by Peter Harris
Chapter Five
The Labyrinth of Chartres
On the morning of my flight, presumably due to a power cut in the night, my alarm clock completely failed to go off. I made an irate mental note: Get a battery-powered clock. I stumbled around in the semi-dark, grabbed a cup of tea (essential for me in those days, I’m afraid, if I was to avoid a headache), and rushed out the door. At the bus stop I realised that I had left the precious Ouvron in the bathroom. I ran back for it and missed the bus. I finally arrived by taxi at the airport just in time for the final call.
Cursing my inefficiency and the inexorable nature of time, I boarded the jet, remembering to duck after hitting my head on the airlock door – I am not a short man, but a ‘skinny beanpole,’ as a past flatmate used to call me as I tried faithfully (but fitfully) to body-build, lifting ridiculously heavy little dumbbells and struggling through increasing numbers of press-ups and star-jumps… Why do they make aeroplane doors so low? People stared in the packed cabin as I fumbled with my bags and found my seat: a window seat, so I had to squeeze apologetically past a large glaring gentleman who was pointedly organising the papers in his briefcase. I reflected that we English are always doing things ‘pointedly,’ whereas an American would come right out and say something, thereby clearing the air…
The fascination of flight gripped me as always. I smiled with inward exhilaration as the acceleration pressed me back into my comfortable seat in this modern wonder, this mechanical bird, tilting skywards, the little streets and the ‘dreaming spires’ of Oxford in the distance, the meadows, the motorways and the vehicles on them all becoming incredibly distinct and orderly, as they always do when one gains the perspective of height. ‘So much better than using the Chunnel, where everything is hidden under concrete and artificial lights! Altitude – it gives a view of the underlying order, just as the study of history does,’ I thought, staring out the window, wishing the Perspex was cleaner and the window bigger. Oh to be a bird, though!
Dreams of flight continued as we jetted over the English Channel, clouds far below, sea below them again, whitecaps and wakes of ships so far down there, where sea-battles were fought, one tiny backwater of our lovely giant brooding planet. I began to look up then, at the dark blue which shades almost into the blackness of space. What of Eden? Until my experience of teleportation with the Ouvron I would have assumed Eden to be a state of the mind or spirit, and all references to it as an actual place merely metaphors. But now I saw a different set of possibilities… Was it a ‘parallel dimension’ as the science fiction writers call it, or a planet of love and harmony, like Venus, out there in our own galaxy? Could there really be some link down below on our Earth, in Chartres, some back door to other worlds? Did my Knight really find this doorway and spend many happy years in Eden before returning to our poor benighted planet, only to be picked up by the authorities of the day; to whom even the belief that the Earth is round was heresy, wrong belief punishable with hot pincers, thumbscrews and the rack? I stopped myself thinking about it, stretched and became profoundly thankful I was, after all, a modern man, safe in my modern, more liberal world. Yet I also clutched the Ouvron, hanging from a chain around my neck under my pullover, and I was thankful to be a part of the great mystery of life, in spite of its multitudinous dangers. Somehow since finding the Ouvron I had become more daring, more exuberant, almost like a knight errant.
The town of Chartres was founded in ancient times, and became one of the centres of Neo-Platonist learning in the Middle Ages, quite apart from its fame as a venue for pilgrims visiting the holy shrine of the Cathedral. I had to tear myself away from some very intriguing bookshops on the way to my destination, whose flying buttresses and spires loomed above the ancient town.
I walked briskly in the morning chill, trying out my rusty French on an old woman who greeted me on the streets which run crookedly towards the Mound of Chartres, that holy and venerable place. I said I was on a pilgrimage to the cathedral. She had cheeks like red apples, with twinkling blue eyes, as she indicated ‘Notre dame’ with a gesture of her wrinkled hand. She crossed herself, and bowed towards the cathedral, then assured me in a delightfully old-fashioned French accent, ‘If you go to our Lady with the pure heart, you will find what you are looking for, certainement.’
