This afternoon I’m speaking at 2:00 at the Lovetsville Library in Lovettsville, Virginia, so I don’t have time to insert photos before I leave. Hence, lots of links, which I can do the night before. <G>
This post is a result of the Novelists, Inc. onference in San Diego last week. Ninc ( www.ninc.com ) is a a group of multi-published authors of popular fiction, and the conference is laidback, professional, and very enlightening. Jo, Pat, and I attended this year.
On Thursday before the conference started, half a dozen of us decided to visit the famous San Diego zoo, and we also wanted to walk the labyrinth at a nearby church. With Jo’s permission, here is her delightful chronicle of the event, which she posted on the Ninc loop:
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“Two intrepid Ninc members DID find the labyrinth, after the rest of the wimps took a taxi home.<G> (Note from MJP: I was one of the wimps. I plead jetlag. <G>)
There were maze-like elements, because finding it was a challenge!
St. Paul's Cathedral was unknown to taxi drivers and none of us had thought to do anything so clever as print out a googlemap, so our plan to stop there en route to the zoo didn't work. Someone at the zoo eventually, with great effort, figured it out and marked it on a map, but as it would have meant walking back aways, we all continued on through the zoo. Later, much later, after an enjoyable day, we returned to the taxi rank and decisions.
Most just made a dash for the ride, but Julia Ross ( http://www.juliaross.net/ ) and I (the redoubtable British representatives, you'll note) set off to walk out of Balboa Park, map in hand. We even, in typically English style, managed a dash across a four-lane road and arrived triumphantly -- 20 minutes after it officially closed.
Girding our loins with the spirit that made the Empire, we found an open door and explored, finally meeting a lovely sexton who basically said, to heck with the pettifogging rules, here you go, ma'ams. We tipped our virtual pith helmets and were left alone in a large church hall with a large labyrinth painted on the tile floor.
At which point Julia admitted she'd never walked a labyrinth. To be honest, she seemed a bit dubious about the reward for her endeavors. But I set off, and ever game, she started in after me. In the end, she pronounced herself pleased.
It was great because the size gave lots of turns -- and I think it's that, the switching from left to right sides of the brain that has the effect -- though the actual paths were narrow. Julia and I were brushing when we passed and if a lot of people were walking, it could get awkward.
When we emerged, enlightened and transported, we decided we needed more mundane transportation. Which looked likely to be a trick unless we tracked down our friendly sexton again and asked for a phone and phone book.
But the British didn't get an empire for nothing, you know. Julia found
something in her bag with the hotel phone number on it and I found my cell
phone. The concierge agreed to dispatch a cab, and we made it back, weary but triumphant.
Rule Britannia!
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Thanks, Jo! I adore labyrinths—my contemporary romance, The Spiral Path, is named for a labyrinth that was part of the hero’s healing journey, as well a metaphor for the complexity of the characters’ lives and relationship. ( http://tinyurl.com/2rjd7x ) )
I first became acquainted with labyrinths when my author friend Ciji Ware (http://www.rightsizingyourlife.com/ ), who was living in San Francisco at the time, marched us up the hill to Grace Cathedral after dinner and we walked the labyrinth. There is something immensely soothing about the process—right and left brain being balanced, as Jo said.
Intrigued, I did some research and found that originally the words labyrinth and maze were used interchangeably, but these days, “maze” is usually used for walkways surrounded by towering hedges with dead ends and an intention to confuse. The famous maze at Hampton Court in England has a man on a platform in the middle to tell baffled tourists how to find their way out. <g>
A labyrinth, in contrast, is generally two dimensional and has a distinct pathway through. You follow the path in to the center, and from there you follow another pathway out. The route swings you around so that you can be close to the center and not reach it, then become headed off to the perimeter again. Rather like life, which is why walking a labyrinth is such a meditative experience. Here’s a Wikipedia description that will probably tell you more than you really want to know about labyrinths <g>: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth
It turns out that Grace Cathedral in San Francisco is central to the current revival of interest in labyrinths. Some medieval cathedrals had labyrinths inside. People who couldn’t make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem (which most couldn’t), could walk the cathedral labyrinth on their knees, praying all the way. (And those stone floors were hard!)
