Yes, that IS a flamingo in the garden

Someone in our family (not me) has had fun decorating the labyrinth. A flamingo is something my son has wanted in the garden for years (since watching a majestic flock in that fabulous BBC documentary 'Earthflight') and after much discussion and price comparison and pocket-money-counting and pitching-in-by-me, finally he has a flamingo.

The labyrinth of my imagination was a dreamscape of nodding buttercups and feathery seedheads visited by chaffinch and damselfly. I imagined draping my hand through the long soft grass as I walked. Perhaps wearing some Jane Austenesque.

The reality is the dog loves to roll in the long grass borders. So does my son. In fact, he prefers to run through the walls rather than the path precisely because it's so soft and lush. It is ornamented with statues and concrete things of dubious taste that my son has ferreted out of the garden (who knew they were even there?!).

I told my son about holding a stone in your hand when you walk, so you can rub your fingers over it, make a wish or leave a worry behind when you finish. So he grabbed a handful from the driveway, and put them on a stone 'plate' at the entrance. There is now only one left which means the rest of them are somewhere in that labyrinth, only to be found when I next mow, the stones flung like missiles from under the blades.

I haven't walked it every day as I planned to. Some days I don't know where the day went. But some days I've walked it five times, and its soothed me when I needed soothing. One day I walked it and my feet seemed to feel every blade of grass, every granulation and dip in the soil. It was better than any foot massage I've had, ever. I wrote a poem in there last week as I walked. I got to the end of the labyrinth, but not the end of the poem, so I turned around and did it again and finished both.

On the day after I got the book out into the world I walked the labyrinth ever so slowly. I just couldn't walk fast, and didn't want to. I was in no rush to be anywhere, there was nothing that needed doing, and I just let the labyrinth lead me along gently. Sam lapped me four times ('what's wrong with you today?' he laughed).

Pukeko have been across the labyrinth. Ducks have wandered across the lanes, up and over the grass walls like giants crossing hills. The cats chase each other through it, and so do the kids. I got a shaky video of a hare hopping along the path the other day. And of course there have been chaffinches and damselflies too.

When we got the flamingo home the other day, my son chose a spot in one of the outer walls of the labyrinth and stood back. "How does it look," I asked. "Lonely," he said. 😆

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WOULD YOU LIKE TO READ MORE ABOUT THE LABYRINTH?

Read the essays below, visit the main In the Labyrinth page, and get your very own letterpress labyrinth card, for meditation and mindfulness.