How this labyrinth came to be: Grief and Serendipities, everywhere

To the Friends of John McGill: The story of how the labyrinth came to be

We had no idea what we were getting into when we started, (metaphor of our life journey?) in order to do it right and also beautifully. Here, for you, is the story of what happened, from first conception to the present. It is an amazing series of serendipities, many happy accidents which just happened to happen at precisely the pregnant moment.. “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. “ Zen saying.

My deep grief for John (and all that he and N and J missed) really surprised me (about which I wrote to his friends) & went well into April. Sometime about then, or early May, Janette just happened to be reading a story in which a labyrinth made a huge difference in the hero’s life. She was aware that we had once constructed a temporary one here years ago for a Spiritual Growth Network workshop as I had talked about it. So the concept and practice was not new. Her new interest was a surprise.

Within a few days, it came to me: what if we built Labyrinth to honor John? ( John had wanted his Memorial Service held here. He and I had often walked under the trees, talking. He had attended several of our SGN group meetings,) Janette liked the idea so we started wondering aloud: 1) what model to use, 2) where find the expertise required, and 3) where to place it, and 4) what the expense might be? We did not know what we were getting into in early May.

I started internet research on labyrinths and soon discovered that a pair of friends here in Lexington had built one in their back yard, via Worldwide Labyrinth Locator. Besides, they were already engaged in our Fierce Landscape prison ministry program. Serendipity. I was also intrigued by the history, use and relevance for our times when no one and no agency teaches us to value the inner journey. Probably my monastic background simmering. Did a “desktop search” and found a clipping from the NY Times on the growing popularity of labyrinths saved in my files, dating to 1994.

Viewing Barbara and Turner Lyman’s backyard labyrinth, I thought it both an acceptable form AND workable project. Turner, ex-IBMer, welcomed the idea of designing another--another happy accident, and soon was drafting templates. Actually many designs to fit the final site. Turns out he had the skill, the energy, the enthusiasm as well as the craftsmanship to not only adjust the design to a particular site incorporating three trees, but also do the precision craftsmanship for construction. Another lucky find. Angels are hovering.

Late May we started looking at potential sites. Barbara came over and with Janette and Turner, we walked around assessing various possible sites. I liked one. They didn’t. Once we got to a certain place, they said “This is it, This has the right ambiance.” Again, serendipity, in terms of outcome. But a large long woodshed full of firewood bordered a whole side of the area. I was not keen on the spot. I was not keen to move the logn woodshed 5 x 7 x 25 feet long). It had been my pride and joy since my stepfather and I, he now gone, had built it and repaired it. Its closeness to the house and its largeness was helpful enough to keeping two fireplaces in deep winter.

Janette–& myself--very reluctantly--finally decided that the woodshed had to be moved --together with one large tree plus the grove of Rose of Sharon around it This was large piece of work --ended taking two weeks, first to move all the stored firewood, and then, with chainsaw and axe to dissemble the shed.. We actually had to hire it hauled off because of all the tar paper roof and backing.

But when this was accomplished, the unforeseen vista of the entire “lower 40" as we call it opened up between the chosen place and the gazebo.. One can see the beauty of this vista from the west side of the labyrinth, where we have also planned to make it handicap accessible road, so one can drive right up Several more happy accidents.

Turner had to work in three trees to the design. I had adaptations to Turners original draft and so we worked together, easily and quite well, to incorporate the trees. Janette happened to be reading an article about gardens which suggested a cairn and asked me if I knew what it was. I said yes and rushed to the Internet, and we saw immediately the synchronous area where a 4th tree would have been for balance would fit perfectly for a Cairn area. So Cairns got included. She has always loved rocks and stones.

Design wise, I wanted an ascending labyrinth, to a Zen Garden center, so this meant 1) lots of figuring, (some geometry) a week of scraping and tilling the area, with my old garden tiller, to prepare the soil, spraying and ground cover to kill grass, weeds & roots. Then finding and bringing in dump truck load of fill dirt (10 cu yards) and another load of mulch, (each 10 + cu yards), spreading all this, shaping it, leveling it, pressing it, rolling it, before Turner could put down the piping.

Fortunately for my old knees and back, I was able to find and hire some good labor, (ex-offenders eager for work) for several days of shoveling and leveling and rolling of a rented large roller, to press it all down and shape it. We just worked on it every day, doing what we could for the next step, with no idea when we might finish.

Then finally, in mid July, the surface was finally prepared for Turner’s careful placement, shaping and laying down of the planned lines with pvc piping, after making and installing anchors for the many turns. This took about two weeks. All the big staples were measured and hand cut for this job here. Janette was already planning landscaping.

Janette and I had gotten into talking about CAIRNS in the spring and having researched the subject, began to plan to incorporate idea of one, then several cairns into the labyrinth. She had a family reunion the last of June, our turn to have it at our place, and she asked each family member to bring a rock for a family cairn. So this became part of the Cairn area of the labyrinth. Happy coalescence of many ideas from many sources.

Landscaping was complete by mid August in time for our friends in the Spiritual Growth Network of Kentucky, to have a first blessing and to bring stones for an SGN memorial cairn--an appropriate celebration for an anniversary of 18 years of our SGN meetings here..

