Towing the Labyrinth Line

There is a labyrinth in a public garden not far from my home. I've known of its existence for some time now, but just never got around to checking it out. Today, however, in an attempt to break myself out of my mental summer slump, I decided to go seek something new in my own back yard.

A labyrinth, I knew, was not a maze, not a place to enter and get lost. Well, actually it is. But unlike a maze where the point is to get lost, turned around and successfully back out again for fun, a labyrinth is a place to get lost in thought, a place for serious contemplation.

I doubted this would work on me. I have a hard time turning off my brain and it didn't seem like following a path of paverstones set in the grass would be an activity capable of overhauling my mind and shutting it down.

But guess what! It did!

I took my first step, wound myself along the path and before I knew it, all thoughts of my nagging to-do list were gone. All I focused on was the path and the way the blades of grass grew up in between the stones.

By the time I reached the center stone, the end of the line, my body felt so compelled to keep trailing the path that it was a jolt to my consciousness to have stopped moving.

I noted the sensation, curious that the ancient idea of a labyrinth had worked some sort of magic on me, and then turned around and retraced my steps, going out the same way I went in.