Thanks to everyone, near and far—whether you could join us in person last Saturday or not—for helping us "Open the Circle." The story of that evening is told beautifully in photographs. A couple come from Stephanie Engelsen and a couple from Debi. But most of them come courtesy of Patty Taylor.
The photos describe the rhythm of the evening very well on their own...
People have approached labyrinths in many ways—sometimes as artlessly as possible. You don't have to bring any expectations with you. Kids naturally are drawn to enter and to play in them. Over the centuries sometimes they have been sites for dancing—sometimes ceremonially and sometimes just whimsically.
There are three simple parts to walking a labyrinth: you walk inwardly to the center; you are in the center; you walk back out again. That simple archetypal rhythm has been associated with many things—as a form of birth/re-birth, for instance...and so as an opportunity to return to one's own center.
There's a potential fourth step as well—and that's whatever recollection or preparation one chooses to do before entering the labyrinth. It seems natural, sometimes even inevitable, to find affinities between the twists and turns of the labyrinth and the twists and turns in one's own life.
So gathering oneself, paying attention to how one feels—including how one's body feels in the moment—can be very helpful. Often someone brings a question or an intention—not an expectation—to one's walk. People have had surprising experiences. And very ordinary ones. It's all alright.
We'll have a brief gathering at 6 pm to help us prepare to walk the labyrinth. But you can walk (or not walk) any way you'd like. You can walk when others are in the labyrinth, and/or you can come back a little later to walk all on your own.
The labyrinth is taking shape, as you can see. And, in fact, there's a secret code already embedded in it.
Debi's holding the key, and Joyce is laying down the code—in longs and shorts, whole-pavers and half-size ones. It's literally morse code.
To produce the half-pavers—for the code and to help with the turns in the labyrinth—Marco clefts them deftly. What appears on the right to be a relic spun-steel fire extinguisher is really a future prayer gong.
These beautiful fly ash pavers come to us from CalStar Products. We love them not only for their colors and earthiness, but because they're manufactured with such ingenious, green, and sustainable means. Listen to their story yourself.
CalStar donated a pallet of these pavers to Red Egg for our labyrinth—through our friend and CalStar CEO, Tom Pounds. (You can meet Tom in the link above.) We had a blast at CalStar's headquarters in Newark when Tom showed us the pavers being made.
This paver is being inscribed for Joyce. Its place is in the inner circle. It is one of the most common Native American sun symbols. Notice that it has seven rays—epitomizing the seven energy centers in a person and the development of those centers. This symbol represents the healing arts—and a peace-loving person.
We hope you'll consider bringing your own additions and inscriptions to the circle.
Here Chris and Dennis begin to lay out the decomposed granite for the pathway—a surface that can be walked barefoot, if one wants. The beautiful top layer comes courtesy of winter storms on the coast.
Chris tamps the decomposed granite above. Marcy's iPhone video might take a moment to buffer. Hit play, let the buffering do its thing, come back in a moment or two, hit replay, and turn up the sound if you want to hear Dianne enjoining the males towards a blood offering.
Dennis has begun to walk the wheel,
...and other critters, too.
And if you decoded what's written in these pavers, this is what you'd find:
We've been creating the labyrinth for our next Red Egg gathering: Opening the Circle.
And there have been many hands and eyes on the work. There are so many ways to approach a labyrinth. So many ways to vision it.
They appear all over the world, often in strikingly similar forms. There is the classical, or Cretan, form—so named because of an association with the famous labyrinth that Daedalus designed and in which Theseus slew the Mintotaur.
But that form also has reappeared in Iceland, Scandinavia, and India
...and in the American southwest and elsewhere.
And then there is the more mathematically precise—and in some ways more esoteric—medieval and Christianized form at Chartres, which itself has begotten progeny,
...including at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, a hub of the labyrinth revival in our own age.
And there are myriad variations upon the themes as well.
And just as there are different forms and different ways of interpreting them, so too are there different ways to imagine, walk, meditate, and practice how these forms relate to the paths and journeys in our own lives.
Monday, June 21, 2010 at 9:07PM 
