sleepwalking into independence

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 11 May 2007 14:12:00

Chartres Labyrinth
We shall not cease from exploration
And at the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time

T.S. Eliot

Last Sunday night I went to Renfield St Stephens church in town, where a canvas replica of the medieval Chartres labyrinth is laid out every month for a few hours. It doesn't seem long enough, really, but that's the spirit of modern pilrimage: one can seek all one wants, as long as it's in bite-sized segments and fits between work, kids and home.

A labyrinth, for what it's worth, is a kind of a maze without choices. Instead there is one path, which winds around and around in geometric prettiness until we reach its centre. Once we're there, there is nothing to do but wait, or begin the path back. It's a meditative exercise.

It had been a very busy week. We are now in our new flat, and I'm looking for a job. And of course the parenting of two small children continues apace. All of this (not to mention the sheer joy of trying to convince my extended family to take an interest in last week's elections) meant that I was pretty knackered when I arrived at the church and was greeted by the facilitator, a gentle-faced woman with kind hands who seemed convinced I'd been before. (People do occasionally insist on such things. The natural explanation is that I've got a very common face, but it's still a slightly odd feeling to be recognised and greeted by strangers. Odd but not unpleasant. At least nobody's ever taken me for a long-lost enemy.)

Labyrinths are fascinating, but that's about all I know of them. And there is much to know: a quick glance at www.labyrinth.org.uk will tell you more than I ever could.

The most striking memory I have of Sunday evening was the strangeness of watching the other walkers. I really enjoyed it. The pattern of the Chartres labyrinth, reproduced here, turns and circles on itself countless times, and for a spectator the effect is magical: the walkers are each closed in on themselves, some with their eyes closed in concentration, some watching the ground intently. They are as though dead, but their steps are not hopeless, or helpless. Guided by the labyrinth, they move around one another with the eternal grace of a mechanised, sleepwalking solar system. I could have been watching a dance. In a sense perhaps I was - for the space taken by the labyrinth is not great. It filled barely a quarter of the hall's floor space, and yet the walkers are each able to follow their own paths. Thinking back I wish I had spent more time watching. Their individual paths fit together into something unusually lovely.

It didn't feel like that once I was walking the labyrinth myself. As a first-timer I was very aware of the others, and concerned to avoid collisions. I also seemed to walk much faster than the others, but that was probably unavoidable. After a frantic weekend there was no way of suddenly stepping into inner calm, and I allowed myself to carry on with a brisker pace, as though the petulant child inside me still insisted that enlightenment could be attained more quickly if I simply walked faster.

a reproduction labyrinth like the one from Sunday nightIn the end I'm not sure what I brought out of the labyrinth when I emerged. I was calmer, and I had realised how important it is for me to be around the sacred. I felt much more able to go on with my life, though, and that's no small thing given the burden I'd felt on arrival. I am still learning to carry a much heavier weight. On that subject, while I walked, I'd come back again and again to a headline from earlier in the week, when the election was the main news. A local tabloid had sternly ordered its readers not to "sleepwalk into independence".

I'm not sure it would be such a bad thing, y'know. Nations and individuals alike will all reach a place where we can only go on alone: where we must take full responsibility for ourselves. It is not so very bad to reach that place by a process like the one I followed on Sunday night. Make no mistake: there will be no avoiding independence, for you or for me. The only choice we really have is whether we'll embrace it, or be dragged into it. The same might be true of Scotland, I don't know. But it's certainly true of me.