We experienced a long, cold, difficult for many type of winter this year. Spring was a long time in coming, as it snowed late into the early spring months. Now that is past and we are enjoying the greening of the landscape, the blossoming colorful spray of flowers popping up everywhere, letting us know that whether nurturing or painful, these things, too, shall pass. Always.
There are seasons of the heart and soul too and somehow within the past few weeks the season within me turned to rage….pure rage. In my prayer time, Jesus overturning tables in the Temple comes to mind. Something in me is overturned and needs righting. I am making mistakes in thinking, feeling and actions and for this I must make amends.
It is rare for rage to seek me out, but when it does, I feel frozen, not fire. It takes me awhile to deal with it and seek answers and guidance back to healthy spiritual and emotional being.
This is one of those time. Today I let the labyrinth teach me. As I awoke for quiet meditation (slinking guiltily to my prayer chair), I began to be taught as I made my first cup of coffee.
The crow was my teacher. A very large crow was walking the labyrinth brick on the bricks near the center. It stayed walking the circular path until it got to the center, hopped into the center, then walked diagonally across the labyrinth to the outermost circuit.
I looked up some things about the crow in Ted Steven’s Animal Speak and prayer time and reflection began.
Mea Culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Through my thoughts, words and deeds, I have caused harm to myself and others.
I am sorry.
Please forgive me.
I love you.
Thank you.
The snow began to melt. I had not felt forgiveness before now. It began to seep in.
In metaphysics, there is a lot of magic involved in the symbol of the crow. Alchemy is the exact word. I recalled hearing and seeing the crow present in so many “cartoon” and fairy tale story. Usually, for me, it signified being dangerous in the witch’s concoctions and intentions.
But alchemy is exactly what I needed to become willing to release this rage and feel more compassionate toward myself and others. “Became willing to make amends…” says one of the steps in AA.
After breakfast, I walked the labyrinth. Stevens says in his text, “Working with the crow can help you to see how the winds are going to blow into your life and how to adjust your own life flights.” I need that help.
The road is long….in forgiveness and life….with “many a winding turn.”
I’d lost the magic and the cawing of a crow “should remind us that magic and creation are cawing out to us everyday”. I read this and further…”that creation and magic are alive within our world everyday and available to us”. The labyrinth would be a good place to look for this and be open to it.
Confusion clouds but the path always remains.
The fork in the road branch reminds me there is always the temptation to run off and hide from myself and others OR to stay on the path forging forward.
I need grace here to choose the path.
Looking back, hindsight for choices made in the past is not a grace and is never helpful.
Focus on what’s in front of you. “Lord, I need your loving grace to travel on this hard road that leads to the death of my old self to a new life in and for you. I believe that this is the road to freedom, dispel my mistrust and help me become a trusting friend.”
I feel cosmic support in the symmetry of the brick pattern, which always soothes me. 
Centered in the Center. In my reading of the crow, I come across these words. “The crow is a symbol that represents medieval alchemy, ‘nigredo’ — The initial state of substance unformed but full of potential.” (italics mine) Ah, therein lies the problem for me. I feel the sorrow of substance unformed yet coupled with the knowledge that I am filled with potential.
I am told to TRUST and move along.
The labyrinth is Tom’s and my work in progress. It is only an infant completing its first year. But it can speak and had a request of me. It asked for chimes to be put atop the arch. I share this with Tom and it had spoken to him as well. He has decided to make the walking path made of soft, bent grass (the kind golf greens are made from). We have changed our minds from pebbles to leveling the brick to the ground ( a lot of work for next year) and now the completion of that seems to be the soft grass. I love this and feel it is right for our labyrinth.
I have completed my walk and I know this is a message for me. The Way IN is the Way OUT. The Way Out is the Way In.
“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image.” Thomas Merton.
I will pray and live my life with a new awareness of the crow and the power of both prayer and a walk on the labyrinth.
Napkinwriter 