Our Labyrinth Project

Vision Statement

To provide a place for all people to:

What is a Labyrinth?

A labyrinth is a ritualized journey with a single circuitous path winding in and out in one direction. The circle it forms symbolizes wholeness and unity. Labyrinths have been used over the past five thousand years, in cultures all over the world, to symbolize fundamental ideas about life, nature, and spirituality. For the Christian, the journey in symbolizes the life of Christ, the center His death, and the journey out His resurrection.

The best known Christian form of the labyrinth, the classical eleven-circuit labyrinth, is embedded in the floor of Notre Dame Cathedral in Chartres, France. The Chartres labyrinth dates from sometime between 1194 and 1220. For medieval Christians, the labyrinth was used in sacred rituals, including initiation, pilgrimage, dance and centering. It is a symbol of the Christian path through life towards death and new life.

Like the spiritual pilgrims of the Middle Ages, seekers today enter the labyrinth on a quest to deepen their relationship with God.

Why a Labyrinth at Trinity Lutheran Church?

In addition to strengthening our own spiritual journeys through quieting our minds, finding our center and connecting with the heart of God, the labyrinth helps us reach out to the community around us. The labyrinth can serve as a non-threatening point for contact with the community by providing a path to create an opportunity for people to make spiritual connections. Since the labyrinth is a journey rather than a destination, it can be viewed as a metaphor for a group of people at different points on the spiritual path.

The circular nature of the labyrinth reminds us of the many cyclical patterns surrounding us. The coming and going of students and faculty at Washington State University and University of Idaho is one cycle. The changing seasons and fields around us is another example. It helps us remember that nothing on this earth lasts forever and change is part of the cycles in our lives.

The labyrinth can also draw people who might otherwise not choose to attend a traditional service at TLC. The labyrinth as a transforming symbol lends itself well to workshops on topics such as contemplative prayer, living well and grieving, special services for healing or world peace, or as an introduction to a spiritual path.

Labyrinth Corner

The first reason to have a labyrinth at TLC is labyrinth walking is a spiritual practice. Spirituality or our journey with God requires attention. Walking the labyrinth is one way to pay attention to our spiritual journey. It is an accessible form of personal meditation and a chance to walk with God.

The labyrinth takes us beyond our usual, conditioned personality and learning to a deeper place of awareness and revelation. In this state we can practice being in the presence of God. We can sing, pray or dance. While walking the labyrinth we can repeat a phrase as our mantra, such as “Lead me,” or ”Be still and know I am God.”  In the Old Testament, David advised Solomon to “Walk in the ways of God.”  What we learn in the labyrinth we then take back into our lives.

Rev. Lauren Artress, also a licensed psychotherapist, was worried when she first began using labyrinths. It was clear they were a powerful spiritual tool, but how would people react to them? She reports, “After months of walking the labyrinth and listening to the experiences of others, I began to trust the labyrinth.”  The labyrinth meets each person where they are on their spiritual journey and helps them take the next step on their spiritual path. She goes on to describe her discovery as having faith in the process or trusting God in this spiritual practice.

The labyrinth is a spiritual tool we learn to use through practice. Practicing with tools allows them to extend our own abilities, allowing us to be stronger or faster.  In the case of the labyrinth, it helps us to meditate or focus on God more profoundly, and to go deeper within.  Walking the labyrinth regularly can be a way to explore our journey with God.

This is the first of a dozen reasons exploring why have a labyrinth associated with a church, originally written by Robert Ferre’ of Labyrinth Enterprises and adapted for use for Trinity Lutheran Church.

A second reason for a church to have a labyrinth is the labyrinth is a form of pilgrimage.  A pilgrimage is an outer journey with an inner purpose.  It takes us away from the routine of daily life to sacred places where the veil seems thinner and spirituality more approachable.  The labyrinth does this – it organizes our experience and engages us in a spiritual journey.  Some call it a quest.  In the labyrinth we walk in a way we don’t walk elsewhere, which leads to a new kind of experience.

Pilgrimage is a tradition in most religions. Taking time out to honor one’s relationship to God is important and essential.  Being on a spiritual journey is a wonderful metaphor and image for both life and the labyrinth.

In Chartres Cathedral, one of the great Gothic cathedrals in France, our spiritual journey is symbolized everywhere – in the sacred geometry, the art, the architecture, and the labyrinth.  The church is the gateway, the connection between heaven and earth.  In the same way, the labyrinth is the threshold between the physical world and the spiritual, between the outer and the inner.

