Monday, October 15, 2012

Labyrinths (chapter 4, page 56)

A labyrinth is mentioned on page 56 of Christianity for the Rest of Us by Diana Butler Bass.  An unnamed woman walks a labyrinth in a meadow:
"I went to a beautiful meadow at the camp.  My group leader suggested that I walk a labyrinth.  And so I walked.  I saw a rock on the ground that said 'Trust.'  I kept walking and I saw a rock on the ground that said 'Be Brave.'  I started sobbing as I walked.  I started saying to myself, 'It is going to be all right now.  It is going to be all right now.'   I realized as I walked that this was related to my loss of my church life when I was a girl."
The woman felt that things had been made whole that had been broken in her life and that God spoke to her through the rocks. I read that, but didn't pick up on "labyrinths" until Shirley left this comment today:
"I'd first heard of current day labyrinths by reading an article in a quilting magazine. They do sound like a good meditation place unless one would wind up with a fear of getting lost or falling (two things that I do far too frequently)."

Has anybuddy besides me ever walked a labyrinth?  You can't get lost in modern-day labyrinths.  Mazes are what you get lost in, not labyrinths, which have only one way to go.  I first walked a labyrinth three years ago, one which was a few blocks from my home at the time.  It was tiny, as you can see by these two photos I took for my blog post.  I wanted to try it because I had read Barbara Brown Taylor's 2009 book An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith.  Her experience was nothing like the one from our book (described at the top of this post).  Here's her report from pages 57-58 in that book:
"The first thing I noticed was that I resented following a set path. where was the creativity in that? Why couldn't there be more than one way to go? The second thing I noticed was how much I wanted to step over the stones when they did not take me directly to the center. Who had time for all those switchbacks, with the destination so clearly in sight? The third thing I noticed was that reaching the center was no big deal. The view from there was essentially the same as the view from the start. My only prize was the heightened awareness of my own tiresome predictability.

"I thought about calling it a day and going over to pat the horses, but since I predictably follow the rules even while grousing about them, I turned around to find my way out of the labyrinth again. Since I had already been to the center, I was not focused on getting there anymore. Instead, I breathed in as much of the pine smell as I could, sucking in the smell of sun and warm stones along with it. When I breathed out again, I noticed how soft the pine needles were beneath my feet. I saw the small mementos left by those who had preceded me on the path: a cement frog, a rusted horseshoe, a stone freckled with shiny mica. I noticed how much more I notice when I am not preoccupied with getting somewhere."
My experience was nothing like either of these women.  The one I walked took maybe five minutes, because I hurried to finish before a man with a loud mower at the church got closer to the corner where the labyrinth is located.  Read about it on my blog.  (I need to go back to that chuch and try it again.)

I googled and found other labyrinths to give you an idea of the usual size for a labyrinth.  This link shows several labyrinths, including the one shown here with all these school children.  My favorite photo is the one at the top of this post, which shows a labyrinth I'd like to walk.  It's the only one I found that goes around a tree, and I like the idea of a place in the center to sit and contemplate.

The most famous labyrinth is probably the one inside Chartres Cathedral in France.  Try "walking" this photo with your fingers, entering from the top of the picture, and you'll see how it switches back and forth.  This one below shows people walking in Chartres Cathedral, from Wikipedia, so you can see the size of it.

(If you click on a picture two or three times, you'll see more details.  Click any of these links to see other photos and read more about the labyrinths.)

NOTE:  See also what Bonnie wrote about Labyrinths on her book blog on October 20, 2012.

12 comments:

Shirley said...

Thanks for sharing your labyrinth experiences. I smiled when I read the impatience of taking the long route when one could get to the center much more directly and yet the desire to follow the rules kept you on the path. It looks like there is a big variety of labyrinths from humble to more elaborate. I googled and found that there are some labyrinths within 50 miles of my home so that is something I may give a try sometime.

Bonnie Jacobs said...

The impatient one was Barbara Brown Taylor (I should go back and mark the three examples better). When I walked the teensy-tiny labyrinth behind the Episcopal church in the city, it was the middle of the week and a man was there to cut the nearby grass. He asked me something about whether "we" were having a wedding soon (no idea, since I had no connection with that church), and I hurried through the labyrinth once he turned on the loud mower before he came closer to the labyrinth. It was not exactly a quiet time of meditation!

Shirley said...

If I give a labyrinth a try, I hope I don't have such background noise!

caboose said...

Labyrinth to me means a puzzle, interconnecting like the inner ear everything needs to work or you can not hear. A path to and end a place to think, ponder your thoughts, be alone allow your body to relax, hear your body breath.For me to do this took years of practice.

Shirley said...

Caboose, is this something that you are able to do with the labyrinth or are you able to focus like this without one? Your definition of the labyrinth made their usage quite desirable even with the warning that it takes years of practice to achieve this.

Bonnie Jacobs said...

Shirley said...

Caboose, is this something that you are able to do with the labyrinth or are you able to focus like this without one?

Caboose said...

I worked at th City of Hope in California back in the "80" They have a garden that you can wonder around in, seats to sit on, a quiet place to be still with your thoughts and feelings. I found that to be a good place for me to think, cry and deal with my anger. In the years past ,I have found my way of dealing with emotions is to write a letter to someone I trust, once that letter is written addressed stamped and placed on the mantle my mind is freed of the emotion. Trust me when I say it took me a year doing this writing about everything that flowed through my mind from what do I fix for dinner or how can I deal with a discussting situation.

Bonnie said...

Caboose sent this to me in an email, and I assume she wanted her comment to be posted.

alisonwonderland said...

When I saw the comments on this post come to me via email, I assumed that I'd not yet read about the labyrinth - but now that I've read the actual post, I do remember that passage. Like Bonnie, I hadn't clued in on "labyrinth" - I must have been just thinking about the rocks. :)

I've heard that there is a small labyrinth at an Episcopal Church near the bed-and-breakfast in southern Utah we stay at every summer on vacation. I've been intrigued by the idea - and now I'm motivated to visit it next summer!

Bonnie Jacobs said...

Donna (AuntyDon) and I walked a labyrinth today, and I wrote about it on my book blog:

http://bonniesbooks.blogspot.com/2012/10/labyrinths.html

Zorro said...

labyrinth locator!

http://labyrinthlocator.com/locate-a-labyrinth?state=TX&simple_results=no&action=locate&offset=140

Bonnie Jacobs said...

I've found a link to more labyrinth photos:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/13/labyrinths-photos_n_4326303.html

My friend Jan, who posted this on Facebook, added: "And there is a beautiful wooden labyrinth here in Corpus Christi, TX--at All Saints Episcopal Church!"

Shirley said...

Quite the variety!

Bonnie Jacobs said...

Rachel Held Evans wrote about labyrinths, here:

http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/searching-for-sunday-labyrinth