To celebrate the first World Labyrinth Day (May 2, 2009)when people all over the world will be 'Walking as One' at 1 pm their local time, creating a ripple of movement as the world turns, here is the story of my own relationship with an outdoor rock labyrinth I created on a lovely piece of land in the Ozarks. Although I am no longer there, I have many memories of the healing that place brought me and also, I believe, some of the guests at the retreat I co-created there. In the next post, I present some of the poems that the labyrinth inspired.
Labyrinths have been known to the human race for more than 4,000 years as a symbol of wholeness and may have evolved from the spiral forms appearing in nature. Early labyrinth designs have been found on Cretan coins, Sardinian rock carvings, Hopi medicine wheels, Tibetan sand paintings, and in representations of the Tree of Life in the mystical Jewish Kabbalah. Lauren Artress, a psychotherapist and canon of the Episcopal St. Francis Cathedral in San Francisco, began a labyrinth revival a few years ago. Now they can be found throughout the US in public parks, spas, hospitals, and churches. People from all walks of life have been finding solace and solutions through this simple practice.
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Like water, a labyrinth follows a purposeful but meandering path. Over the last decade I have practiced a form of aquatic bodywork that, in simple terms, involves floating (while gently massaging and mobilizing) another person in a warm water pool. This has many physical and psychological benefits and, just like the labyrinth, it is also a movement meditation that helps one to open to the mysteries. Both practices became part of my own spiritual path while I lived at the place I called Aquaest Retreat.
The idea for a merging of labyrinth and water began when I attended a workshop held at Therme Toscana (a natural salt water spa) in Bad Sulza, Germany, in 2001. It was titled 'Dreams and Rituals in Healing Waters' and aimed to introduce participants to the power of water, Jungian dreamwork, and the use of ritual. We walked the mosaic labyrinth that formed the entrance to the hotel as a daily part of our experience.
Not long after that, when my ex-partner Ralph was grieving over the loss of the home he had rented for 22 years in southern California, I bought him a bronze pendant with a labyrinth on one side and a phoenix rising from the ashes on the other. The day it arrived in the post, things seemed to take a better turn - so we took it to be a lucky charm. Near our subsequent temporary home in Laguna Beach was a Unity Church which set out a canvas Chartres labyrinth walk in it's hall once a month.
One cold dark night I found myself leaving the warmth of the house alone to attend this event, with a determination that bemused me. I came home beaming and began finding out as much as I could about this walking ritual. On a challenging day soon after, I went to walk the outdoor Chartres labyrinth at another church in Tustin about 30 minutes drive away. As I cleared misplaced pebbles from the path in, I realized how much I would enjoy to create and steward such a place myself.
The Chartres labyrinth is my favorite design. In Crossing to Avalon, Jean Shinoda Bolen wrote, 'Chartres Cathedral was built on the site that was once the Druid's sanctuary of sanctuaries, on a mound or elevation where there was a sacred wood and a well that was called "The Well of the Strong"'. I cannot help but link the labyrinth, with water, and both with spirit. On that walk in Tustin, I'd found a gift label with the word 'Christian' written on it which I carried to the center with me.
I reflected that something in my heritage gave me a feeling for Christianity that went deeper than religion. At that changing point in my life, less needy myself, I felt ready to be of service to others. An artist at heart, I was trained to be a scientist and my rational mind struggled with literal interpretations of the bible. In my early adult life, working as a scientific editor, I became increasingly estranged from my body, emotions and spirit.
At age 30, I began to allow my life to be led by intuition and calling. This in effect meant dismantling all that had gone before, doing much self-searching and traveling beyond the reaches of the familiar. At age 40, my encounter with aquatic bodywork and meeting Ralph marked another great turning point. I found, with surprise, that in my writing the words 'spirit' and 'spiritual' occurred frequently as I tried to convey the profound experiences I was having.
Creating an outdoor rock labyrinth
By the summer of 2002, Ralph and I had found a place where we could offer our aquatic work in a retreat setting. We chose (or perhaps were chosen by) the ancient and watery south-central Missouri Ozarks. When you live that close to nature, your sensory perceptions intensify. I had a powerful daydream of going down a deep crack where the creek flowed in front of the house. It seemed like the entrance to an underworld that I could not yet reach. A circle of land just above the creek called me to build a full-size rock replica of the Chartres labyrinth in the following spring.
They say they grow rocks in Missouri. We had a beach full of astonishingly varied and ancient river stones on that land, and spent much time admiring them and moving them about, placing some along the pathways so that they could be seen. Rocks like to be seen and using these ones for a labyrinth seemed a perfect way to honor and connect with the land we were stewarding. I also discovered that I had an uncanny knack for choosing rocks and laying them.
