Cathedral Ridge is a 160-acre retreat centre located in Pike National Forest, just north of Pike’s Peak, owned by the Colorado Episcopal Diocese. Its mission statement is “to provide both a sanctuary and a stimulating environment in which lives are transformed in relationship with God and one another.” My mother and I and several other St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church members spent the weekend of July 5th-7th at Cathedral Ridge engaging in community-building activities and some much needed relaxation time.
Relaxation isn’t difficult to find in a place like this. Surrounded by miles of seemingly unbroken pine forest and rolling mountains, one feels swaddled in the nature sprawled around them, in the dip of a vast bed of deep green stretching as far as the eye can see.
The property itself includes two outdoor “chapels” within easy walking distance of the lodge. A few feet from one of these chapels is a small prayer labyrinth, nestled in a little clearing quietly humming with new life. The labyrinth was built by volunteers, led by St. Tim’s pastor Reverend Kim Seidman, during the 2020 quarantine.
On the morning of the 7th, Mother Kim led a group of us down to the labyrinth. We followed a narrow dirt path that led to a little clearing populated by tall grasses, wildflowers, and aspen groves. On one end were two rows of rustic pews headed by a dais with a large cross, and on the other was the labyrinth.
According to Grace Chapel, a prayer labyrinth “is simply a place to walk and pray. There is nothing mystical about it. It gives you the freedom to walk around while focusing your mind on God - and not worry about getting lost.” Mother Kim describes it as a way of having a free-flowing dialogue with God.
Mother Kim explained to the group that this particular labyrinth is known as a “Goddess” labyrinth. Because it has two “mouths,” no matter which you choose to enter you will eventually come back out the other. The Rev. Dr. Lauren Artress of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco uses three simple words to sum up the process of walking the labyrinth: Release, Receive, and Return. As you walk the winding path, you release your storm of prayer, doubt, and conflict into the ether for God/the universe to absorb. You then quiet your thoughts and allow yourself to receive whatever answers may come back to you at the labyrinth’s heart. Finally, you exit the labyrinth, returning to the world with what you’ve been given.
I’m not sure what came over me when I entered that labyrinth. Maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t had breakfast yet, or the slight chill in the air that penetrated the only warm piece of clothing I’d packed. Maybe it was the fact that, in just a few days, I would begin training for a job I worried I didn’t have the requisite stamina for. The things that have overwhelmed me over the past months. The genocide. The environment. My body. My future. All of these at once.
Perhaps the calm of that place, the quiet buzzing and chirping of the creatures that lived there, lulled me into a sense of security that I don’t often feel. As I walked the path in silence, letting my thoughts and fears fly up, I felt like I was being listened to. Like someone was there, hovering just above my head, nodding along as I emptied my soul to God. Both He and She. I could hear Their voice clearly in my head. My past and present in concert. In harmony.
I didn’t try to reason with myself what they might want to hear, or what god was to me, if it was real or just a coping mechanism. All those silly things the brain does to force out even the possibility of magic. I forgot it all. Maybe I was half asleep still. None of that mattered. I let it be loud in my head, filling that room with everything I had kept inside me like insects in a jar. It’s one thing to let your friends, family, and therapist look through the pristine glass, everything on display because you can’t bear to keep it all to yourself. It’s another thing to be able to unseal the jar and release all of those things into a much bigger space, where they are received and heard with understanding. No judgment. You know that when you are done they will all come back to the jar, because a creature like fear is a hard thing to set free. But for now, you let them flit and float around, careening from corner to corner in a room so big you can’t even see the ceiling, or the walls, or the floor.
When I reached the center, it was like a switch had been flipped. My voice fell silent. Their voice filled my body like breath fills a lung. They told me…well, I won’t actually say. The moment was too precious, too personal to be given up to anyone else. All I’ll say is that, when I threw my voice far beyond myself, into that fathomless room, the echo returned as two: mine and Theirs. When I called out, there was an answer.
Exiting the labyrinth, I started to cry. My peace of mind had been stirred like a fish pond. Waves of gentle tears spilled out of me. I sat down on the ground, in a warm sunbeam that had broken through the trees, closing my eyes. Now the Voice and the Presence were One: a mother. The sunbeam was Her. I pulled my knees up and She held me like a baby. Humming a song I knew. Saying, it’s okay, it’s okay.
I stood and walked into the trees. Needing to get away from the group for a little while. Let the Voice dissolve in my body. Listen to the song of the forest.
So many little things grow in that tiny corner of the world, fed by the black, decaying leaves left behind by winter; brown-eyed Susans, violet harebells, sweet woodruff, and a kind of fuzzy leaf apparently called a “lamb’s ear” that my mother used to stroke my cheek when she noticed that I was crying.
Whenever I’m feeling lost, or overwhelmed, or afraid, I can always go back to that chapel in the wilderness, the sweet smell of early summer, the quiet song it taught me. I can find my way through the labyrinth, find myself at the center. I can meet Her there. Where everything is more quiet than here.
I can meet Her there.
Celeste Briefs is an emerging poet and writer from Colorado whose work has been published by The Applause Journal, Sixfold, and CU Denver Anschutz Medical Campus's The Human Touch. She received her B.A. in English, Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Colorado, Denver, and currently serves as a student success coach with City Year Denver. Throughout her work she has explored themes of liminality, mythology, sensuality, and wonder, constantly seeking out hidden connections between the body and the earth, the mouth and the voice, the real and the dreamt. Embodying herself fully in her writing, she seeks to shine a light on the formlessness of being, the confusion of an ever-changing body, and the chaos of an ever-changing world. Though deeply informed by mental illness, her words nevertheless reach with longing towards a greater understanding of resilience, love, and the mundane things that make magick in our lives. Celeste also publishes long-form nonfiction pieces on her Substack newsletter The Lodestone Review, where this piece was originally published.
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