"Labyrinths and Other Journeys"

by Tricia Kochevar, Monterey Bay Aquarium

One of the cornerstones to the action learning adventure "Uncover Your Creative Potential and Accomplish More," will be the construction and walking of a classical, eleven circuit labyrinth. For those familiar with labyrinth lore or those who have already had opportunity to walk one of these marvelous, serpentine paths, inclusion of a labyrinth in a workshop on creativity and human potential will not come as a surprise. For the uninitiated, it may require a leap into the unknown. So, why the labyrinth? For an answer, I’ll draw from two sources: the work of Dr. Lauren Artress, who lectures and leads labyrinth workshops around the world, and my own personal experience as a labyrinth builder.

First of all, just what is a labyrinth? Perhaps the most well known example lies embedded in the floor of Chartres Cathedral. It is this same model, approximately one third of a mile long in its entirety, that we will be reconstructing at Convergence 2000. "Labyrinths are usually in the form of a circle with a meandering but purposeful path, from the edge to the center and back out again, large enough to be walked into. Each has only one path, and once we make a choice to enter it, the path becomes a metaphor for our journey through life, sending us to the center of the labyrinth and then back out to the edge on the same path . . . the labyrinth captures the essence of the medieval reality: a highly sensate world that was not plagued with so many splits between reason and imagination, thought and feeling, psyche and spirit."

"Why does the labyrinth attract people? Because it is a tool to guide healing, deepen self knowledge and empower creativity. Walking the labyrinth clears and mind and gives insight into the spiritual journey. It urges action. It calms people down in the throes of life transitions. It helps them see their lives in the context of a path, a pilgrimage. They realize that they are not human beings on a spiritual path but spiritual beings on a human path. To those of us who feel we have untapped gifts to offer, it stirs the creative fires within. To others who are in deep sorrow, the walk gives solace and peace. The experience is different for everyone because each of us brings different raw material to the labyrinth. We bring our unique hopes, dreams, history and longings of the soul."

My own answer to these questions and my own discovery of the power of the labyrinth to help us get "unstuck" in so many areas of our lives, I will relate in the form of a story:

Yesterday a neighbor phoned, asking permission to bring a friend by to walk my home grown labyrinth: " Yes, of course, feel free, any time." So it was that I pulled into the drive on a drizzly Sunday afternoon, and saw a stranger winding her way through the blue stone pathway I’d so carefully laid down in my front yard. I let her walk undisturbed, brought my groceries in from the car and went about my household business. Occasionally I’d glance from an upstairs window and smile to see two very serious, meditative looking women, standing in my oak grove, pausing for a moment here or there on their winding walk.

They stopped by the house before leaving, and we chatted there on the front deck. I answered a few questions about the labyrinth, how I came to build it, why I’d chosen its particular pattern, and more. The guest was a "labyrinth consultant" from New Zealand, in town assisting in the plan for a labyrinth construction at two local churches. Did she think it odd that I, an independent woman, took it into her head to build her own labyrinth one afternoon? And so it was that I decided to look back. Why did I build the labyrinth?

Funny that I cannot remember the nature of the crisis now, the conflict that had me so heavy hearted I could scarcely drag myself out of bed on a Tuesday morning. I had been telecommuting just a few weeks then, and the idea of playing hooky was far from my mind, but there I was "at work" in my home, eight a.m. on a weekday, unable to log onto my computer, and to take the basic steps to begin a work day. "Brain cloud," was a term used for the psychosomatic illness of the character played by Tom Hanks in the film "Joe vs. the Volcano:" he thought he was dying of a brain cloud. Yes, that was just how my brain felt: cloudy, fuzzy, dark, heavy. I could not think. And at the end of this workday, my partner would return home and expect me to talk to him, to have answers to questions I can no longer remember.

One source of wisdom in my life had been the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. There seemed such clarity in that meandering path. I could use a labyrinth on that dark morning, that was one thing I was sure of. Indeed, we’d talked of building a labyrinth, even paced out a few locations as potential sites, one of the many fond dreams of new landowners whose ten acres seemed limitless after life in the city. Labyrinth. That morning I no longer just wanted a labyrinth, I needed one. It was the only clear desire I was aware of amid that "brain cloud."

