For my birthday in March I asked my husband to help me build a labyrinth. We hired Myra Smith of Laughing Flower Labyrinth to paint a design on our grass and on my birthday, one of the five sunny days we've had in eight months, my husband and I started digging out the trenches. We are filling the trenches with bricks and then these brick pathways will line the grass path that leads to the center of the labyrinth. If you're not familiar with labyrinths, you can find more information at Myra's Laughing Flower Labyrinth site. The intention of a labyrinth, at least my intention for having one, is to have access to a walking meditation. My intention for constructing the labyrinth - instead of paying Myra to build it - was so that I can be present to my internal process while I am building the labyrinth. Before we started I assumed that building the labyrinth would be a spiritual - or at the very least - a calming process.
Not today. Today I was grumpy. As I was down on hands and knees placing bricks, my prosthetic leg kept getting in the way or not moving the way I wanted it to. And then there was the placement of the bricks themselves. They weren't fitting right; they weren't sitting right. Why does this have to be so hard? I wondered. I realize I often wonder why life has to be so hard. I watched my grumpy old self being grumpy and I wanted to laugh, except I was too grumpy. I was reminded of a conversation my husband and I had yesterday. He insinuated that I go walk through life looking at life as half empty. I was shocked..... Me? Half empty? I think of myself as a half full kind of gal. Today, working on the labyrinth, I could see what he means. Why don't I just relax into the project and see it as an opportunity instead of a challenge?
So the labyrinth is already working her magic. I wanted to be present to whatever comes up. Today I was present to grumpy and half empty.