Labyrinths – transformational paths to peace

Labyrinths – transformational paths to peace
By Cate Montanann
As a student working on her Ph.D. in Psychology at the Institute of Imaginal Studies in San Francisco, Kimberly Lowelle discovered the labyrinths at Grace Cathedral while exploring the city with a fellow student. Not expecting much, they both walked the labyrinth along with other visitors to the Cathedral that day. It was a simple act: walk, follow the path. No thought or choices involved. Just walk, follow the path. She did, and it changed her life.

Not sure at first even why, Kimberly returned to the labyrinth every two weeks for over two years to retrace her steps and meet, head-on, the unfolding mystery that was having such a profound influence in her life. Walking the labyrinth was calming and expansive. She brought to it her troubles, her thoughts, her patient’s problems, her student pressures, her dreams and meditatively walked the eleven-circuit pathway over and over again.

Labyrinths, their meaning, their history, their psychological affects and potential modern applications became an intense focus. When a month-long labyrinth tour to England and Europe showed up, she jumped at the chance to go. Even though the cost and the timing were monumental blocks, she just walked the path and trusted it would all work out.

The money showed up, her schedule expanded and she went to Europe. On the tour she met Jeffrey Saward, the world’s foremost authority on the history of labyrinths. Their mutual passion for labyrinths grew into a long-distance friendship, which blossomed into love. After adding Saward to her name, Kimberly finished her dissertation, Ariadne’s Thread: The Transformative Potentials of Labyrinth Walking, wrapped up her clinical counseling practice in San Francisco and moved to England. Now she spends her time with her husband escorting people on tours to study ancient labyrinths, mazes and sacred sites around the world, and is working with him on the 35th Edition of Caerdroia: the Journal of Mazes and Labyrinths. She is currently the President of The Labyrinth Society based in England.

She walked the path. Her focus unfolded as her life.

The oldest, definitively dated labyrinth in existence today was carved onto a clay tablet about 4,000 years ago, and was found in Southern Greece. The original form contains seven circuits, or rings, and is called the classical or Cretan labyrinth. Although there are hundreds of examples of this classical labyrinth scattered throughout Europe, Asia, India and North America, carved on rocks, mounded into earthen pathways, painted on walls and reproduced on tablets and in tombs, no one knows where the original design came from.

“When you look at prehistoric rock art in Europe, one of the common things that occurs in Neolithic rock art are what are commonly called cup and ring carvings - concentric circles often with a dot at the center, sometimes with a line drawn through them,” says Jeffrey Saward. “It’s not too difficult to create a labyrinth from a series of concentric circles. But it’s such a precise symbol that, you know, there’s no argument about whether it is one or isn’t one. But equally it’s one of those things that could have been discovered by one person by chance doodling. And they suddenly went, “Hey, that’s a great idea,” and showed it to a few friends who showed it to a few friends. The fact that the earliest ones we know are alongside and part of panels of prehistoric rock art in southern Europe would suggest that’s where the origin comes from.”

The more you understand about labyrinths, the more difficult it is to imagine that the design simply “happened.” However, no matter where it comes from, no matter what its original intended purpose, few people dispute the labyrinth’s subtle, yet powerful effects. Kimberly used the labyrinth in her clinical practice as a prescription for calming patient’s anxiety. Some progressive schools around the world have painted labyrinth patterns into playgrounds and courtyards and permit students to walk the labyrinth before tests and exams. Edgar Cayce’s Association for Research and Enlightenment has a 48 foot diameter classical labyrinth painted on the courtyard outside of the original Edgar Cayce Hospital. Numerous alternative health clinics and churches around the world have incorporated the use of labyrinths into their programs.

“When you’re walking a labyrinth, whether you’re doing it with your fingers or doing it with your whole body - even if you’re just doing it with your eyes - you cross a threshold and you’re in a place where you can more easily attend to your imaginal states,” says Kimberley.