If I'd thought too hard about what that project entailed, I might never have begun. It became a meditation in turning up to the task without fail. The reward was an unfolding relationship with the land and with each mysterious rock. Some days, among the calls of birds celebrating spring and the melody of the nearby creek riffle, I could swear I heard children singing out of the past.
Each trip to the beach required me to overcome a fear of snakes, taking the one who lay across my path one morning as more a requirement of respect than a warning to keep out. Before the trees came into leaf, people passing on the upper road could speculate upon the progression from fluorescent-orange landing target to unusual garden design. Some kind of maze? No, a labyrinth: which differs from a maze in that you cannot lose your way. The bemused locals all nodded in apparent appreciation.
It took two months for me to complete the work and at least an hour a week after that in the vigorous Missouri growing season to keep the rocks clear of encroaching lawn. First Ralph mowed the paths, then I'd vacuum up the grass clippings that had landed on the rocks, and finally use scissors to tidy plants that had grown into the rocks. In the spring, it was bright with purple ajuga leaves and star-like bluets. Later, it was covered in fairy dandelions, and finally it would give way to the greenest of grass.
[The labyrinth I created was, like the original, 40 ft in diameter: almost a third of a mile long, consisting of 11 circuits and 34 turns. The grass path was marked by a carefully laid edge of river rocks collected from a willow beach on the same land.]
A daily labyrinth walk
Over the next four years, while I lived there, I would try to walk the labyrinth daily to commune with myself and with the outdoors. Pink the cat liked to walk it too, picking her way along the stones rather than the grass path. Solomon the dog lay at the perimeter as if on guard. Mushrooms, latent in the soil, would push up on the west side - bringing an underworld of nature spirits to the surface. Moles made runs that followed exactly the lines of rocks, because there the grass roots were inhibited and their passage made easier.
Robins in pairs picked worms from the exposed earth. Very occasionally, the armadillos tossed a few rocks out of place in their search for grubs. Putting them back was a puzzle. The rock labyrinth was always there for guests that came to the retreat. They could walk out their private questions within the curved sanctuary of the labyrinth gardens, listening to the sound of the creek riffle, to the ever-present breeze, and to the birds in the nearby woodland.
A labyrinth resonates with different people in different ways - walking it may be a joyful experience for some, a sad or thought-provoking one for others - but the principle is that the act of walking the circles alters consciousness and helps people confront and resolve problems. The focus of aquatic bodywork is also the potential it has to expand awareness and alter consciousness to effect positive change.
Spiral meditation: a water-labyrinth experience
A friend sent me the Reiki symbol which represents a vortex of water and that gave me an idea for an integrated water-labyrinth experience to offer at the retreat. The labyrinth itself reflected the circular shape of a pool like the one we used for aquatic bodywork in our pool house there; both were circles containing ripples or spirals that provide a good metaphor for life - a progression of overlapping experiences. The Spiral meditation became a special experience that combined labyrinth walking and aquatic bodywork.
I saw the Spiral as containing within it the three stages of any effective retreat: cleansing - going in you release the cares and concerns which distract you from your source; illumination - reaching the center you discover a place of prayer and meditation for clarity; union - coming out you are granted the power to act. The experience began and ended with a labyrinth walk. The first stage included yoga or a stroll along the nature trails. Aquatic bodywork was part of moving towards the center. Journaling or artwork supported the last stage.
The labyrinth walk was a valuable source of solace for so many of our guests. One young woman walked it at least eight times in twenty-four hours. I found that I could learn quite a bit about people and how they were feeling at the time by observing how they walked the labyrinth and how it affected them. It was also interesting to note the different dynamics that occurred when people walked together. Although I gave guidelines, I avoided suggesting that there was any special way to walk or ideal experience of the walk.
Labyrinth rituals
On each Full Moon, I liked to conduct a ceremony of 'Giving thanks to the water' inspired by a project named 'Awakening the Planetary Healer Within' that was initiated in 1990, at the North American Bioregional Congress in Maine. I'd collect four waters from the land in a ritual fashion and then place them in the center of the labyrinth while I walked. Those who joined me could add a water from their own special place if they wished. Usually I'd leave the waters there overnight under the full moon and then keep them indoors in special jars until the next full moon.
Like water, the labyrinth absorbs all that is painful, washes away all that contaminates, and makes possible all manner of renewal. The labyrinth-waters were my personal ritual and reminder of this. Here is the prayer I made up to offer as I gathered the waters and as I walked:
Oh Chalice of the Grail:
Guide me through the mists that separate.
