What have you been filling your days with lately?

It seems that in March 2020 we found ourselves in strange, new waters. And unlike some things that are new and exciting, in the world of COVID 19 we find ourselves in a newness that feels oddly terrifying, and yet quietly peaceful - as we all shelter in our homes and hope for the worst to pass over.

As often as I can, I like to start my morning on the patio. I sit quietly for some time and watch the world awaken around me. The birds dancing in the air, landing from time to time in our water fountain. The sun climbing up over the back of the house.

And then I write.

Sometimes it is free journal writing, other times I work on a poem that has been growing, from time to time I add some notes to the novel I am hoping to write or the book on spirituality and stillness that is slowly being born into this world. After I write, I like to finish my tea, breathe in the morning air, and then head into my day.

Lately, this time has become increasingly strange as our world gets more and more quiet. I am aware that there are sounds missing around me but I am hard-pressed to figure out what they are – I am just aware they are gone.

And this seems to be a metaphor for so much of what is happening around us right now. Simple things that we never really noticed before are all the sudden gone.

No morning run to get your favorite coffee drink, no commute, no casual gathering of friends.

Impromptu does not seem to be a word that belongs in the time of COVID 19, along with normal, happy hour, gathering or safe. Everything is slow, everything has changed, and all the friends and family that were once so close, feel much further away and distant as we talk over computer screens and text messages.

It was into this new reality that I built my labyrinth. I think I was overcome by a sense of what I could not control any longer and the need to control something – to create something when everything around me was being dismantled.

Now in reality, I know that I can’t control anything. I am not trying to say that I really believe I have control over anything - but there are times when the predictability of life can feel very much akin to control - and it can be so soothing.

But right now, any sense of predictability, any inkling of schedule, of regular activities, has been taken away.

Now, as I sit outside on my patio preparing to greet the world and write for a bit, I am aware of all the things that I cannot control.

I cannot control whether or not my husband’s job remains viable during this time. I cannot control whether or not my parents or mother in law catch this horrible thing, let alone any of the other people I love and care about who fall into the at-risk category.

I cannot even control whether or not there will be supplies at the grocery store when next I don my plastic gloves and protective mask to go shopping. Each day is a new reminder of what I cannot control, or predict, or expect.

And it feels pretty weird, as I am sure all of you are aware.

Enter the labyrinth.

I have always processed things in a kinesthetic way. If I don’t get my body involved when I am going through something difficult, I usually start to spiral and get stuck. If it is something particularly troublesome or stressful, I can be assured I will most likely get sick if I don’t move in some way.

I think this is one of the reasons I have developed such a deep relationship with the labyrinth. It gives me a container to move my body while freeing my mind and heart to process.

Last week (along with starting to feel stir crazy in this small house) I was aware that the requirement to stay home was going to keep me from walking the labyrinth that I love so much. I began to get sort of panicky, and then I had a brilliant idea – why not put a labyrinth down on my own patio.

Easy right? Simple she said...

I have laid down labyrinths before in other places. I have made them out of masking tape on church rec room floors. I have used lengths of rope and fabric to stretch them out in fields. I have even taken a lengthy course all about building labyrinths.

But those were all done many years ago, and my labyrinth building skills are pretty rusty. I definitely fall into the “I prefer to walk labyrinths” category over the “I like to build labyrinths with my bare hands” group.

The whole process took the better part of three days.

First, I decided to lay out the basic structure in yarn and painting tape but quickly got overwhelmed by the “how-to” drawings in the book (I am not a very spatial person in the best of times - geometry not my best subject).

I eventually came up with a brilliant plan to cut a square in a piece of paper so that I could block out the whole page except for the one direction I was working on. I felt very studious.

My first labyrinth didn’t even get past the first couple of steps before I had to rip it all up and start again.

My second attempt ended up being positioned too far to one side of the patio, and too close to the back door, to finish the last circuit. So up came all the yarn and tape.

My third attempt finally placed the labyrinth in the correct location. I double-checked that all the yarn was securely taped down and went to bed.

The next day I used chalk to outline the pathways. I only had small pieces of chalk, so I used two different colors in hopes of making the lines dark enough to stand out against the pavement.

I walked the labyrinth two times on my knees outlining it in chalk.

When I finally finished, I had the realization that the chalk would not last very long (most of it seemed to have transferred to my pants) and I was not ready to let all my hard work disappear so quickly (back to that need to control something, I guess).

I went inside, dug around in my art cabinet, and pulled out a rather large bottle of gold paint that I had bought when I was going through a gold phase. I selected a large paintbrush and went back out to the labyrinth.

Once again, on my knees, I walked the labyrinth, painting between the chalked lines with my gold brush. It took me another full day, but as the sun shimmered down on the gold paint, and the little bits of purple and green chalk, I felt a deep sense of satisfaction.

By the time I finished, I could barely stand, and my knees were marked with bits of rock and sand that had embedded into my jeans.

I was exhausted and totally exhilarated.

I had built my own labyrinth, and had become intimately connected to the ground of my patio. As I scooched around on my bottom and knees, I found myself greeting all sorts of microscopic creatures, bits of leftover dog hair, pebbles, dust, and bougainvillea blossoms that had blown into my path.

It felt holy and useful, and totally at odds with the discombobulated circumstances of our world.

That night as I lay in bed I was reminded of the story in the book of Jeremiah in the Hebrew bible. As Jerusalem was under siege, and about to fall into the control of the Babylonians, Jeremiah (at the command of God) goes and buys a field.

It makes no sense.

The land is already under the control of an invading army, the city is bound to fall soon, and yet Jeremiah purchases the field from his cousin, paying fair market value.

What on the surface seems like a complete waste of time and money, turns out to be a sign of hope in a bleak and desperate time.

When Jeremiah asks God why he was told to buy the field, God responds with words of comfort – “yeah, things are pretty bad right now, great calamity is all around, but I promise you, sometime in the future, things will be better again” (paraphrase my own).

As I crawled around on the ground of my patio, chalking, and then painting lines for my labyrinth, I was lifting up my prayers for all the world.

I cannot change or control what is happening. I cannot make things return to the way they were before, both good and bad.

I cannot promise my children that everything is going to be okay and that nothing is going to harm them.

But I could paint that line on my patio, with all the hope and fervor of one who believes in the goodness of the universe, and the possibility of love and kindness in a broken world.

There is no doubt about it, our world is being forever changed by this pandemic. We do not know what it will look like on the other side.

But like Jeremiah, I am going to do my best to choose hope.

I pray that you too are finding ways to live into this new reality with at least a small sense of hope.

If not, I promise to hold some of that hope for you as I walk the pathways of my little golden labyrinth.

Daily lifting you, the world, my family, the birds in the fountain, and the little tiny bugs that live in the crevices of the patio, up in prayer and thanksgiving.

I am not sure what lies on the other side of this time, but one of the gifts I have learned from the labyrinth is that we are all still on the path, all making our way to the center, all still being held in the great circle of a divine and loving universe.

Namaste.