So it was that I bundled up and climbed down the hillside to a flat parcel of land, recently leveled out by a crew doing repairs to our septic system. Flat, shaded by the three Coast Live Oaks that I’d named "The Three Sisters," yes, a labyrinth could just fit there. I walked the space, paced its length, picked up a stick and drew a line. It could be done, and I had will for nothing else that day.

I began from the center of the labyrinth, what my scanty research had taught me was called the "seed pattern." I selected a few medium sized, blue-gray stones, and measured out the center cross of the pattern. I picked up a few dozen more stones, and continued, using a garden rake to measure the width of my path. More stones. The yard was full of them. My labyrinth would cost me nothing more than the sweat of my brow. I would lay its borders with the plentiful stones from my own front hillside. I hadn’t far to travel. Circle after circle, ever widening, a labyrinthine path began to emerge.

At some point, probably two or three hours into construction, my body began to ache. I thought of women who have taken on the backbreaking work of tilling fields. Not my lot. Who was it that extolled the joys of manual labor? I felt old, out of condition, tired so soon with so much work left to complete. The sun shifted position and I cast off a layer of jacket.

What did I think about as I alternately collected stones and laid them in consecutive order? Nothing. Nothing. Just stones. Back pain. If I could pick up just a few more, and a few more, one foot at a time, the path would continue. Soon I had to walk further afield to find stones. I headed down the drive with a cardboard box for a repository. Each trip became an agony of bending, bending again, the collecting worse than the laying of the stones, for there at least I could see my progress. Was it an option to throw in the towel, lay down for a much-craved nap? No. I knew that if I did not finish my work that day, I would never finish it. It was the creation of the labyrinth itself, my labor of Hercules, which was my penance and salvation. I was working out my problem, my question, my destiny, just as I would have tried to walk it out had I had a completed labyrinth available.

I remember the hummingbirds. They filled the "Three Sisters" and often whirred close overhead on their trips to a feeder I’d hung from the front deck. They didn’t seem to mind my intrusion. Always busy. Bonny Doon, my ever-inquisitive cat, joined in. She napped on the emerging path, sniffed her way into my box of stones, or followed me in my collecting excursions. She was the right sort of company, but no help of course. The impressions of that day’s labor remain clear: birdsong, shifting shadows, a welcome breeze on the back of my neck, the melody of the river, and always the feel of silky, blue stones in my palm.

It was late afternoon when I laid the last stone in place. The sun was low on the horizon. I could now stand at the entrance of my labyrinth, gaze at the symmetry of the blue gray stones, feel a distant appreciation for the work of my hands. And so, at last, I could also lay my question to the labyrinth and walk out my problem, clear my mind of the "brain cloud."

What do I remember of the first walk? Fatigue. I believe I have never walked a labyrinth more slowly. I stood at its center, and felt the afternoon shadows through the leaves of the Three Sisters, felt myself to be in a dizzying sort of a space, that suddenly I could place my small plot in the Cachagua wilderness into the larger scheme of the turning globe. Dizzy. Yes, I felt dizzy and I felt tired. I waited, not really expecting much. Truly, I’d known when I began my walk that it was the act of creating the labyrinth, not this walk itself, that was the wisdom giver. What was the question I asked on my first labyrinth journey? I no longer remember, but I think the answer must have rung something like, "Just open up and discover what is already there." The answer, as always, lies within and not without.

And today, with a different question to walk out on the labyrinth, I return to my office expanded by my walk, feeling creative, feeling renewed. I remember. In seeing my labyrinth through the eyes of a stranger, Sunday’s visitor, I am given its gift anew. Yes, I made this, without cost, without assistance, I decided to build it, and so it was built. To the question I pondered on today’s labyrinth walk, the response whispered in my ear is "Remember the labyrinth. This, too, you already know. What you built here with your hands you can also build with your life. " Courage.

"Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves . . . don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live with the questions now. Perhaps . . . you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

"Labyrinths are usually in the form . . ." Dr. Lauren Artress, "Walking a Sacred Path," Riverhead Books, New York, 1995, pages xii - xiii

"Why does the labyrinth attract people?" ." Dr. Lauren Artress, "Walking a Sacred Path," Riverhead Books, New York, 1995, pages 20 - 21

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