Dove Letters: Into the labyrinth

going to the monastery with Mom.

Dear Lovedove,

Today is Sunday and Mom and me drove up the California coast this week, the winding and picturesque Highway 1, to Big Sur, to stay for a couple nights at a monastery. Yes, I took my mother, who flew all the way across the country to see me, to a place where you aren't allowed to talk.

Happy spring break, Mom. Welcome to Monk's Gone Wild.

If I were to identify as anything it would be a "monk derailed by circumstance". I've been going to monasteries for retreats for the last five years, for weekends, or longer when I can, just to sit in silence, without my phone, without the news, without the world. Just nature and chanting monks and a lot of tea. I love it. But I don't really like it. But I love it. Do you know what I mean?

My room at the monastery, Rm. 9, Immaculate Heart

There's something that happens to me after being at a monastery after a day or so—after my ego has put on the performance of a lifetime and does a full toddler freak out, like it's holding one of those medieval balls on a chain with spikes, whacking the inside of my head. After that ordeal is over, I usually feel something that could only be descibed as real-reality. I sit on a bench for a couple hours…period. That’s it. I literally just sit there. (Whenever I try this at parks in the city, people look at me like I’m a serial killer).

This past week was my first time bringing someone else to a monastery. And I was afraid it may not click with mom, but I had a feeling she would feel the same way as me. I knew I had made the right choice when on the first morning we sat on a bench together, looking out over the vast expanse of the pacific ocean, listening to the birds sing, the wind rush through the trees, the waves crash. My mom leaned over and my whispered in my ear, it sounds like a symphony.

Later on we went for a walk down the long winding road that leads to the PCH. The signs in our room said to stay on the paved path, but my mom and I both share that curious, mischievous spark that sees an adventure and can't help but take it, like the girl in the scary movie that goes down in the basement when you're yelling at the screen DON’T DO IT! Usually the person saying "don't do it" is my father, her husband, but he wasn't there. So we walked off the path. We walked through fields. We broke the rules, we smiled from our childlike whimsy.

Soon we could hear the sound of rushing water. A river? I asked. My mom nodded. We trampled softly through the trees looking for the source of water, imagining how beautiful it would be to sit next to it on this transparent spring morning. Soon we find ourselves in a clearing, freshly blooming lilies popping up around a statue of St. Francis, a small little hut that seems to be uninhabited. The river seemed to be just across this meadow. We start to walk towards it and I gasp.

Mom, I say. It's a labyrinth.

St. Francis considering the lilies of the field

Underneath our feet I recognize the stones and their formation, hiding under un-mowed grass. A walking labyrinth for meditation. We looked at each other in disbelief. Our wanderings led us to the treasure. We never would have found this if we hadn't gone off the path, my mom whispered to me.

We never would have found this if we hadn't gone off the path.

Isn't that true, of everything?

This was not my first labyrinth, in fact, this formation of stones and type of meditation has been one of the true delights of my life. Back when I lived in Nashville, I visited a labyrinth that was inconspicuously placed in the middle of the city, next to a Starbucks and pizza place. But let me tell you: this place was a portal. Every time I went there, I walked in, slowly, softly, something magical happened.

Labyrinth at Scarritt Bennett Center, Nashville, TN

A meditation labyrinth is not a maze, and is not designed to confuse you. It’s actually an extremely ancient contemplative tool that goes back 3000+ years. The guidelines to a labyrinth are simple and were laid out on a sign outside the one I visited frequently in Nashville. When you walk in, you are invited to let go of the world, let go of the details of your life, shed your thoughts and emotions. This part is called Purgation. When you reach the center, this is a place of prayer and meditation. You can stay there as long as you want. This part is called Illumination. And finally as you exit, you walk out the same exact path you walked in and it represents the feeling of being fully aligned with the world below you and the heavens above you. This is called Union.

Almost exactly three years ago, I took my mom to that very labyrinth in Nashville that started it all for me. It was a moment I will never forget.

I wasn't doing to well at that time. I sought out the labyrinth that day, like I had many times, for a little bit of clarity and peace. The world felt numb, gray, nothing felt right. My sweet mother, along for the ride, walked slowly behind me through the winding circle. It was her first experience walking one.

I way only ten or fifteen steps in when something happened. Some gift of grace, some lighting rod of love hurled its force on me, like superman saving someone from a falling building. The seas parted, the skies opened and suddenly, out of no where, I couldn't stop crying. I continued walking towards the center, but like, guys, I was ugly crying. My mom behind me, worried, touched my arm, are you okay?

And the gift was this: I was.

And that’s why I was crying.

I looked at the trees around me. I looked at the grass below me. Heard the birds singing. Felt my mom near me. It was all so beautiful that it hurt.

All I was feeling before walking in actually wasn't numb, it was some sort of mediocre protection I had boarded up around myself. Protection from the good, from the joyful, from the radical enoughness of every moment.

When we made it to the center, I hugged my mom. She was still confused as hell and probably ultimatley worried. But what I realized in that moment was that it's actually harder and sometimes painful to be open to the world. To really feel its full affects on our individual experience. To feel the hurt, but to also feel the glory of a sunset. To feel the dissapointment, but to also experience how much your mother or your friend or your dog loves you. It's easier to walk around with these walls up, to numb, to excuse yourself from the cosmic dance that we are always invited to, as my favorite monk Thomas Merton would say. It's harder to feel. So often times I choose not to.

I don't know how to explain that experience, but it felt like seeing the world for what it actaully was. And it gave me sympathy, deep sympathy for myself, for choosing for so long not to feel that. Because the amount of effort and choice it takes to actually feel is rare. Not just rare, it's heroic. It's hard.

It hurts to feel. And it heals to feel.

So, there we were again. 3 years later. Mom and I in a clandestine labyrinth. This time I didn’t see it coming. This time I didn’t lose my goddamn mind in public.

No, this time we walked through like we were no different, no separate from the lilies growing in the valley, the monks praying on this hill. We weren't just listening to the symphony,

we were part of it.