I can’t find my book on the subject offhand, but if I recall correctly, several people from Grace Cathedral went to Chartres in France, couldn’t find anyone to give them permission, so they moved the chairs and rugs and copied the pattern, then took it back to San Francisco. More on Grace Cathedral and its labyrinths: http://www.gracecathedral.org/labyrinth/
Now there are labyrinths everywhere, usually at churches. There are also portable labyrinths on canvas rolls so they can be moved around. To find one near you, check the Labyrinth Locator: http://www.veriditas.net/
While the labyrinth was central to The Spiral Path, I included mazes in a couple of historicals. In Dearly Beloved, the villain tries to hunt the heroine down in a maze so he can kill her. (I visited Hampton Court’s maze for the research. It was easy to imagine skullduggery there! http://www.tourist-information-uk.com/hampton-court.htm ) And in Silk and Shadows, the hero and heroine find some privacy in the center of a maze.
Jo also developed an interest in labyrinths and mazes when she was writing (the RITA winning) Devilish with the Daedalus metaphor. “Of course, Daedalus's labyrinth was a maze, so it brings up that ambiguity.”
One of Jo’s favorite mazes is here: http://sistersofsaintanne.org/bc/photo10.htm She’ll walk it again when it dries out. (Which can be a challenge in British Columbia. <G>)
I’m lucky to have a labyrinth within two miles of my home. Here is one that we usually walk every New Year’s Day, after attending an annual open house given by friends who live nearby: http://www.bonsecours.org/bssc/catalogue/Labyrinth.htm It’s an amazingly lovely and peaceful site, a retreat center that used to be a convent.
How many of you have experienced labyrinths? Tell me some of your labyrinth experiences. And if you haven’t—have we whetted your appetite to seek one out?
Mary Jo & Jo
From Sherrie:
Mary Jo, I adore labyrinths and mazes! (And Jo, I roared with laughter over your heroic endeavors to reach the labyrinth at St. Paul's cathedral, only to arrive 20 minutes after it had closed!)
Thanks for including all the links, Mary Jo. I used the labyrinth finder link to locate two labyrinths close to me (well, within 40 miles). They are both in Tukwila, WA, and today I just happen to be going to a booksigning in Tukwila for Gerri Russell (who won RT's American Title II contest). Unfortunately, it is raining cats and dogs, but I may scope out the locations of the 2 labyrinths for visiting in better weather.
One of these years I am going to lay out a labyrinth in my large back yard. I live on a farm, and the back yard faces the woods and pasture, so it will be very peaceful.
Posted by: Sherrie Holmes | Saturday, March 24, 2007 at 12:03 PM
I confess I'm not crazy about mazes...the whole time I'm in one I long for a chain saw to cut my way out. I think I could walk around a flat circle, though. That seems very contemplative. There is a huge corn maze in the shape of a lobster not too far away (What can I say? I live in Maine), but I'm not tempted for one minute to walk through it. Scarred forever by Children of the Corn.
Posted by: Maggie Robinson | Saturday, March 24, 2007 at 12:58 PM
I know I've been in some mazes -- I've been in the Hampton Court one, for example -- but I'm not sure the idea appeals to be at all now. Not fear, but a "what's the point" attitude. I must be getting old. *G*
I think part of the power of a labyrinth is that it is completely by choice. It would be extremely easy to cross to another path or just walk out. We accept the constraint, even welcome it, which to me is a lot like writing a book.
Unless we accept its natural pattern and go with it, it doesn't work. For me, at least. Does that make sense to anyone?
Jo
Posted by: Jo Beverley | Saturday, March 24, 2007 at 03:53 PM
From MJP:
Sherrie, I'm glad you were able to find an accessible maze with the locator. They're all over the place now, and definitely worth a try.
>>There is a huge corn maze in the shape of a lobster not too far away (What can I say? I live in Maine),>>
LOL! I love how regional such things are. In Maryland, it would be a crab maze. In fact, I think there might be one.
