Exploring the Labyrinth_ A Guide for Healing and Spiritual Growth - Melissa Gayle West [26]
When I decided to build a labyrinth, I sited it on the lawn behind our house. Before my friend Peter and I began laying down the rope, I sat in the center of the labyrinth-to-be and meditated. I called down light from the heavens and grounding stability up from the earth, visualizing the energies meeting and forming a vortex of light centered over the entire property. As this vortex tightened I watched it gather and integrate the irregular energies on the property that had so disturbed Peter and me. I witnessed in wonder the energy of the land and house flowing into, and becoming integrated with, this coherent pattern of light.
The vortex tightened after integrating the chaotic energies present and moved down into the space marked for the labyrinth. As it did so the light shifted from the spiral of the vortex into the circuits of the labyrinth, resembling the original dream image of currents of light flowing through the labyrinth into the center. Peter and I were planning another sort of consecration, but after this spontaneous meditation we realized that the blessing had already occurred.
Alex Champion says a small prayer he has developed over the years before breaking ground for construction of a new earth labyrinth. “We ask that God look upon this job with blessing and love. We ask that the people who work on this job do so without injury. We also ask that all the local spirits who are God’s agents be here to support and advise us during the job. We ask especially that Mother Earth be present and bless the materials that are being used. We ask that the energy that comes in as this symbol is being made be of the highest and purest type and stay as long as at least 50 percent of this structure is still here. We ask that any energy present here now or in the future that isn’t of the highest type be transformed and recycled by the spirits present. We ask that all experiences of all who use this labyrinth be for their highest good.”
Take some time to think about how you’d like to articulate your intention for the labyrinth in the consecration. You also can include, as Champion does, a prayer for all the walkers-to-be and a thank-you to the spirits of that particular place for allowing you to build your labyrinth.
Spirit, I’m convinced, graciously acknowledges any consecration; what is important is that it is done. Gretchen Schodde and I wanted to make a seven-circuit labyrinth on the floor of a community building at Harmony Hill before a cancer retreat so that participants could have a dry walk in our rainy Northwest winter. The labyrinth’s construction, though, was delayed for over a month due to workmen insulating the building and installing a new heater under the floor.
We were finally left with just an hour one Saturday morning to create the labyrinth before I had to take a ferry back to Seattle. We worked as a team: Gretchen placed the first pieces of tape to mark the labyrinth as I said prayers at each of the four directions and the center of the labyrinth. I called upon the qualities represented by each of the four directions, and corresponding elements of earth, air, fire, and water, to be present in the labyrinth and bless all walkers with groundedness, perspective and insight, passion and creativity, and healing. Gretchen added her prayers for each direction out loud as she worked. Finally I stood at the center and asked that the love and transformational energies of the Sacred move through and heal all who walked the labyrinth, particularly the ten participants coming later in the week for the retreat.
When I finished I thanked Spirit for understanding the slight ass-backwardness of consecrating the space while we were actually making the labyrinth. I got the impression of a large cosmic grin and a sense of approval that I was learning flexibility.