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27. To draw the central rosette, remove the plunger and the measuring rope from the center, leaving the two strings intersecting in the center. With chalk draw the six-petaled flower. Cover the chalk lines with tape.

Congratulations! You have now completed your Chartres labyrinth.

MAKING A LABYRINTH LIGHTLY

What I want new labyrinth builders to know is that you’ve got considerable freedom,” says Gretchen Schodde. “Get creative and playful. Enjoy yourself. Had I felt when I started creating labyrinths that I had to get the labyrinths technically perfect, I probably never would have created any at all.”

Schodde and her volunteer crew adapted the Chartres labyrinth to fit the irregular contours of the land at Harmony Hill, including the sloping roots of the redwood tree around which the labyrinth was designed. “We wanted to honor and accommodate the redwood at the center,” recalls Schodde. In addition, they wanted to keep the two small trees that were growing in the outer circuits of the labyrinth. “We moved the string around to widen or narrow the paths in order to incorporate tree roots and the two smaller trees when necessary. Some of the paths are not exactly two feet wide as a result, which means there’s a certain irregularity to the whole labyrinth.”

Schodde and her crew didn’t stick to the recipe. “We listened to what was needed and let go of making a technically ‘perfect’ labyrinth. What we got in return was a very powerful labyrinth that honored the sacredness of that particular place and the integrity of the trees who were there first. One of the greatest gifts of this labyrinth’s irregularity is that it seems to invite people to participate in its continuing evolution. People are always bringing stones and shells to add to its circuits. If this labyrinth had been perfectly laid out, it wouldn’t beckon people to participate in its ongoing creation in the same way.”

If you want to experiment with different ways of making a labyrinth, go for it! Outside labyrinths have been built irregularly, as at Harmony Hill, to accommodate trees, streams, and boulders. Inside labyrinths have been adapted to rectangular rooms and rooms with supporting pillars.

Remember Jean Lutz’s advice about intention, not technical perfection, being the most important ingredient in a labyrinth. Peter Wallis once made a temporary rope labyrinth for a college class. The only room available was quite narrow, and his seven-circuit labyrinth was more rectangular than round.

One of the class participants had been deeply moved the previous year while walking the beautiful labyrinth in the nave of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. She voiced her doubts to Wallis that the irregular labyrinth could have any effect on walkers, particularly herself. Wallis, having made dozens of temporary labyrinths in many challenging places, encouraged her to walk the labyrinth anyway.

“She had a very moving walk, to her great surprise. She cried all the way through the circuits,” Wallis recalls. “It was a lesson for her in looking at how rigid expectations can rob any experience of power.”

If you have the interest, aptitude, and right location to make a technically perfect labyrinth, do so. If you’re missing one of those “ingredients,” go ahead and create a labyrinth anyway. You have nothing to lose. What you have to gain is the powerful experience of creating a transformative tool and the opportunity to then use that tool in any of the ways described in Part Three.

Bon appétit!

CHAPTER SEVEN

Caring for Your Labyrinth

Taking care of the labyrinth you have created is a meditative discipline, much like the careful raking of sand in a Zen temple garden. You may also use the time for creative problem solving or practicing gratitude for the gifts the labyrinth has given you.

One suggestion is to create and care for an altar at the entrance or the center of the labyrinth. Labyrinths invite the conscious placement of altars, or sacred focal points—whether it’s a vase of flowers or something more elaborate—by their very