Labyrinth

As we so often find in ancient folklore, the Caileach offers us a cyclical metaphor for life, one in which the energies of spring arrive again and again, nurtured by the deep retreat of winter. We are no longer accustomed to thinking in this way. Instead we are in the habit of imagining our lives to be linear, a long march from birth to death in which we mass our powers, only to surrender them again, all the while slowly losing our youthful beauty. This is a brutal untruth. Life meanders like a path through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again (Wintering, Katherine May).

We found a labyrinth in the woods. A simple clearing with stones placed carefully, expanding out in countless circles. After a few minutes of attempting to navigate the path, the kiddos said—“Look, you can just jump over to the next level.” Jump, jump, jump! And so a opportunity to explore a lesson we learn from childhood through adulthood, as Katherine May captures above in her book Wintering—there are no short cuts in our lives, from season to season. But there is also the truth that given time, we grow again.