While the labyrinth symbolizes the route, no one can take the journey for someone else.  We must each find our own way.  The approach of the brothers of the Taize Community is to tell young people who come searching, “We don’t have any answers to give you, but we will be with you and assist you to find your own answers.”  The labyrinth is the same in that it imposes nothing, but allows each person to find that which is meaningful to them.

Life can be filled with many kinds of journeys.  The world has endless choices and paths, many of which lead to nowhere.  The labyrinth is a reliable path to bridge mind, body and spirit.  It is an appropriate and accessible place to go on a pilgrimage.

Adapted from Labyrinth Enterprises and Robert Ferre' by Robin Fuerst.

Completing the season of Advent, a time of waiting and anticipating, brings up a third reason for having a labyrinth at TLC.  Walking a labyrinth provides a time to listen.

Some see prayer as asking and meditation as listening.  Certainly one of the great lessons in life is to give up being in charge, to get out of our own way, and to turn things over to guidance from a higher source.  Author Jill Geoffrion has written several poetic books about using labyrinths.  She has found the labyrinth has many gifts for us, but to receive them, we must be receptive.  We must listen.  How else can we know if our prayers have been heard?

Walking the labyrinth is time out from our daily schedule.  We aren’t checking items off our list of things to do, or planning the menu for dinner.  Walking in a labyrinth is a gift we give to ourselves.  During the walk, we can relax our mind but still must remain alert, to follow the path.  This state of relaxed alertness is the ideal form of meditation.  With our sense of awareness, we are open to any messages or inspiration or creativity that may come to us.

When listening, we can learn.  We can discover.  While talking or demanding or lecturing or analyzing, we close ourselves off.  Within listening there is an element of surrender that takes us out of time and space.  Some call it Holy Listening.

Lauren Artress writes, “The labyrinth is a spiritual tool meant to awaken us to the deep rhythm that unites us to ourselves and to the light that calls from within.”

This is the third of a dozen reasons exploring why have a labyrinth associated with a church, originally written by Robert Ferre’ of Labyrinth Enterprises and adapted for use for Trinity Lutheran Church.

A fourth reason to have a labyrinth is that churches are constantly in a state of transition as they attempt to remain relevant to society.  The Reverend Dr. Lauren Artress has stated, “The movement in the church is to reclaim its lost spiritual tradition is enormously significant.”

The labyrinth is an ideal spiritual tool which can be used to reach people who don’t relate to the church as an institution.  The labyrinth is personal, generic and meaningful.  It also helps to build community.  While providing labyrinths is a wonderful public service to the community, there are many instances in which people became involved in churches as members and participants after first coming to walk the labyrinth.

The labyrinth, then, can be used to draw new people to a church.  Whether they like what they find, and whether they decide to become involved in the church, is beyond the capability of the labyrinth.  That depends on the church, its hospitality, and what it has to offer.  The can labyrinth enhance the image of being progressive and of incorporating new elements.

One of the ways this has been done in many places is to combine labyrinth walking with music from Taize.  Taize is an ecumenical community in France which desires to unify the divisions and differences that separate the Christian family.  As a result, they have no dogma to teach, since dogma can divide rather than unify.  Their services are comprised almost entirely of repetitively singing beautiful chants, in Latin or a variety of languages.  Labyrinths also have no dogma, “speak” many languages, and unify.  Combining Taize chanting and labyrinth walking creates a meaningful experience.  It is an experience shared here at TLC by participants in the “Prayer and the Labyrinth” workshop several years ago, as well as the most recent “Sound Healing and the Labyrinth” workshop.

Updating spirituality can mean creating new forms, new formats, and new rituals.  Because the labyrinth is generic by nature, it can easily be adapted to uses such as meditation, weddings, memorial services, use by women’s groups, AIDS & 12-step support groups, troubled teenagers, abuse victims, cancer patients, and in many other ways in which spiritual input is beneficial.

Adapted from Labyrinth Enterprises and Robert Ferre’.

A fifth reason for a church to have a labyrinth is that it is part of the tradition.  The labyrinth goes back 5,000 years or more.  Beginning in the Middle Ages, Christianity adopted the labyrinth as a symbol, changing the design to imbue it with specifically Christian meaning.  For almost a thousand years there has been an identifiable Christian labyrinth tradition (1).  This movement reached its peak at Chartres Cathedral in France, with the installation of an elegant labyrinth into the nave floor in 1201 during the construction of this magnificent new Gothic structure.

The labyrinth incorporates many levels of symbolism within its sacred geometry.  Its circularity and concentric circles reflect the cosmos, atoms and DNA.  The labyrs of the labyrinth form a cross with equal length arms.  The center 6 petal rose is symbolic of the Virgin Mary.  The walk to the center was a symbolic journey to Jerusalem.  The geometry used in the labyrinth mimics the very principles used by God in creation of the physical universe (2).

