Grace Cathedral Harmony Walk
Life is a busy thing.
Work and chores and bills and fun and somewhere in there,
sleep. There isn’t a great deal of room for empty spaces. As someone dedicated
to sucking the marrow out of the bones of life, empty space fills pretty fast in
my life.
In general, the trend in Western tradition has been
rational knowledge. What is known and proved and explained. As someone who
spends a great deal of time in my head, I spend a great deal of time examining
and explaining things.
Once a month, Grace Cathedral holds an event that’s all
about empty spaces, esoteric knowledge, and harmony.
All of which doesn’t say much does it?
Grace Cathedral is part of the growing
labyrinth movement.
Labyrinths, unlike mazes, aren’t about dead ends. A labyrinth is a pattern with
one opening to walk towards the center. Although, labyrinths have been around
for millennium, they were particularly popular in the middle ages, when
cathedrals would put labyrinths just inside the cathedral as a form of
pilgrimage. People would walk into the labyrinth, reach the center and then walk
out again.
Grace Cathedral has a Chartre style labyrinth on a
tapestry. Once a month, the cathedral hosts a guided walk. First, they hold a
small class on the meaning of labyrinths and then they hold a harmony walk.
Bells with different tones are handed to pilgrims of the mind to ring as they
walk.
It was interesting to find the tone of a bell and try to
match the harmony of the other bells. It’s totally chaotic. Totally harmonic.
There may be periods of silence. There may be ringing sound.
I attended with Gina, who has been going for some time. We
ended up walking it twice. Once before the class and once after.
Both walks were a very interesting experience. One of the
ways the labyrinth walks may be perceived is of putting aside the things of the
world as you walk in. It was incredibly centering to reach the middle “rose” of
the labyrinth and empty myself of all the rational running of the world and just
be. I thought of this rock garden I saw in Japan on a warm sunny afternoon in
Kyoto. Warm yellow walls and white rock. Abstract ripples in stone. Empty as the
purity of the void. Timeless, well, until Gina asked the time and I walked tiny
triple time steps out of the labyrinth to attend the class.
The second walk was different in that I was focusing on the
melody of the bells to the exclusion of everything else. Also, a very calming
experience, but very much about interaction with others and with the space that
we were occupying.
Definitely a worthwhile experience in the midst of the
fullness of life.
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