Greetings Labyrinth Enthusiasts,
I hope you have been keeping well, and I hope happy moments have found their way to your lives during the time since the last newsletter. It’s hard to believe people have now began heading into the second round of celebrating odd “COVID birthdays”!
Similarly, we approach another annual World Labyrinth Day (WLD), this Saturday May 1st, within the peculiar reality of COVID. Here in Ontario, we are still under a under a stay-at-home order (I know I have a few subscribers in lovely Nova Scotia… sorry to hear you have “joined the lockdown” but hopefully y’all learned from Ontario’s mistakes and will go big at it, knock back the spread, and soon return to the relatively normal lives you had been enjoying out there!) which isn’t ideal for marking WLD.
BUT thankfully The Labyrinth Society, lead partner of WLD, is coordinating various online events plus you can also access some interesting webinars and a new labyrinth research project (aka “The Big Connection”) through their portal at worldlabyrinthday.org. Also, Veriditas is holding an online handheld/finger labyrinth “walk” at 4PM EDT on Saturday… details & registration see veriditas.org where you can also download a labyrinth pattern.
If for some reason you’re pining for the rounded square pattern of the Forest Labyrinth for your finger walk, ask me and I can send you a full page size pattern of it. I also have a nice, clean 7-circuit (round) Chartes pattern if you prefer that over the traditional 11-circuit pattern.
Speaking of the Forest Labyrinth and its rounded square pattern (or is it squared round??), one of my projects this summer will be enhancing the labyrinth centre by using small stones to add an outline of either a circle or a six-petal rosette (i.e., like the Chartes pattern centre) within the squarish space of the Forest Labyrinth centre. A few visitors had also suggested some kind of seat at the centre for those who wish to spend longer there—which is fair enough seeing as it’s almost a kilometre walk to centre and back out—so I may also add some tree stump stools or something similar to the corner spaces between the circle/rosette and the outer square. If you have visited the Forest Labyrinth and have suggestions, I would value your input & ideas.
Did you know Lauren Artress, widely considered founder of the modern labyrinth movement, (I did my labyrinth facilitator training with her in San Francisco 2012) has published a new book? I believe it is her first book since Walking a Sacred Path and its companion guide. The Path of the Holy Fool is grounded on the legendary search for the Holy Grail and how the labyrinth can help ignite our visionary powers and feed our creative capacities. I currently have a reading backlog to clear before I let myself buy another book but I thought you would be interested to know.
Living with a labyrinth in my backyard, so to speak, I am grateful to be able to readily enjoy it whether for intentional practice of some sort or other times just for a gentle, peaceful meander. With the arrival of spring, the forest is once again alive with woodsy smells and bird sounds abound. I’ve been particularly enjoying focusing on the sensory experience of the walk, which is yet another encouragement for the rational mind to tune out. I also love how labyrinths (even my own here which I should be pretty darn familiar with) occasionally disorient us as we walk them. But the disorientation is interesting, not worrying, because we have confidence we are still on the path to where we should be going. Good lessons in these times.
Warm regards from here to there,
The Forest Labyrinth 