An unexpected warmth as of inner purity did indeed steal over my heart as I approached the great stairs and the triple arches of the main entrance beneath the great rose window high above. Coming into the stillness of the cathedral, the sense of solemn magic increased with every step. I felt keenly the soaring beauty of the sacred space and the labours and devotion of countless hands that had built upon and kept holy this ancient site of the ‘Earth Mother’ of our pagan ancestors, ‘Our Lady’ of the Catholics. The dark within contrasted with and embraced the brilliant gem-light that streamed through the stained glass windows, and my breath misted in the coloured beams as I walked through them, baptised in light.
Over there, patterned into the floor under the rose window, was the circular Labyrinth, laid out as part of the floor in dark blue and white flagstones, but – a travesty to my mind – littered with chairs for the worshippers. I quietly continued my circuit of the cathedral interior, then, finding nothing to indicate what to try next, went down into the Crypt. I examined again the inscriptions from which I had taken rubbings on my last visit. Still nothing. Then I recalled the monograph of Canon Bulteau, who told of the red Maltese cross, now disappeared, that was painted on the wall above the starting point of the Labyrinth, as well as fixed into a flagstone there, a ring held by a piton. The red cross of the Templars! The Labyrinth, of course! This would be the logical place to stand to find the doorway to Eden, at the centre, the symbolic womb, Omphalon, or centre of the universe, and also centre of the universe in microcosm, the Soul. I sprang up the stairs, approached the Labyrinth under the solemn light of the great rose, and the very music of the spheres was resonating in my soul as I decided to reverently walk the maze to the centre, like a true seeker, not just stride across the lines. But first, I would have to pull aside the chairs that cluttered the area of the Labyrinth.
This I did, in a frenzy of activity, hoping not to be stopped by a well-meaning guide or official. People stared, but no one interfered. I did not stop until it was cleared. Remembering to remove my shoes according to the tradition of walking the pilgrim ‘Road to Jerusalem’ (as the labyrinth walk was called), I stepped onto the path. My bare feet slowly paced over the cool smooth flagstones, winding now closer to the mystic centre, now further away, losing myself in its coils, yet assured that if I just continued forward, I would surely arrive at the centre. The Path of Life, though appearing to be full of dead-ends and pitfalls, is nevertheless (I felt sure at that moment) unicursal like this maze: it is one, singular, so it eventually, inevitably leads to the Centre. All roads lead to the Holy City. I felt a calm child-like trust and at the same time an exhilaration bordering on intoxication. I knew that I was already in a sense at the Centre, that this very hour and moment I was (for once) doing exactly the right thing in the slow, sure unfolding of the universe.
After many turns, conscious of nothing else, bathed in the delicate harmonies of the light from the stained glass windows and the echoes running along the ribbed vaults of the ceiling, I finally reached the centre of the labyrinth. I stepped forward to the exact middle and drew out the silver Ouvron, the key, I hoped, to the door in space and time. Holding it in front of me I turned to face each quadrant. I noticed a few fellow pilgrims, or tourists, watching me with interest. But they seemed dim, as if separated from me by some alteration of space. Then I began to see tunnels or pathways of light radiating out from the Ouvron like the spokes of a great wheel, with myself at the hub. The path running in the direction of the rose window seemed almost to blend with the light coming through that window. Then whole cathedral wall dissolved, and another kind of cathedral appeared beyond it; a purely natural one, lit by slanting golden sunlight, in every shade of green and brown. It reminded
me of all the enchanted forests I had ever read about or imagined. With its giant silver-grey boles reaching heavenwards and delicate tracery between, it was a living cathedral, possessing a calm majesty that beckoned to me. I began to walk towards it. The vastness of Chartres swirled and receded behind me like a mist sucked into a genie’s bottle. For a second there was the same unpleasant blackness and crackling sound and the smell of ozone; then silence. I stood blinking in the enchanted forest, breathing in deeply the divine scent of leaf-mould.
I clipped the Ouvron back onto its chain and looked around. For all I knew I was no longer on this Earth. I wondered, had my Knight gone this way centuries before? The clear sunlight slanted through gaps in the branches high above, and a gentle breeze caused the leaves to sigh. It felt like summer. I began to notice the strange bird-calls coming from above, like the sound of silver bells.