I spent last Saturday helping my dear friend Suzanne Morgan build a meditation labyrinth at her West Virginia yoga and healing center, Moon Meadows Farm. A group of us gathered on the hottest day of the year, hydrated and sunscreened, and set to work. We carted, lugged, lifted, placed, and blessed over 2,000 rocks in a 96-foot spiral path that sits in a meadow's clearing at the edge of a tree line in the Shenandoah Valley. The Blue Ridge mountains rose gloriously in the distance, reminding us where those rocks were born.
Many of us were meeting for the first time. We talked about our families. We had the predictable pandemic conversations: Pfizer or Moderna? Have you eaten inside a restaurant yet? Did you lose anyone to Covid? The work was physically challenging. Our skin glistened with sweat and our cheeks blazed with heat. We drove mini-tractors and wielded heavy tools. We dodged countless dive-bombing cicadas. We also laughed, sang, and enjoyed a delicious home-cooked lunch under big trees and a sweet breeze.
Our day in West Virginia was the perfect antidote to all we've endured since two Marches ago. I wish this sort of opportunity for everyone in the coming season. A chance to meet new friends, to gather without fear, to connect with the earth, and to tend a tangible place with faithful optimism that will pay forward to many others. For us, the delight of coming together without barriers to serve a common purpose was, to quote John Denver, almost heaven.
~ Annie Moyer