Reveal to me the land within the land.
Free the waters of the sacred spring.
That I may wet my wisdom.
Legend has it that the Grail castle is surrounded by water and invisible to those who do not choose to see beyond what they are told about the world. Once upon a time, Maidens of the Sacred Wells gave pilgrims spiritual refreshment and a glimpse of the hidden realm of the unconscious or hidden land. My labyrinth was bordered by Spring Creek and I had no doubt that water ran below it also. It was my sacred space indeed.
The moon-water walk had a special focus that connected me with the land and the land within the land: Going in, I called on the wisdom of the land and visualized the freeing of the waters; In the center, with the waters, I offered prayers to each source; Coming out, I asked for guidance from the waters regarding the role I might play in their free flow and health. Although I am not there now, the place and the labyrinth will lie in my heart always. And, of course, I hope to create another one day!
.........................................................................................................................................................
Walk a labyrinth online: Labyrinth Pilgrimage.
To read some of the poems that were inspired by this labyrinth see the next post.
For more about aquatic bodywork and altered states of consciousness see A Return to the Water.
Inspiration for relating to rocks: Washing a rock.
Not long after that, when my ex-partner Ralph was grieving over the loss of the home he had rented for 22 years in southern California, I bought him a bronze pendant with a labyrinth on one side and a phoenix rising from the ashes on the other. The day it arrived in the post, things seemed to take a better turn - so we took it to be a lucky charm. Near our subsequent temporary home in Laguna Beach was a Unity Church which set out a canvas Chartres labyrinth walk in it's hall once a month.
One cold dark night I found myself leaving the warmth of the house alone to attend this event, with a determination that bemused me. I came home beaming and began finding out as much as I could about this walking ritual. On a challenging day soon after, I went to walk the outdoor Chartres labyrinth at another church in Tustin about 30 minutes drive away. As I cleared misplaced pebbles from the path in, I realized how much I would enjoy to create and steward such a place myself.
The Chartres labyrinth is my favorite design. In Crossing to Avalon, Jean Shinoda Bolen wrote, 'Chartres Cathedral was built on the site that was once the Druid's sanctuary of sanctuaries, on a mound or elevation where there was a sacred wood and a well that was called "The Well of the Strong"'. I cannot help but link the labyrinth, with water, and both with spirit. On that walk in Tustin, I'd found a gift label with the word 'Christian' written on it which I carried to the center with me.
I reflected that something in my heritage gave me a feeling for Christianity that went deeper than religion. At that changing point in my life, less needy myself, I felt ready to be of service to others. An artist at heart, I was trained to be a scientist and my rational mind struggled with literal interpretations of the bible. In my early adult life, working as a scientific editor, I became increasingly estranged from my body, emotions and spirit.
At age 30, I began to allow my life to be led by intuition and calling. This in effect meant dismantling all that had gone before, doing much self-searching and traveling beyond the reaches of the familiar. At age 40, my encounter with aquatic bodywork and meeting Ralph marked another great turning point. I found, with surprise, that in my writing the words 'spirit' and 'spiritual' occurred frequently as I tried to convey the profound experiences I was having.
Creating an outdoor rock labyrinth
By the summer of 2002, Ralph and I had found a place where we could offer our aquatic work in a retreat setting. We chose (or perhaps were chosen by) the ancient and watery south-central Missouri Ozarks. When you live that close to nature, your sensory perceptions intensify. I had a powerful daydream of going down a deep crack where the creek flowed in front of the house. It seemed like the entrance to an underworld that I could not yet reach. A circle of land just above the creek called me to build a full-size rock replica of the Chartres labyrinth in the following spring.
They say they grow rocks in Missouri. We had a beach full of astonishingly varied and ancient river stones on that land, and spent much time admiring them and moving them about, placing some along the pathways so that they could be seen. Rocks like to be seen and using these ones for a labyrinth seemed a perfect way to honor and connect with the land we were stewarding. I also discovered that I had an uncanny knack for choosing rocks and laying them.
If I'd thought too hard about what that project entailed, I might never have begun. It became a meditation in turning up to the task without fail. The reward was an unfolding relationship with the land and with each mysterious rock. Some days, among the calls of birds celebrating spring and the melody of the nearby creek riffle, I could swear I heard children singing out of the past.
Each trip to the beach required me to overcome a fear of snakes, taking the one who lay across my path one morning as more a requirement of respect than a warning to keep out. Before the trees came into leaf, people passing on the upper road could speculate upon the progression from fluorescent-orange landing target to unusual garden design. Some kind of maze? No, a labyrinth: which differs from a maze in that you cannot lose your way. The bemused locals all nodded in apparent appreciation.