Only when I started taking pictures in August did we realize that we had chosen the perfect place not just for surrounding vistas. Surrounded by trees on all sides, sunlight dances, flutters and slowly kisses all parts of the labyrinth during the day.
dancing Sunlight upon the shadows make the labyrinth a strikingly sensual place, a fairy tale, Camelot place. Another happy non-intended accident.

We were able to both develop and incorporate a small garden next to the northwest corner, and happily use stepping stores of Tennessee quartz from another recent patio project where we just happened to have some left over, to form a path through the garden.

You know that favorite song of mine, Send in the Clowns, “Where are the clowns? Don’t bother, they’re here.”? (Hah, so true!) Where are the ANGELS? Don’t bother! They are here.They are HERE.

It remains amazing to us how everything has come together, just happened, to help create such a place of stunning beauty; the story Janette happened to be reading to suggest and spur our previous interest in labyrinths, friends, help in hauling off the old wood shed, finding the dirt necessary, and then a supplier nearby of the mulch needed, and so many things, one would almost have to say there has been angelic assistance in this project. I suspect John is smiling, maybe laughing? Our birthdays were both in July and we used to celebrate them together, usually with lunch at Don Pablos, a favorite spot. Janette and I are still in wonder, amazing at how it all happened so conveniently.

I think Turner Lyman is a genius with what he has done with this space, but I also think all of us were touched by the genie in the stunning result. It is still mesmerizing just for us to sit and contemplate the whole of it Privately, it is even more “magical” for me because 32 years ago this very space was simply a small open clearing when I began to plant most all of these trees, over 100 around here. (Janette has created more than ten gardens) And since this space is next to the Wedding Chapel garden where many many couples have vowed their love,, maybe someone will choose this Zen garden at the center of the Labyrinth for their vows of love.. Janette and I began landscaping this area in 1975, and we love sharing the result of our loving work with others.

I plan to add a few other touches, later, that one of my totem spirit-guides has revealed to me, (Hummingbird) , but not yet, maybe next year. Janette has been enormously supportive and generous, not just in planning, but advice, work and landscaping. We plan to offer this to the public, by appointment, later, probably on Saturdays only. We want it to bless others. “Beauty only visits, never lingers.” -John O’Donohue.

I doubt I would have been willing to put in this kind of intensive work enduring painful knees (surgery upcoming) without being influenced by O’Donohue’s tapes on Beauty, which I still love. Celtic Spirituality. The outdoors is the thin veil of all that is sacred and divine and holy, and endless vistas for contemplation of the mystery of love and life. We are always surrounded by the Cathedral of Nature. The way the sunlight plays with, around and through this place is simply awesome.

Paschal
September, 2007

In retrospect, I never imagined I could have such grief. Honestly, I wept more than I want to admit during March and April. First for all John’s losses, what his fears of fathering cost him, then for all that fear cost Norma and especially Justin. To walk intimately with someone over that period of time and not know their deepest secret and worst fears til the very end is some pilgrimage in itself. With all the pain of his loneliness which I knew, I never even guessed this secret. Yet I am honored that he chose me to begin the healing. There is a passage here from Belden Lane’s The Solace of Fierce Landscapes:
In the beginning you weep. The starting point for many things is grief, at the place where endings seem so absolute. One would think it should be otherwise, but the pain of closing is antecedent to every new beginning in our liv es. (P. 25)

I could hardly believe the deepness of my grief. Then I realized I was also weeping for me and mu own losses. When vainly, I tried to share this with my jail birds, they could not, would not grasp it. Then once more, I realized how closed and protected they had to be, from all those they had hurt so repeatedly. There were times when I felt as if I was grieving for all the lost love between fathers and sons in all of human history. And then some of my own lost loves.

If anyone had suggested maybe something wonderful can come out of this, when you let yourself feel so deeply, I might have laughed in their face, or maybe walked away in disgust at fairy tales or wishful thinking. Yet, a kind of miracle did happen. Serendipities everywhere. Some might say Angels were present.

While built to honor John, with the main cairn dedicated to John, this Labyrinth is also dedicated to and blessed with the Song of Mary found in the first chapter of the gospel of Luke. Mary in 9 verses celebrates the convoluted pilgrimage, the labyrinthine ways of her people, her community of faith haunted by God’s love. This song, which includes all the themes of the Old and New Testament, and in a sense summarizes the entire Bible, is also my song, memorized some 40 years ago for a homily to my monastic community. “My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He who is mighty had done great things to me, and Holy is His Name.” .. Mary’s human journey ended with her holding the body of Jesus--the Pieta of Michelangelo. But that great sadness was not the last word. Her faith became a model for the church and a model, summons and challenge for us. Pain and loss is not the last word.

Thanks for listening. The Labyrinth offers in graphic form the metaphor that Life is a circuitous journey. The upright patrin stone markers offer that there are road signs and signficant turning places for us. The cairns suggest that our journey is full of losses and discoverys and we are in a flow or network of many relationships. The labyrinthian ways of my friend John McGill are honored in this construction and capped in the cairn dedicated to him. September 22, 2007.