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The Way of the Labyrinth

With a hint of lost blossoms, Strawberry Rose tea reminds me that nurture and environment create a life more than biology and ancestry.

When I was talking to friends about the book I was reading, The Lonely Hearts Hotel, by Heather O’Neill, I said that I felt compelled to keep reading because the author used good words. I felt bad continuing also. It was like a car accident on the other side of the highway. Even though it doesn’t affect you, everyone slows down to watch. And it gets into your head when you explain to everyone how traffic was. I felt so far removed from Rose and Pierrot that I didn’t think I could understand them.

“We all struggle with contradictions. Contradictions are marvelous. If you don’t believe that everything contains contradictions, then there is very little you can understand. We know ourselves by embracing what we are not. We become good by taking evil head-on.”
“Exactly!” exclaimed the clown. “You can’t have land without water. You can’t have water without land.” (page 218)

The story is about me, though. It is about everyone who has struggled to become more of who you are.

“It’s going to be wonderful,” Rose exclaimed. “All these paintings where he sticks a nose on a cheek and an eyeball on a forehead. He captures the modern condition. All our thoughts are fractured. Everything is a dead end. You have to look at something from all angles at once to see it from the inside out. Not just be obsessed with the obvious, stereotypical way of looking at something, you know? To make things appear as they really are.” (page 208)

Rose and Pierrot are placed in pitiful circumstances at the centre of a labyrinth and they are told to find their way out. (Indulge me for a moment…a poetic metaphor came to me as I was thinking about this book) Wrong turns and right ones, they couldn’t know which way they were heading until they looked back to see their path. They/we can sometimes go back over the same trail to discover where they/we need to go. When we think about the path, we discover that all the turns were the right ones to get us to where we are right now.

Rose couldn’t put a finger on what had happened to her. But she had fallen from grace. That was the most surprising thing. Because she had not realized that she had been in a state of grace. She had at least figured that as an orphan she had been born with nothing to lose. When you fall from grace, time passes quicker. Time begins to make sense. It moves in a linear fashion. It begins to trickle through the hourglass. It no longer belongs to you. (page 361)
Our labyrinth doesn’t come from us making a choice to step inside it. It comes from us standing in the middle. We start with who we are. We gather wisdom with each turn that we can use or not. If we can get out, we will have all that we could be and the possibilities are wide open.

Or we keep wandering around, feeling like… “the best we can hope for from life is that it is a wonderful depression.” (page 380)

If our life is like a labyrinth, I wonder if there is a string that we can follow to make better choices, or maybe there are different coloured strings that can lead us to different places.

Rose and Pierrot picked up the different strings of those that would have them follow their path. They couldn’t know until they had walked along the path whether it was the right one or not.

Allowing for art to imitate life, what string are you following through your labyrinth? Do you need to find a different one? How close are you to having wide open possibilities for becoming? It might just be a couple of steps. Take them.

 

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The Game Of Life and How To Play It

On my tumble of books on my shelves, my husband was looking for his next thriller to read. It was from his Christmas stocking and was put away when all things Christmas get tucked out of sight. I pulled it off the shelf as I scanned for my next book to contemplate. My shelves are dusty with books that I am not ready to discard. I pulled off The Game of Life by Florence Scovel Shinn. I had purchased this book—the copyright says 2005—when I was trying to figure out The Secret. It came as one of a series called the Transformational Book Circle. It was a book that Louise Hay, of Hay House Publishers fame, felt changed her life. I had read it when I first received it. I wanted to reflect on why I hadn’t discarded it when I last purged my books and see if there were any new insights for my life now.

I sat down with a pot of my favorite tea, Hot Cinnamon Spice black tea, and dove into the book.

The Game of Life and How To Play It was self-published in 1925. I am sure it was not that common to self-publish a book in the 1920s, particularly by a woman. Florence Scovel Shinn is remembered as a metaphysical teacher and New Thought leader. It seems to be that the New Thought movement was taking hold at the beginning of the twentieth century. Many of the leaders found new life with the popularity of self-help and holistic health, and The Secret.

Photo by Robert Collins on Unsplash

The book is summarized on the first page:

Most people consider life a battle, but it is not a battle, it is a game.

It is a game, however, which cannot be played successfully without the knowledge of spiritual law, and the Old and the New Testaments give the rules of the game with wonderful clearness. Jesus Christ taught that it was a great game of Giving and Receiving.

“Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.” This means that whatever man sends out in world or deed, will return to him; what he gives, he will receive.

If he gives hate, he will receive hate; if he gives love, he will receive love; if he gives criticism, he will received criticism; if he lies he will be lied to; if he cheats he will be cheated. We are taught also, that the imaging faculty plays a leading part in the game of life. (pg. 1)

Much of the rest of the book is giving examples of that comes out in clients and associates of hers. There are several references to Biblical passages and other thought leaders. It exemplifies the mantra: what you can believe, you can achieve.

I have been around this thought in earnest since The Secret came out. I knew about it before with Think and Grow Rich or As A Man Thinkth. As the consumerist culture has marched on, this thought has come to mean that material success is only a thought away. Want a new car, think it into reality. If you are not receiving it, you either don’t believe or it was not meant to be yours—but you want it all the same.

I have struggled with these thoughts. I have the creases in my forehead that speak to my concentration on the achievement of my wildest desires. Throughout the book, Shinn refers to affirmations such as “Thy will be done this day! Today is a day of completion, I give thanks for this perfect day, miracle shall follow miracle and wonders shall never cease.” (pg. 36) She picks out affirming Bible passages: “According to your faith be it unto you.” (pg. 46) She gives encouraging directions: “‘Speak the word and then do not do anything until you get a definite lead.’ Demand the lead, saying, ‘Infinite spirit, reveal to me the way, let me know if there is anything for me to do.’” (pg. 71)

The problem I have with these thoughts and these books is that I do have the faith of a mustard seed that there is a divine being filled with love for his creation. And for my life-succeeding dreams, He is on his lunch break. I think the more I try to think that he will give me all my heart’s desire, in the material world, the more disappointed I am with His efforts. I am doing my part. This has led to quite a self-pity party.

Now though, I re-read the first page. I need an understanding of spiritual law. I am not sure I understand human law, except going 84 km/h in a 60 km/h zone gives you a speeding ticket. I think I will need more study on this. But the last paragraph might give some answers. Hate breeds hate; cheating begets cheating; lying leads to more lying; and love leads to love.

There is nothing speaking to getting a new car or a bigger house. Further in the book, she speaks to that. What if the premise of thoughts become things relates to attitude. Material success comes when you have the right attitude. Perhaps. Or perhaps, material success if not the point. All of the New Thought leaders reflect on mindset and that being a loving, empathetic, forgiving person is actually the goal.

I now see that my external success is not the miracle that God is gifting. It is who I believe that I am. The days when the sun shines just so on my chair by the window and my dog is curled on my lap in my mother’s quilt as I drink my tea and read my book, is when I receive the gift that God has for me. Life is just so and I can hear a whisper that says “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” (pg. 91)

Or maybe not…