It took two months for me to complete the work and at least an hour a week after that in the vigorous Missouri growing season to keep the rocks clear of encroaching lawn. First Ralph mowed the paths, then I'd vacuum up the grass clippings that had landed on the rocks, and finally use scissors to tidy plants that had grown into the rocks. In the spring, it was bright with purple ajuga leaves and star-like bluets. Later, it was covered in fairy dandelions, and finally it would give way to the greenest of grass.
[The labyrinth I created was, like the original, 40 ft in diameter: almost a third of a mile long, consisting of 11 circuits and 34 turns. The grass path was marked by a carefully laid edge of river rocks collected from a willow beach on the same land.]
A daily labyrinth walk
Over the next four years, while I lived there, I would try to walk the labyrinth daily to commune with myself and with the outdoors. Pink the cat liked to walk it too, picking her way along the stones rather than the grass path. Solomon the dog lay at the perimeter as if on guard. Mushrooms, latent in the soil, would push up on the west side - bringing an underworld of nature spirits to the surface. Moles made runs that followed exactly the lines of rocks, because there the grass roots were inhibited and their passage made easier.
Robins in pairs picked worms from the exposed earth. Very occasionally, the armadillos tossed a few rocks out of place in their search for grubs. Putting them back was a puzzle. The rock labyrinth was always there for guests that came to the retreat. They could walk out their private questions within the curved sanctuary of the labyrinth gardens, listening to the sound of the creek riffle, to the ever-present breeze, and to the birds in the nearby woodland.
A labyrinth resonates with different people in different ways - walking it may be a joyful experience for some, a sad or thought-provoking one for others - but the principle is that the act of walking the circles alters consciousness and helps people confront and resolve problems. The focus of aquatic bodywork is also the potential it has to expand awareness and alter consciousness to effect positive change.
Spiral meditation: a water-labyrinth experience
I saw the Spiral as containing within it the three stages of any effective retreat: cleansing - going in you release the cares and concerns which distract you from your source; illumination - reaching the center you discover a place of prayer and meditation for clarity; union - coming out you are granted the power to act. The experience began and ended with a labyrinth walk. The first stage included yoga or a stroll along the nature trails. Aquatic bodywork was part of moving towards the center. Journaling or artwork supported the last stage.
The labyrinth walk was a valuable source of solace for so many of our guests. One young woman walked it at least eight times in twenty-four hours. I found that I could learn quite a bit about people and how they were feeling at the time by observing how they walked the labyrinth and how it affected them. It was also interesting to note the different dynamics that occurred when people walked together. Although I gave guidelines, I avoided suggesting that there was any special way to walk or ideal experience of the walk.
Labyrinth rituals
On each Full Moon, I liked to conduct a ceremony of 'Giving thanks to the water' inspired by a project named 'Awakening the Planetary Healer Within' that was initiated in 1990, at the North American Bioregional Congress in Maine. I'd collect four waters from the land in a ritual fashion and then place them in the center of the labyrinth while I walked. Those who joined me could add a water from their own special place if they wished. Usually I'd leave the waters there overnight under the full moon and then keep them indoors in special jars until the next full moon.
Like water, the labyrinth absorbs all that is painful, washes away all that contaminates, and makes possible all manner of renewal. The labyrinth-waters were my personal ritual and reminder of this. Here is the prayer I made up to offer as I gathered the waters and as I walked:
Oh Chalice of the Grail:
Guide me through the mists that separate.
Reveal to me the land within the land.
Free the waters of the sacred spring.
That I may wet my wisdom.
Legend has it that the Grail castle is surrounded by water and invisible to those who do not choose to see beyond what they are told about the world. Once upon a time, Maidens of the Sacred Wells gave pilgrims spiritual refreshment and a glimpse of the hidden realm of the unconscious or hidden land. My labyrinth was bordered by Spring Creek and I had no doubt that water ran below it also. It was my sacred space indeed.
The moon-water walk had a special focus that connected me with the land and the land within the land: Going in, I called on the wisdom of the land and visualized the freeing of the waters; In the center, with the waters, I offered prayers to each source; Coming out, I asked for guidance from the waters regarding the role I might play in their free flow and health. Although I am not there now, the place and the labyrinth will lie in my heart always. And, of course, I hope to create another one day!
.........................................................................................................................................................
Walk a labyrinth online: Labyrinth Pilgrimage.
To read some of the poems that were inspired by this labyrinth see the next post.
For more about aquatic bodywork and altered states of consciousness see A Return to the Water.
Inspiration for relating to rocks: Washing a rock.
