Exploring the Labyrinth_ A Guide for Healing and Spiritual Growth - Melissa Gayle West [25]
A canvas seven-circuit labyrinth created by Neal and Mary Harris.
Don’t just ask the spirits of the land. Ask the to-be-made labyrinth, as well. “After you have determined where the labyrinth is to be built,” suggests Neal Harris, builder of the Earth Wisdom Labyrinth, “ask the labyrinth which direction it wants to open to, so that it’s in harmony with nature and the land. I feel it’s extremely important to tune in to where the labyrinth itself wants to be situated. Labyrinths know where they want—and need—to be.”
Other makers suggest lining up the quarters of the labyrinth with the compass points of the four directions, the entrance to the labyrinth facing east. Mary Ellen Johnson and the volunteer building crew at Unity Church of Bellevue decided to orient the labyrinth so that when a walker entered the labyrinth he or she would be facing the exact place where the sun rose on Summer Solstice. “We called Jeff Renner, our local weatherman,” says Johnson, “and asked him for the coordinates of Summer Solstice sunrise. Then we found a surveyor who located those coordinates on the land we had set aside for the labyrinth.”
Walking Robert Ferré’s canvas seven-circuit labyrinth at St. Luke’s Hospital, St. Louis, Missouri.
If you’re creating an indoor labyrinth, take time to sit quietly in the middle of the room you’ve chosen. Orient yourself to the space. Imagine the earth underneath the building, no matter how far off the ground the room is situated. Ask permission of the earth beneath you to build a labyrinth.
No matter where and what kind of labyrinth you build, once you’ve made the decision to create a labyrinth, begin to relate to it as a real being, even though it is not yet “birthed.” “After experiencing the incredible way the Earth Wisdom Labyrinth was pushing me before it was even built, it became so obvious to me that these labyrinths have a life of their own,” recalls Neal Harris. “The labyrinth wouldn’t let me alone during the time it took to build it. When I tried to meditate, questions kept coming up: Do you want to use this type of rock, or that type? The labyrinth definitely wanted to be birthed. I wasn’t a reluctant birth mother, but I was definitely a hardworking birth mother!”
After moving into a new home, I dreamed one night about a labyrinth on the lawn sloping down to Thornton Creek. In the dream I watched the labyrinth’s circuits, made of liquid light, flowing to the center like water. I woke up knowing that I had been given marching orders by Spirit to build a labyrinth, not just for my family’s personal and professional use but to bring light and coherence to a house and property that often surged with chaotic energies.
The Peace Labyrinth at Unity Church of Bellevue, Washington.
As I explored for several days what sort of labyrinth to build, I was astonished to feel the near-constant presence of this labyrinth beside and within me. Like Neal, I felt almost pregnant with the labyrinth-to-be. It was not some theoretical blueprint; it was a living, breathing reality, waiting to be birthed in my backyard.
If you feel stuck in any stage of the decision-making process, from clarifying the intention all the way through deciding how to consecrate it, try asking the labyrinth itself for input. You may find that it has definite ideas to share with you!
The author in a temporary rope labyrinth in Seattle, Washington.
CONSECRATING THE SPACE
Consecrate the space, and the construction process itself, before you begin building the labyrinth. You can do this in many ways, from a simple prayer to an elaborate ceremony.
Mary Ellen Johnson and her crew at Unity Church of Bellevue held a ground blessing ceremony before beginning construction. They sang favorite songs, after which they blessed the ground with water from the Jordan River. Johnson felt that the consecration was a very important part