had been a journey to get there and I’m sure I was tired, but this level of shakiness was something else. From my sacrum down I felt jittery, weak, and wobbly. I knew I wasn’t going to fall – I was safe – but there was a tremble within me that spoke of new life.