In our modern world we have lost touch with our origins, our roots, and sometimes our true identity.  The labyrinth is a bridge that connects us to these things, to a long-forgotten part of ourselves.  That is one reason why it touches people very deeply, often in a way they cannot verbalize.  The context of this touch-stone is ancient, a chance to hear that still, quiet voice deep within us.

Adaped from Labyrinth Enterprises and Robert Ferre’.

• (1) Church Labyrinths by Robert Ferre’ (book).
• (2) Sacred Geometry by Robert Ferre’ (audio tape).

Both available at www.labyrinth-enterprises.com/products.

A sixth reason for a church to have a labyrinth is it is contemporary.  The Reverend Dr Lauren Artress has been instrumental in resurrecting the labyrinth through Verititas -The World Wide Labyrinth Project, as well as through her book, “Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Tool.”

Her book is helpful in suggesting ways to make the labyrinth relevant and available to anyone who would walk it.  Borrowing three steps described in the early Middle Ages, she applies them to the stages of walking the labyrinth.  They are:

• Purgation:  releasing or shedding problems or worries as we walk toward the center
• Illumination: resting in the center for renewal or to receive inspiration
• Union: returning to our lives with a new sense of peace or awareness.

Lauren Artress writes, “The labyrinth is truly a tool for our times.  It can help us find our way through the bewildering multiplicity, to the unity of source or God.  The labyrinth is an evocative experience.  The labyrinth provides the sacred space where the inner and outer worlds can commune, where the thinking mind and imaginative heart can flow together.  It can provide a space to listen to our inner voice of wisdom and come to grips with our role in humankind’s next evolutionary step.”

Carole Ann Camp, co-author of “Labyrinths From the Outside In: Walking to Spiritual Insight, a Beginner’s Guide, expands the process to seven steps: preparation, invocation, going in, staying in the center, returning to the world, thanksgiving, and reflection.

Camp’s co-author, Donna Schaper, writes, “One of the key reasons people walk labyrinths today is to have the experience of the simultaneity of past and present.  In walking the labyrinth we link with other cultures and eras that have walked before us.  We also link body and soul; we simultaneously have a physical and spiritual experience.  We make metaphors work for us. The journey is one foot after another, and it is a path to the holy place inside us.”

The labyrinth can be non-threatening to people not familiar with or alienated by traditional church language because it is a generic symbol and is non-dogmatic.  The labyrinth meets people where they are in their beliefs and helps them take a step forward on their spiritual journey.

Adapted from Labyrinth Enterprises and Robert Ferre’ by Robin Fuerst.

A seventh reason for a church to have a labyrinth is it is physical.  As a form of body prayer, the labyrinth embodies our experience, keeping it from being just theoretical or mental.  Someone said that bodies can synthesize what the head can only distinguish.  Saint Augustine is often quoted as having said, “It is solved by walking.”  Labyrinth walking has been called the laying on of feet.

One of the most noticeable effects of walking the labyrinth is stress reduction.  We can see the difference in our physical bodies.  Stress can break down the body, and the reduction of stress can heal.  The same is true with balance.  Our priorities get far out of kilter sometimes.  When that happens, we experience disease.  The labyrinth brings us back to a state of equilibrium through its balanced turns and a chance to let go of stressors in our lives at each turn.  It can contribute to our well-being.  Being physical, the labyrinth is anchored in time and space, just as we are.  In the Christian tradition, the power of the labyrinth comes from the physical act of walking (or tracing the pattern with a finger).  It is the physical nature of our involvement, using our whole bodies and our senses, which is important in this form of body prayer.

• Journeying In (traditionally called purgation): the walk to the center, quieting or emptying yourself, letting go of the details of everyday life, struggling with a life challenge.
• Resting in the Center (traditionally called illumination): time spent in the center meditating, praying or simply being of open mind and heart to receive whatever gift or insight may be present.
• Journeying Out (traditionally called union): the walk out from the center may be experienced as awareness of a deep connection or communion with God, the Holy Spirit, or with Sacred energy at work in the world. Others may feel centered, peaceful or renewed to journey back into challenges in their life and the world.

The labyrinth provides a physical expression for our circuitous journey as human beings. We start out walking straight towards our goal and then life experiences invite us to grow through a series of turns. We move toward the center again, only to meander to the outside of the path. Back and forth, in and out, until we feel we have lost sight of our goal. Then suddenly the center loooms directly in front of us. We have found some deep forgotten part of ourselves.

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