Aerial Drone 1.png — Labyrinths
Enriching Rituals

Have you ever been curious about these symbols found in cultures all over the world? Could you use a moment of peace and reflection?
Whether you’d like a guided walking experience or to construct one together, labyrinths are enriching rituals.

Let's build a labyrinth

I built a labyrinth in my front yard as pandemic lockdowns swept the globe.

Walking it centers me. I reflect on how I’m showing up in the world. I seek a more nuanced understanding of balance. It’s brought solace and meditation, connection and creativity into my life. This radical ritual is an enriching reminder: I am always calling myselves back to myself.

My neighbors find joy and release here too

And my heart soars to catch a flash of movement outside my office window as someone wends their way through its circuits.

The labyrinth is unicursal – there’s only one way in and one way out – but it can feel disorienting, like maybe you’ve lost your way. | Photo Credit – Kristin Watkins

Kristin’s son explores the labyrinth | Photo credit Kristin Watkins

Trick-or-treaters must find their way to the center of the labyrinth to snag some candy!

The Patterns We Practice

Sometimes, lost in life’s chaotic maze, a revelation will illuminate the pattern as clearly as if it were a labyrinth, with one way in and only one way out. Despite disorientation, following the labyrinth’s threaded path will guide me to my destination. This perspective on the patterns I practice emerged from watching drone footage captured by another neighbor as I dug through my lawn to edge the labyrinth’s pathway.

Labyrinth-building captured by drone. | Photo Credit – Bobby Perry

Zooming out on the labyrinth. | Photo Credit – Bobby Perry

The patterns we practice. | Photo Credit – Bobby Perry

Labyrinths can be pretty designs, detours, meditations, or quests.

Global variations of unicursal paths date back to Neolithic times, each with rich cultural significance and ritual.

Drone footage and video by Bobby Perry, 1972

The pattern inscribed into my yard is a Classical, left-handed, seven-circuit labyrinth. It’s thought to be 4,000-5,000 years old, appears on Cretan coins, and evokes tales of the Minotaur. The Mahabharata tells of the warrior Abhimanyu assailing a defensive Chakravyuha labyrinth. In Southern Peru, the Nazca Lines incised onto the desert floor include giant double spirals and monkey tails. Medieval labyrinths in gothic cathedrals like Chartres in northern France multiply meanders in paving stones.

I have lit my yard up with solar-powered LED lights, which makes it feel more modern and accessible even to the ICU nurse who lives nearby and likes to walk it when she comes home after an intense night shift.

Walking a Labyrinth

Each encounter with a labyrinth is supremely personal. They invite inspiration, connection, play, introspection, release, and so much more. Even a David Bowie dance party!

To walk a labyrinth, simply place one foot in front of the other, and the path you follow will take care of the rest. For a more intentional experience, become the listener and not the thinker of your own thoughts with four Rs, adapted from Veriditas, that align to preparing, beginning, pausing, and exiting a labyrinth.

Just place one foot in front of the other…

**Reflect** – remember, relive, walk a problem, a history, a dream; play the record backward
**Release** – stress, grief, shadow, anxiety, anger, what holds you back; breathe into what’s stuck, frozen, and afraid
**Receive** – explore any thoughts or images that emerge, witness, meditate, observe
**Return** – resolve, reclaim, rejuvenate, reflect, reconcile, rejoin

Let's walk a labyrinth

Ephemeral Enrituals – Temporary Labyrinths

Even before becoming a certified labyrinth facilitator through Veriditas, I started my journey as a little Johnny labyrinth-seed, scattering temporary labyrinth installations on camping trips, in parks, along the Atlanta BeltLine, at the ocean’s edge…

Building and appreciating them creates community, fosters healing, and spreads peace. Laughing through the pathways of a heart-shaped labyrinth as the tide came in, I remember wondering whether remaining in the center as the water washed away all traces of an exit meant that I could stay there, dwelling in my heart.