Saying goodbye

Sometime in the next couple of weeks I will mow this labyrinth back into lawn.

It was only ever intended to be temporary. At 15 metres wide, this seven circuit beauty fills the whole circle of lawn next to our house. For the better part of the last six months I hadn’t walked it much at all. Then I wrote an article about the labyrinth for a journal being launched next year. And it invited a level of reflection that I hadn’t experienced for some while. It also got me walking the labyrinth again.

I fell back in love and became more attached to it than ever, right at the point of letting go. I don’t want to let it go! I don’t want to mow it down. And yet saying goodbye to it now also feels right.

There are things we used to do in that space that we want to do again—fly kites, hit and kick balls around. As a family we agreed to give the space to the labyrinth for a year, and now it’s time to return it, open it up, see what else wants to happen there.

Meanwhile, my friend Zoe visited and we talked about other spots a labyrinth could go. There are little spots around, but nothing the size of this one. As it turns out, Zoe used to live next to someone who had a labyrinth in her front garden. She had a teeny tiny push mower to make the teeny tiny path.

So I found myself a narrow push mower, remembered that there are 3 and 4 circuit labyrinth designs that would be perfect for a smaller space, and chose the space. It is going in the space below the gingko tree, which is all kinds of perfect.

This week I cut down the wild circles, another wilding adventure that I loved as much as the labyrinth. The new labyrinth will take the place of one of the circles, and elsewhere we’ll let the grass grow and creating a meandering mown path. I look forward to sharing the progress with you.

M xx

p.s. the photo full of green was taken early December 2019, two months after the labyrinth was created. The other photo was taken this chilly morning before the sun rose! The new labyrinth will go just to the right of the wee greenhouse.

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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.