Walking A Sacred Path: Rediscovering The Labyrinth As A Spiritual Practice — Still On The Shelf
Here’s another in my Still On The Shelf series, where I tell you, book by blessed book, why I periodically run a dust rag across them, pull them off the shelf, and open them up to read.
A lifetime of reading has left me with a sizable number of books. Throughout the years I’ve donated them for tax deductions and traded them for credit by the carload. But for all the trimming and weeding my collection has undergone these past decades, the ones remaining on the shelves are there for a reason: they’ve withstood the tests of time. Although I’m more inclined to pick up my Kindle these days, there are still plenty of books on my shelves, and this is one of them.
Walking a sacred path: rediscovering the labyrinth as a spiritual practice
by Lauren Artress
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Original copyright 1995 (black cover); Revised and updated edition 2006 (white cover)
240 pages
The labyrinth, an ancient spiritual tool (emphasis on spiritual), has been revived as a crucial means of personal and community transformation, a way to shift our consciousness — thanks to Lauren Artress, her vision, and the research and work she’s put into reintroducing it to us. She writes:
The labyrinth is an archetype of wholeness, a sacred place that helps us rediscover the depths of our souls.
Labyrinths are typically in the form of a large circle — large enough to be walked through. Its path winds from the edge to the center and back to the edge again. There’s only one lane — one way in and the same way back out. The trail is clearly defined. You can’t get lost. The labyrinth isn’t a maze.
The labyrinth puts us in touch with our intuitive selves, our souls, the Light — whatever words you use to describe the inner compass deep within ourselves that we often ignore, is faint, or that we don’t hear at all. It’s the place where the visible and invisible worlds meet. Artress says:
In sacred space we walk from chronos time to kairos time, as we allow our intuitive self to emerge.
The labyrinth facilitates this emergence.
In the book, Artress discusses the history and symbolism of labyrinths. She chronicles her discovery of labyrinths, including her visit to the ancient labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral in France. She also writes of her experience in establishing a labyrinth at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, where she’s still involved when she isn’t traveling and speaking about labyrinths.
In the book, she also gets into how to walk a labyrinth — the process and basic approaches. She reminds us:
The labyrinth is a place where you can pour your heart out, express your anger, experience joy, express gratitude — and perhaps above all, ask for what you need.
It works even if you don’t know what you need. I can vouch for that from my own labyrinth-walking experiences.
If you read the book (and I hope you do — there’s much more to it than I can describe here), be sure to suspend any preconceived ideas or judgments you might have. The important thing to remember is that the labyrinth transcends all religions and is strictly a spiritual mechanism.
I heard about the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral (and this book) in 1999 (or was it 2000?) on a business trip to San Francisco. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time for me to travel to the labyrinth and walk it and attend my meetings and catch my plane home in time for more meetings (ah, the life of a corporate librarian working for a global telecommunications company!).
But I have since become an avid labyrinth walker and have tread on indoor labyrinths painted on plastic and canvas, as well as outdoor labyrinths in the grass and dirt, on brick and tile. I even had the chance on a subsequent trip to San Francisco to walk the Grace Cathedral outdoor terrazzo stone labyrinth. And I am fortunate to live within 10 minutes of a beautiful labyrinth set amidst the trees beside a lake. I’m a frequent walker there and often have the labyrinth all to myself — an extra bonus!
Artress is co-founder of the World-Wide Labyrinth Locator, which lists more than 6,100 labyrinths in over 85 countries. There, you can search for labyrinths near you and learn more about labyrinths.
Labyrinths present a vision of wholeness to the walker. Artress maintains:
When we see our lives from the perspective of wholeness, we appreciate that our actions have a greater impact on the world than we may have imagined.
I think so, too.
. . . And that’s why this book is Still On The Shelf.
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