Like Jo, I'd now be inclined to wonder "why bother" if another maze presented itself, but I like labyrinths. I don't know if it's a matter of surrendering to the pattern so much as it is unwinding tension by balancing the brain. Peaceful.
Mary Jo
Posted by: maryjoputney | Saturday, March 24, 2007 at 05:45 PM
Oooh, labyrinths! I'm fascinated by them. I've walked a few different ones by now -- I first walked the beautiful one at Chartres, and then years later Mary Jo showed me a couple of them in our area, and I've found one or two more as well. I wish I were closer in proximity so that I could walk them more frequently. My brain could use the exercise!
They really are fantastic for clearing the mind. Slowly walking along a specific circuitous route such as found in various labyrinth designs has not only a calming, meditative effect, but balances the two sides of the brain to produce better clarity of thinking. How did ancients and monks figure this out?? Who knows....
Even tracing a finger labyrinth can have the same beneficial effect. Try printing one out on a page and tracing it with a finger or the tip of a pencil, and you might notice better concentration.
Someday I would love to set up a labyrinth in my backyard to walk nearly every day. A lot of work, but it would be worth it, if I could talk my Guys into helping out....
Susan Sarah
Posted by: Susan Sarah | Saturday, March 24, 2007 at 06:54 PM
From Sherrie:
Mary Jo, I wonder if those who aren't all that fascinated with mazes also don't care much for jigsaw puzzles? Or any puzzles? I love mazes, and I adore puzzles of any kind, even if it's just trying to figure out how to untangle my slender gold chain necklace that ties itself into Gordian knots in the dark in my jewelry box. I wonder if chain necklaces are related to wire coat hangers, which also multiply in the dark? Anyway, I'm crazy for mazes *and* labyrinths. (Do you think I should repeat that a few more hundred times, in case anyone missed it?)
I tried to find those 2 labyrinths in Tukwila today after the booksigning--there was a break in the rain and I thought I might be able to walk one of them before it started raining again. Alas, I couldn't find them, because my printed directions were for a different freeway exit than the one for the booksigning. (If I ever walk a maze, I'll be the one the guy in the tower will be yelling directions at with his bullhorn) However, I met several RWA buddies at the booksigning, and I told them about the labyrinths. We're going to try putting together an expedition in May and walk both labyrinths.
This is all your fault, Mary Jo and Jo! *g*
Posted by: Sherrie Holmes | Saturday, March 24, 2007 at 07:03 PM
Jo said..."We accept the constraint, even welcome it, which to me is a lot like writing a book. Unless we accept its natural pattern and go with it, it doesn't work. For me, at least. Does that make sense to anyone?"
Oh, yes, that makes perfect sense to this "fly into the mist" writer. Fighting the muse is useless. Giving in to her sometimes painful ebb and flow is the only path to freedom.
Posted by: Nina P | Saturday, March 24, 2007 at 08:24 PM
Love labyrinths. But the thought of a maze makes me tense. Modern labyrinths have no puzzle, only surrender, and no minotaurs or cursed triwizard cups either!
I've toyed with the idea of adding a partial labyrinth around a (rough) sacred circle I have in my yard, so that by the time one reaches the circle, one is in an improved state of mind. But so far just keeping the circle from being reclaimed by nature is enough work!
Posted by: Jane George | Saturday, March 24, 2007 at 10:52 PM
PS Had completely forgotten Children of the Corn.
Thanks a lot Maggie!
:-)
Posted by: Jane George | Saturday, March 24, 2007 at 10:59 PM
There is a Mizmaze near me (at Mount Ephraim), laid out with turf and flowers on the side of a hill. It looks great from a distance, rather like one of the white horses hill carvings though it's only a few years old. It is a very pleasant place to be lost in!
Posted by: Francois | Monday, March 26, 2007 at 06:40 AM
The Mizmaze is a new one on me! But interesting. I'm not at all a puzzle person--they bore me--but I do enjoy walking labyrinths for the relaxation. I wish I had room for even a partial one on my property, but between trees and stone walls and driveway, there's no space. If you use large stone pavers, Jane, maybe that will keep nature sufficiently at bay!
Mary Jo
Posted by: maryjoputney | Monday, March 26, 2007 at 07:53 AM