Through
The Labyrinth of the Year
Our way is wound
From Year to Year
Through Sun gone down
To Sun that’s born anew
This Year’s Card
It’s late, of course, but it’s really more of a New Year’s card than Christmas, so I’m presenting it on the last day of the year, just in time for it to take it’s place in the Arboretum Christmas Card Garden.
Just in time.
I did see fit to use Christmas colors, and an ornamental design, but my reflections this time around were drawn more to the chronic aspect of the holiday than the transcendent.
Hence the Labyrinth, which mediates these aspects by means of a pattern of passage; the progress and regress of our years, returning us from outer to inner Sun, and back again.
The Labyrinth is a Traditional initiatory path. Not a maze of false turns and dead ends, but a single mystifying trail that must be followed to its ultimate end. That end is a center whose location we have veiled in the very act of circumscribing.
Beyond that is revelation, or else return.
In the best of our years, perhaps a bit of both.
For meditative purposes it is necessary to follow the entire path.
The present design is adapted from a pavement labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral, which provides a literal path for walking. Gazing at the image is a way of accessing the path on another level. Use your eye to trace the path all the way to the center and back again. This takes a certain amount of concentration, which is held to be of a salutary nature. If the exercise fatigues, use a finger to follow the trail with certainty. In some cases it may be advisable to print the figure out and complete the path by coloring it in, preferably with a golden pen.
However your way is wended, let it lead to a Happy New Year.