Last weekend, we observed World Labyrinth Day.
This is an annual event that takes place on the 1st Saturday in May every year, in which labyrinth enthusiasts and labyrinth caretakers get together in a global initiative called ”we walk as one at one.”
The labyrinth in the woods at H.J.Carroll Park
At 1:00 in each time zone around the globe, people will walk a labyrinth near them and meditate on peace, compassion and loving-kindness in the world.
Normally we have a World Labyrinth Day celebration here at our house by opening up our backyard labyrinth to the public for a single day. However, this year was a little bit different because our labyrinth is ”under maintenance” as we are completely redoing the plants that surrounds it, tearing out the 15 year old lavender plants which have become very sprawling and actually interfere with the outer circuit of our labyrinth.
Our own labyrinth, being repaired
With that out of the picture, we went in search of a local public labyrinth to walk instead.
Fortunately, there is a very nice labyrinth in the woods at a park about a 15 minute drive from where we live.
The labyrinth at H.J.Carroll Park is of the Classical — also known as "Cretan," for the island of Crete — style and it's a fairly simple installation with large stones laid out in a sweet clearing in the woods.
Labyrinth in the woods
It was a nice and peaceful setting, and the labyrinth had a very nice energetic feel to it and felt very quiet as a meditation space. We were joined by one other person who was also there on occasion of World Labyrinth Day.
Labyrinths really are a lovely meditative tool!
Part of what makes them so relaxing is that there is only one path and you are basically guided along that path by the design of the labyrinth. Every now and then you'll make a 90° turn onto a different path but eventually you will end up at the center of the labyrinth without having to actively think about where you're going.
This is in contrast to a maze, which has lots of paths that end blindly and which might send you in a direction that seems to be working until it suddenly isn't and it becomes more of a puzzle to be solved than a meditative space for relaxation.
Not suggesting that either one is better or worse than the other, they are just very different things and it is important to keep in mind that when somebody calls something "a maze" it is not a labyrinth and a labyrinth is not a maze.
Labyrinths are not some kind of New Age woo-woo, they have been around for thousands of years, and are often incorporated into mosaics and gardens in sacred sites including major cathedrals.
The oldest known remnants of labyrinths in nature date back some 6000 years, while labyrinth designs have been found etched on clay tablets and stone in Greece dating back over 3000 years.
Anyway, we had a very nice outing to this particular labyrinth for our World Labyrinth Day, and we'll probably be back... and we'll probably recommend it to anybody who contacts us wanting to know where a nearby public labyrinth can be found.
Thanks for stopping by, and we hope you enjoyed the pictures!
All images are our own, unless otherwise credited!