Sunday morning arrived and I was faced with a dilemma before I’d even cleaned my teeth. It looked hot and sunny, but I don’t trust the Kentish weather. It often has a mind of its own, and I usually subscribe to the ‘layers’ strategy. However, today I was doing a long walk, and carrying my lunch, so layers weren’t really an option – if it stayed as hot as it was now, I didn’t want to be lugging a cardi and coat around.
In the end, I decided to be brave, just took a hoody, and wore a summer dress to deal with the heat, but did pack a pair of leggings ‘just in case’.
So, after my very serious first world dilemma was sorted, and after some jiggery pokery with travel and parking, I arrived at the labyrinth hidden away behind Eliot College.
Eleven of us had come together to walk the two labyrinths, it was gorgeous weather, and very peaceful on the hill up above Canterbury.
I stepped onto the stone path of the labyrinth, and took a breath, somewhat reassured by Jan Sellers reminder that you can’t do this wrong, just walk it as you feel is right. I’m a bit of a power walker and I expected to walk quickly, expected to find myself overtaking people.
But a strange thing happened, after the first few strides, I slowed right down, I started paying minute attention to the stone path, the pebbles and twigs, the leaves, the ants, the sun reflecting of parts of the path. I lost track of time while I was walking. It felt like I had permission to take my time, because what I was doing felt like it had a purpose.
The labyrinth walk was very quiet, people seemed focussed, and I became aware of a kind of labyrinth etiquette that stopped me waving and grinning to people as our paths converged. After walking, people sat quietly afterwards, some people wrote, and there was some murmured conversation.
Then we set off to reach Labyrinth Number 2, at CCCU’s Priory…
To be continued…
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