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Community Corner

Walking the Labyrinth

First Christian Church of North Hollywood offers this ancient practice as a path to contemplative prayer.

When the Rev. Louise Sloan Goben of Studio City's of North Hollywood told me the church would be sponsoring a labyrinth walk as a way for congregants to prepare themselves for Christmas, I was immediately intrigued by the idea of reviving this ancient tradition of the meditative walk for a modern, progressive community. I'd seen one or two segments on TV about labyrinth walks over the years. Being simultaneously a pantheist and a skeptic, a new-ager and a Jew, this kind of thing often piques my curiosity.

Goben referred me to Lynn Klein, a member of the Noho Arts Center for New Thought, a Religious Science church, who has been coordinating First Christian's labyrinth walks and workshops together with Alison Hawkins-Keogh, an elder at First Christian.

"I never met a labyrinth I didn't love," Klein told me.

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Labyrinth patterns are found throughout history and around the world. They are depicted on ancient Cretan coins, Native American basketry and petroglyphs in northern India. Stone labyrinth structures thought to be 2,000 to 3,000 years old have been found on the Solovetsky Islands off Russia. They are also found in Scandinavian fishing towns and the Isles of Scilly.

According to gotquestions.org, "a volunteer ministry of dedicated and trained servants who have a desire to assist others in their understanding of God, Scripture, salvation, and other spiritual topics" which is informative, though not sympathetic to labyrinth walking:

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They were decidedly pagan in function: many labyrinths were dedicated to a goddess and used in ritualistic dances. The Hopi Indians saw the labyrinth as a symbol of Mother Earth, and the hundreds of stone labyrinths along the Scandinavian shoreline were used as magic traps for trolls and evil winds to ensure safe fishing.

During the 13th and 14th centuries, labyrinths were frequently designed into the paving stones of Gothic cathedrals. This is where I picture hooded monks walking the unicursal path while intoning Gregorian chants.

The more I Google this, though, the more I'm finding anti-labyrinth walk sentiment that has to do with decrying the practice as occult. Or Catholic. I'm not going to delve into that any further.

A contemporary proponent of the labyrinth walk is the Rev. Lauren Artress, whose Grace Cathedral in San Francisco has its own labyrinth. She writes on her Web site:

Over the years, I've come to understand the labyrinth in many ways. I've lectured on it as a walking meditation, a path of prayer and a dynamic tool of manifestation. It certainly is a watering hole for the Spirit. The labyrinth meets you where you are, gives you what you need and connects you to an invisible web of relationships that opens you to be of service to others and to the planet. The labyrinth has been a major force of change in my life and I choose to be part of the invisible web of people in service to others and to our ailing planet.

Klein likens the labyrinth to the "sacred circle," a cross-cultural design that mimics nature. Two basic designs are used for the walk, the seven-circuit classical Crete design, and the 11-circuit Chartres design, found in medieval churches and now at Provident St. Joseph Medical Center's peace garden and at Forest Lawn Glendale in the Gardens of Contemplation. The online Labyrinth Locator can direct you to others.

I set out for my mind-clearing labyrinth walk on the first day of our week of torrential rain. Goben is developing First Christian's newly acquired property in La Crescenta, Spirit of the Foothills, as a spiritual retreat and learning center, and it is here that the church's portable, painted-on-canvas, 36-foot-diameter, Chartres-style labyrinth is stored.

"It's a very specific intention that this be a spirit center for everybody, not in any way denominational, not in any way pushing an agenda in any specific faith story," explained Hawkins-Keogh, a member of the church's planning committee for the center. "This is an opportunity to let people from all walks of life, from all thoughts, be able to come and discover, without us telling them what their story should be. They come to discover their own story."

Included in renovation plans for the site is the construction of a permanent labyrinth on the grounds. 

I left the Westside at 2:30 p.m. to avoid rush-hour traffic but it still took me two hours to complete the 40-mile drive to the location. I found Goben in the now barely used church sorting through prayer leaflets and music books, before the  meditation session.

As soon as Hawkins-Keogh arrived, she and Goben got to work setting up the canvas on the floor of the fellowship hall, unfolding the panels and Velcro-ing them together. The desired ambience was created with twinkle lights and candle lights and meditative music. There were metaphysical minerals and shaman stones and angel cards and journals.

While all this was going on I was doing interviews and shooting video of the labyrinth while the lights were still on, checking my white balance, privately deriding the rocks and cards and worrying about how to make the story. How can I walk the labyrinth and shoot the walking-of-the-labyrinth at the same time? How can I both see the story and be the story?

Release-Receive-Return. Those are the only guidelines for the labyrinth walk. Enter with an intention or question. Receive knowledge or understanding when you reach the center. Return to the world somehow changed as you exit. There are no rules, there are no tricks are mottos of the labyrinth walk.

The first participant to arrive made it clear that she didn't want her face to be seen on video. Swell. How am I going to shoot the people on the labyrinth and avoid one person's face? The second arrival was fine with being seen but didn't want her personal thoughts recorded. So much for shooting the closing ceremony.

The women who walked the labyrinth opened up places in themselves that gave them new insights. F. found herself losing her way on the labyrinth, walking out when she thought she was walking in. C. had learned that her lesson was about releasing: tension, uptightness, expectations and embracing darkness. Hawkins-Keogh made herself a healing channel and focused on people who needed help. And Klein found clarity about her future career. And me? I actually looked at a card. "Nurturing," it said. I took it to heart.

No, I didn't get to walk the labyrinth in the contemplative way I'd hoped for. I didn't get the best video in the world with my Cybershot in the dim lighting. But I gave myself a break with a reminder from a random card (it could just as well have been a fortune cookie) and let myself respect the other women and their desire for privacy from my camera and mike. And they all gave it back. Each one supported me for attempting the coverage, for starting out in a new career, for taking a leap despite my trepidation and self-doubt.

I need to do it again. Next time without a camera. This time was for you. Please check the video.

 

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