Have you ever walked a labyrinth?
Composite image from two photos of the Mizmaze on Breamore Down, Hampshire. Photo by Jim Champion.
Have you ever tried walking a single-track path, a labyrinth laid out between low shrubs, or one outlined in mosaic on a medieval cathedral floor?
I have, and what a mind-wonder it was. A labyrinth is different from a maze. A maze is an exasperating puzzle with blind alleys and dead ends, but in a labyrinth there is only one way in to the center and one way out.
Mazes include choices of path and direction, and may have multiple entrances and exits, and dead ends, like Henry VIII’s high hedges in the garden at Hampton Court Palace, that used to dismay courtiers, to Henry’s delight. Harry Potter gets attacked by a morphing and menacing maze of towering shrubs in the final trial in the Goblet of Fire.
A true labyrinth has only a single, non-branching path, that leads to the center and then back out. It represents a journey to our own center and back again out into the world. Daedalus the legendary inventor was said to have created the first one for Minos, King of Crete, to imprison the Minotaur at the palace at Knossos.
Maze or labyrinth – the two words are often interchanged - both are ancient designs that have been revived today and can be found all over the world, from Japan, where Labyrinth Techno Festivals are celebrated at misty mountain retreats, to India where a 2,000-year old one cut into stone was discovered along an ancient trade route.
Labyrinths are ancient symbols that relate to wholeness. They combine the imagery of the circle and the spiral into a meandering but purposeful path. Labyrinths have long been used as meditation and prayer tools, walking a spiritual journey.
Why not a labyrinth in Downey? After this virus tragedy concludes, we will need so many ways to heal.
Building a labyrinth in the natural setting of a park in Downey would add a meditative quality to one’s exercise, to say the least.
I saw such a labyrinth from my hotel window in, of all places, Cancun, at the Aventura Spa Palace Hotel, a romantic adults-only resort. Walking it was part of the spa experience, to cleanse the mind as well as the body, so I tried it.
A labyrinth in Cancun, with the walker at left. Photo by Lorine Parks
To follow a labyrinth, I found, you have to give up the right to make choices, because there are none. The path is so intricately plotted that you cannot guess how long or short the arc you are on will be. You take it on faith that you will arrive at the center.
Imagine knowing that those sparkling turquoise Caribbean waters, warmed by the Gulf Stream are just a soft sandy beach away. But you don’t look up and enjoy the scenery, because the path has a design of its own which you cannot see when you’re on it. Walking it takes the paradoxical combination of concentration and relaxation.
Parts of the path sweep around the perimeter and others turn abruptly after only a few paces and return in the opposite direction. For how long? One never knows. One is mindful only of one’s steps on the path.
To follow it sets the mind entirely free and at the end of the 15-minute stroll, problems seem to have sorted themselves out. What seemed important no longer matters. Trivial details become beautiful.
There is only one way in, but you cannot see where the pattern goes, beyond the entry, even with the bird’s eye view from above. You have to experience it to get to the center, and the journey itself is the goal. Such a labyrinth offers the great gift of making it easier to set aside the time to look inward.
Contrary to any preconception, a labyrinth is not just a decorative feature, but one that is meant to be walked on and experienced, first with the feet and then with the mind and spirit.
The labyrinth that is one of the landscape features of my resort hotel in Cancun is only available to those staying at the resort. It’s a modified version of the labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral, made of brick pavers and stone inlay.
The prototype of many of these is a little over 42 feet in diameter and embedded in the mosaic floor of Chartres Cathedral in France, where it was probably laid early in the first decade of the 13th century, c.1201-1205. Travel tip: when chairs are set up for services, it is hidden. Go when the floor is cleared and pilgrims arrive. Open every Friday from 10am to 5pm, from Lent until All Saints' Day.
Walking the labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral. Photo by Wikipedia user Maksim/Creative Commons
Notre Dame de Chartres is one of my favorite churches in France, with its massive green copper roof, and famous mismatched bell towers, one Romanesque, one lacy Gothic. It dominates the wheat fields of the plains. About 65 miles southwest of Paris, Chartres is also one of those points on the globe where magnetic forces are said to converge.
Worth a visit from Paris, and gateway to the Loire. Chartres is the most important market town in the Beauce, the breadbasket of France. Once a Celtic stronghold, the city was burned by the Normans in 858, and later was held by the counts of Blois. On Sunday, 27 February 1594, the cathedral of Chartres was the site of the coronation of Henry IV after he converted to the Catholic faith, the only king of France whose coronation ceremony was not performed in Reims.
Notre Dame de Chartres is also known for its 13th century stained glass windows and the famous and unique blue, bleu de Chartres of the glass, matched today only by Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. In World War II, the city suffered heavy damage by bombing and during the battle of Chartres in August 1944, its cathedral was spared by an American Army officer who challenged the order to destroy it.
In Amiens, in Picardy, the labyrinth of Notre Dame d’Amiens Cathedral is the second largest in France, being slightly smaller than its cousin in Chartres. The labyrinth dates from 1288 and occupies the entire width of the fourth and fifth bays of the nave. It has the same path arrangement, but Chartres is round and Amiens is octagonal.
Here in Laguna Niguel, California, there is an oval brick labyrinth atop the municipal park, that features intertwined branches, and red bougainvillea at the center. There is a Labyrinth at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Fullerton, and a Peace Garden and Labyrinth at Unity Church in Tustin. One made of stone stands by the ocean at the Neighborhood Church, 415 Paseo del Mar in Palos Verdes Estates.
Mexico is rich in labyrinths, and her foremost writer, Octavio Paz, is famous for "The Labyrinth of Solitude," a beautifully written and deeply felt discourse on Mexico's quest for identity.
At the Ecoparque San Pedro, 65 kilometers from Mexico City, stands an enormous labyrinth planted with 38,000 evergreen cedar bushes, covering an area of 10,000 m. It’s in a private garden seen only by appointment. Designed by Edgardo Pinon Garcia, admission is 100 Mexican pesos.
At the Buscadores de Sabiduria, a Conference Center in Zapopan, is an indoor replica of the Chartres pattern on canvas, a pocket labyrinth only 11 meters by 11 meters. Local churches here too, from Pasadena to San Gabriel, have canvas-painted labyrinths.
Smaller still is an installation in Puebla, a 3-Circuit Heart Design made of rocks only 12 by 12 feet: “Puebla se conoce como el Ciudad de Angels y el labyrinth es un laberinto del Angel de los ninos es clasico de siete circuitos con un angel en el diseno.“ Puebla is known as the City of Angels and the labyrinth has an angel in the design.
There’s one in Mexico that takes up only 30 feet, and is painted on concrete and landscaped, at the Montessori de Lantinoamerica. By contrast, Christ the King Church here in Torrance has a beautiful outdoor labyrinth and prayer garden open daily dawn to dusk, and a Himalayan Slate indoor labyrinth open Monday through Friday by appointment.
Downey could build a labyrinth, in stone and shrubbery, in one of our beautiful green parks. As a project, it’s inexpensive and doable. Would it catch on? As the mysterious voice whispers in Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.”