My sister Agnes
lives in Chichester, England, where she is active in the twin-city
program with Chartres, France. While visiting us recently, she took
part with me in a walking meditation practice that links Christ
Episcopal Church in Los Altos to Chartres Cathedral, by way of
Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.
Inlaid in the floor
of Chartres Cathedral, in a great circle, is an ancient design
known as a labyrinth: similar to a maze but without any misleading
dead ends.
Walking the
labyrinth with spiritual intent has been described as bringing one
closer to the heart of God or closer to one's own spiritual center.
Dr. Lauren Artress of Grace Cathedral, who had benefited from this
form of meditation and wanted to make it accessible to others, hit
upon the idea of reproducing the Chartres design on a large
canvas.
Thousands of people
have since walked the labyrinth in San Francisco, including Michole
Nicholson of Christ Episcopal Church. She and others from the
parish were so deeply affected by the experience that they prepared
their own sacred canvas, which is brought out frequently for public
use.
So it was that Agnes
and I, with about eight friends, gathered at the church two weeks
ago. Michole introduced us to some of the ways in which the
labyrinth can be walked. Some people enter seeking the answer to a
specific question, some seeking assurance of God's
presence.
Some repeat a phrase
or bible verse as a means of concentration. Michole suggested that
we leave our "baggage" at the entry point and pick it up later, if
we wished.
Wearing socks to
protect the canvas, to the strains of soft music and with candles
around the room, we started our journey, each at our own pace. A
single pathway winds back and forth in each quarter of the circle
and leads gradually into the center, which is shaped like a flower
with six petals.
From there, the path
is followed out again. Most people took 30 minutes or so doing the
walk and spending time in the center. Several did some journaling
afterwards.
As the group talked
together before leaving, everyone spoke of how beneficial the
experience had been, each in a different way. Agnes told us that,
for the first time in months, she had been helped to clear her mind
of the myriad thoughts that had besieged her day and night since
her husband's sudden death this year.
"It feels like the
first step on the road to peace of mind at least," she
said.
Walking the labyrinth with spiritual intent
By Ruth Polata
Dr. Artress said, of
her experiences, "I moved from curiosity to skepticism to profound
respect for the uncanny gifts of insight, wisdom and peace the
labyrinth offers." Artress has presented a very comprehensive
treatment of the subject of labyrinths. Many people have absolutely
no knowledge of labyrinths and feel it must be a New Age
device. She offers many reasons for walking the labyrinth, as
well as possible approaches to the walk. She happens to work in a
church but this meditational tool can be used by people of all
cultures and religions. It is a way to go on a personal pilgrimage
to become better acquainted with oneself.
She says, "To walk a
sacred path is to discover our inner sacred space: that core of
feeling that is waiting to have life breathed back into it through
symbols, archetypal forms like the labyrinth, rituals, stories, and
myths." In her eloquent treatise, she champions the use of the
labyrinth as a way of rediscovering one's spiritual center. In
Walking a Sacred Path, written in 1995, Artress tells the
story of her own spiritual seeking and how a labyrinth came to be
built at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Sharing the vision of
sacred geometry through the ages, she poetically recounts its
wonderful effects. The author is deeply concerned about the
environmental and spiritual crisis near the end of the millennium
and offers illumination on the path to greater self-understanding,
healing, and true spirituality. "Religion," she says, quoting an
unknown source, "is for those scared to death of hell. Spirituality
is for those who've been there." --
This is a
meditational account of the rediscovery of an ancient meditational
technique, the labyrinth, a "spiritual tool" that predates
Christianity and was widely used in Christian spirituality until
the sixteenth century.
Dr Artress, is a canon of Grace Episcopal
Cathedral in San Francisco
