Exploring the Labyrinth_ A Guide for Healing and Spiritual Growth - Melissa Gayle West [22]
2. Refer to Figure 4.1H. Notice that the center of the labyrinth is not in the exact geometrical center. Due to the way the labyrinth is constructed, its top “half” is larger than its bottom “half.” The center of the labyrinth you’re making, where you’ll draw the seed pattern, is not in the center of the grid you have drawn. To find the starting place for your seed pattern, mark off an area 15 units across by 14 vertical units. Count down 10 units from the top, 7 units from the left side, and 8 units from the right. This is the starting point for your seed pattern.
3. Draw an equal-armed cross here (two units for each arm), and add the right angles and dots as you did when you drew the seed pattern. Draw the labyrinth as you did on paper.
4. When you have drawn the labyrinth, find Figure 4.2. Secure the end of the rope at point B with glue. Lay down a line of glue and place the rope on the glue until you come to the end of that line at point D. Cut the rope, and put a little glue on the end to prevent fraying.
5. Lay down the next length of rope beginning at point A, continuing until you intersect at point E with the previously laid down rope. Cut the rope so that the end lies flush at a right angle against the previously laid down rope, then pick up again with a new piece right on the other side of the same rope at point F. Continue with this rope until you reach the end at point C.
If you make your walls from beads or shells, simply place them along the lines, making sure they fit well before gluing.
FIGURE 4.2 FINGER LABYRINTH
6. You’ve done it! Let the glue dry. Repeat the meditation from the beginning of this section on making finger labyrinths, using the labyrinth you’ve just made instead of a paper labyrinth, and then decorate the labyrinth any way you’d like.
Before you “walk” it for the first time, read the section in Chapter 5 on dedicating a labyrinth. It’s fun to dedicate finger labyrinths as well as larger ones, and I believe doing so draws in additional energy and power for you to work with on subsequent “walks.”
Remember, as you read the rest of the book, that you can use your finger labyrinth for any of the ways suggested for walking, and working with, the labyrinth. Even if you decide to make your own large labyrinth, you can return, as I do, to your finger labyrinth for the same purposes as the larger labyrinth, when you are constrained by weather, time of day, or amount of time available.
Now that you “gnow” the labyrinth, you may find that the idea of your own larger labyrinth—either as a permanent part of your house or garden or as part of time spent outdoors at a park or on a hike—seems more possible, and more intriguing. Even if you don’t have immediate plans to build a larger labyrinth, I encourage you to read the next two chapters.
CHAPTER FIVE
Creating a Walking Labyrinth
I don’t know how to build a labyrinth. How could I possibly do that?” People who have never built a labyrinth often ask Jean Lutz this question, hands thrown up in helplessness.
“Making a labyrinth isn’t magic,” replies Lutz, editor of The Labyrinth Letter. “It’s a lot easier than you think. Just do it.”
Give yourself permission to have “beginner’s mind,” creating a labyrinth in the spirit of adventure and love. Allow plenty of leeway to experiment, make mistakes, and enjoy and learn from the process of building a labyrinth. As Lutz emphasizes, what is most important is not technical perfection but your desire to make a labyrinth and the quality of attention and consciousness you bring to the process itself.
Gretchen Schodde, who has built three labyrinths at Harmony Hill and helped construct many others, compares building a labyrinth for the first time to trying a new exotic recipe made with unfamiliar ingredients. “When you try a new recipe,” says Schodde, “you prepare yourself to