A Personal Labyrinth
How to make your own labyrinth for serenity and meditation.
September/October 1999
By Susan Strawn Bailey
Its serpentine path was first encountered near Crete on coins dating back to 500 b.c., and the same design has appeared in the American Southwest, Northern Europe, India, and Peru. You can enjoy the timeless appeal of this seven-circuit, single-path labyrinth by applying it wherever it can create a center of calm in your busy life. Trace it with your finger, pace it in your garden, or simply let your eyes rest on it for a moment of meditation.
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-Paint it on a desktop or side table.
-Stitch it on canvas.
-Set it in a sunroom floor using tiny mosaic tiles.
-Paint it on a canvas floor cloth.
-Etch it in the glass of a shower door.
-Trace it in a child’s sandbox.
-Mark it with rocks in the garden, or mow it in the lawn.
-Trace it with your finger pace it in your garden.
Resources
Artress, Dr. Lauren. Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Tool. Riverhead Books, 1995.
Aviva, Elyn. “The Amazing Labyrinth,” in the Washington Times magazine The World and I, September 1997, www.worldandi.com.
Designs and classroom labyrinth activities via Professor Tony Phillips of SUNY Stonybrook’s homepage, http://math.math.sunysb.edu/~tony/mazes.
Information on sacred geometry and labyrinths in Europe via Mid-Atlantic Geomancy, www.geomancy.org.
Veriditas Labyrinth Project, Grace Cathedral, 1100 California St., San Francisco, CA 94108. (415) 749-6356, www.gracecom.org.
Wisdom House Conference and Retreat Center, 229 East Litchfield Rd., Litchfield, CT, 06759, (860) 567-3163, www.wisdomhouse.org.