Dialogue
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You are now 800 years old,
still older are your origin and your provenance,
grown and changed throughout the centuries.
An old symbol and nevertheless a new labyrinth,
the third in a French cathedral,
the largest and the most perfect,
walkable and accessible, a side-walk, a picture
of the path.
How did you bear it for such a long time?
All the humans, who run sightless, notionless
over you?
Your place is in the Gothic cathedral,
the fifth over the old Megalith-Celtic sanctuary,
devoted to the virgin and mother of God Mary,
Grande-Mère, Virgo paritura, Virgo qui paeperit,
queen of heaven, Magna Mater.
Built by master masons and craftsmen,
in the spirit of the school of Chartres according
to Sacred Geometry,
in the spirituality of Bernhard of Clairvaux,
as the body of Christ and his church,
in incomparable perfection, simplicity and eloquence.
The more you grow older, the more you get beautiful,
your old, humpbacked stones are shining like gold
in the light of the cathedral.
You have been the way of initiation for the persons
to be baptized,
the way of salvation for the faithful,
the way of mysteries for the initiated,
dancing place of the bishop at Easter morning,
playground of the children,
sleeping place of the pilgrims,
place of rest for the animals.
What are you for us humans of today?
Monument of art, cult, calendar, magic, ornament,
oracle, mascot,
image of micro- and macrocosm, centre of energy,
esoteric, New Age, spiritual tool,
too old, outdated, underestimated, overestimated,
insignificantly?
Can you say something to us?
I teach you the wisdom of the way,
the long way, the slow way, the pedantic way,
the way of changes, transformations, bends, turns,
the way of purification, of illumination, of love,
the way to move on, to know, the way of life, of
death,
walk the way.
Let yourself be caught by the circle,
go inwards, concentrate yourself,
go outwards, become eccentric.
I teach you the wisdom of the gut,
I carry you on my white stones like a mother,
you can grow up and be born anew.
I take my bearings from the moon,
I look to the towers with the sun and the moon on
its point,
I look to the west portal with the blessing Christ,
and the rosette above the tree windows,
you can orient yourself.
Crossing my centre you arrive at the heart of
the cathedral,
at the crossing of nave and transept,
with the north and the south portal and its rosettes.
I am a mathematical model,
hidden inside me is the game of the numbers, the
flower of the life,
the circle, the square, the triangle,
the straight line, the bent line,
the beginning, the end, the centre.
I am a circle, I am many circles,
a sun cross, a St. Andrews cross,
melody and harmony in space and time,
toothed with the earth, radiating like the sun.
In my centre:
Theseus and Minotaur,
the mystic wedding,
the six-petalled flower,
the new Jerusalem.
You may become quiet, be amazed, you may listen
and look.
You cannot understand the labyrinth, you only can
walk it.
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