Indifference is like a slowly forming fog that goes unnoticed until, heavy and enshrouded, the thick embankment of its pervasive presence is obscuring our vision and dulling our perceptions.

Miriam Webster defines indifference several ways: “marked by a lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern for something : APATHETIC :marked by impartiality : UNBIASED :characterized by lack of active quality : NEUTRAL and not differentiated, capable of development in more than one direction”.

If this experience has to do with a ‘lack of active quality’ and is related to undifferentiated potential, I wonder what is possible by entering into rather than resisting this all-encompassing dullness. I take my inquiry to the forest to walk the labyrinth.

As I cross the parking lot to the path that leads to the labyrinth, a palpable shift is felt in my body. Here in the forest I am at once grounded and expanded. Some invisible, tightly woven membrane begins to soften. There is a sense of relief trickling through my being like life giving waters beginning to seep through the crevices of dry earth.

I approach the large stone ridged labyrinth, pause to gather my intention, ground in my body, and set out. Nearly half of the labyrinth is bathed in sunlight, and a little over half is in shadow. A perfect metaphor for what I am walking with today as I wonder what the light and shadow within my own being have to show me.

I find myself very close to the center almost immediately, yet the path turns abruptly leading me to the far reaches of the periphery instead. I will need to weave throughout every level of every quadrant of the labyrinth before I reach the center. Resistance floods through my body as heaviness. I acknowledge the resistance without trying to change it as I continue to move.

As I weave in and out of light and shadow, the swish of pant legs and rhythmic footsteps create a musical fugue with the song birds and rustling trees. I feel the heaviness shift and resistance melt in the warmth of the late summer air meeting the boundary of my flesh. I gather four pine cones from the path as I approach center.

Once there, without thinking, I find myself orienting westward- the direction of endings-of letting go. I notice that the sun is shifting so that the labyrinth is now exactly halflight and half shadow. I place a pinecone at the center of the labyrinth to the west, and then one in every direction upon the community altar shared by all who pilgrimage here with their own questions, prayers, and offerings. Here at the center, I sit in the east of new beginnings as I face westward toward endings. I lay on the grass supported by the solidity of earth as my mind empties to blue sky in full surrender.