Transcending The Labyrinth

I am so grateful for the boy I once was. I have often heard of healing the child within, but I am grateful for the leadership of that child, in the courage I know, like know one else knows he exhibited. I know how limited his information was, and how, even with the fear of hell he was open to studying material of other cultures. 

I also know how futile and powerless he felt. Surrounded by like God like, (or what often demon like) adults. I did not realize until I was far across the threshold of adulthood myself that these gods were just like me, prone to excess and sometimes major mistakes. As an adult I have been able to find forgiveness for the adults of my own childhood, with compassion and greater understanding for the challenge of their own journeys. 

I can not help but remember overwhelming confusion without guidance. There was literally no way to work it out, no way to make things OK. It felt like I had stepped into a gigantic labyrinth, meandering, confusing, boring and terrifying at different turns. Attack, shame and guilt were so present that they almost became olfactory.

In the midst of these inescapable walls I learned how not to be afraid of fear, and then to forgive myself for being afraid. I learned that there were different ways of framing reality than I had been taught, and that I did not have to follow anyone else’s prescription of anything that I am. I can be me, and let others be themselves.

We do not have to meet the labyrinth at its own level. We do not have to meet hate with hate, or aging with revulsion. By stepping into the infinite levels of awareness, all right now, we can find the past is still with us. So in the moment, the vivid experience of the past right here, right now. Our childhood is not just the remembrance of trauma, but the presence of the child whose heroic heart still beats in our chest It is he or she that can teach us to transcend the labyrinth