Wandering Our Own Path

We spent Saturday fawning over pumpkins and corn mazes. As a family, this is one of our favorite times of year. The weather turns cooler. The fires are lighted. And as Halloween approaches, we celebrate a variety of birthdays and anniversaries. But on this Saturday. we combined our ever expanding and widening schedules into one for a family outing.

Mazes date back 4000 years. Throughout antiquity mazes have been discovered in art, homes, pubic buildings and streets. In modern terms we tend to think of mazes as puzzles, but for the ancients mazes were used in ritual and processional ceremonies.

As we wandered through the maze none of wanted to exit the other side. Exiting the maze was not nearly as much fun as continuing on through it. We started out together. Each of us took different paths and at times would bump into each other, laughing as we'd surprise each other coming around a corner. There were one way paths, two paths, exits and paths that led back to paths we'd already crossed. And eventually we exited together.

As our children grow and have their own schedules, and continue down their own paths, it's nice that we can still come together for a seasonal ritual and share time as a family. And for a time...wander through the maze together.