World Labyrinth Day

Wisdom Ways Labyrinth, Saint Paul, Minnesota, April 2009, photo © 2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.


It’s the first Saturday in May. Happy May Day weekend! Hope you got out and enjoyed World Labyrinth Day, “a global event intended to bring people from all over the planet together in celebration of the labyrinth as a symbol, a tool, a passion or a practice.” A few weeks ago, two of our friends began building a labyrinth in their front yard. I told them to be sure and document the process and to register their labyrinth at World-Wide Labyrinth Locator.

World Labyrinth Day is designed to inform and educate the public, host walks, build labyrinths, make labyrinth art and more. Part of the celebration is to invite others to “Walk as One at 1,” setting off a rolling wave of labyrinth walking as the Earth turns by walking at 1:00 p.m. in your local time zone. In Minneapolis, Central Lutheran Church had their doors open to walk their labyrinth from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

The labyrinth in the photograph is the Wisdom Ways Labyrinth near the Carondelet Center at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Carondelet Center, built in 1912, is a stately brick Beaux Art landmark that originally served as the Novitiate for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. A few years ago, I walked the labyrinth there over the course of a year, a practice in all seasons, rain or shine. In April, I returned to walk after a long absence. It felt like coming home.

Here’s what the Wisdom Ways Center for Spirituality says about the Wisdom Ways Labyrinth:

You are invited to experience an ancient walking meditation by walking our outdoor 77-foot diameter replica of the labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral in France. Walking the labyrinth is an ancient spiritual act and a physical meditation that has been rediscovered in our time. Anyone from any tradition or spiritual path can walk into the labyrinth and, through reflecting in the present moment, benefit.

The pattern of this labyrinth is a replica of the great 42-foot labyrinth embedded in stone within the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France, southwest of Paris. There is evidence that the Chartres labyrinth was first installed between 1194 and 1220. It was used in sacred devotion to take the place of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for those unable to make the actual trip. The center is the goal and is shaped like a six petal flower.

A labyrinth is an ancient circular pattern found in many cultures around the world. In its classical form, this sacred path has one concentric circular path with no possibility of going astray – unlike a maze, there are no dead-ends or false trails in a labyrinth. Labyrinths have been found in almost every spiritual tradition in the past 4000-5000 years in such areas as Egypt, Greece, Italy, France, England, Sweden, Peru and North America.

Red Converse All-Star Walks Labyrinth, Carondelet Center, Labyrinth Bench Press, Circle Bench, Saint Paul, Minnesota, April 2009, photos © 2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

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-posted on red Ravine, World Labyrinth Day, May 2nd, 2009 with gratitude to Lesley for alerting us to World Labyrinth Day

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Labyrinth Walker

I walked the labyrinth yesterday. It was 83 degrees in the Twin Cities on a March 26th. Shirts were off, motorcycles tuned, potholes exposed. The temperature threw me. Three weeks ago, we were knee deep in the worst blizzard in 25 years.

I took off my Land’s End quilted moccasins, stripped off my wool socks, rolled up my pant cuffs, and started walking. The cool mud under my feet grounded me. Twenty minutes to the center. Fifteen minutes out.

The journey out is always faster. I don’t know why.

I sat at the center of 6 lotus drops with undefined edges. Growing blades of grass mark the petals in other seasons. But we are only a few days on this side of Spring.

I wrote haiku into a Supergirl pocket tablet with the new Space Pen Liz gave me last week. And then I plopped on my back, legs straight out, and stared at the sky. The moon was backlit against a crisp New Mexico blue. I snapped a few photographs from my position on the ground. I had a thought of David Bowie – planet earth to moon, planet earth to moon.

I was thinking about my step-mother in South Carolina as I walked. She’s been sick, bedridden for some time. My brother called from Pennsylvania on Sunday to tell me that my step-dad wanted me to know – her time may be short. I prayed for her as I walked. But if it is her time to let go, I prayed for the strength it would take to surrender.

With the cool earth at my back, in the center of 41 feet of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet labyrinth, my brother called on the cell. I had forgotten to turn it off. I debated whether or not to answer it. But I knew what he was calling about. So I flipped open the phone.

I told him where I was. He smiled; I could hear it in his voice. We talked for only a few minutes. But the connection felt true.

I sat a few minutes longer, observing a twisted shadow in the distance across the lawn. The walk out moved quickly. I stepped. I wrote. I swerved out of the lines to let a woman pass on the rutted path. She nodded and whispered, “Thank you.”

Each toe dropped to the earth in tune. I can’t tell you how good it felt to have bare feet on earth. In the space between winter and spring, I had both feet firmly planted on the ground. It was the first time in weeks.

Tuesday, March 27th, 2007

-related to post, Labyrinth

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