According to the WorldLabyrinthDay.org, every year on the first Saturday in May thousands of people around the globe participate in World Labyrinth Day as a moving meditation for world peace and celebration of the labyrinth experience. Many “Walk as One at 1” local time to create a rolling wave of peaceful energy passing from one time zone to the next, and there are additional ways to participate.
So why the "Labyrinth?"
A labyrinth combines the imagery of a circle and a spiral to form an irregular, meandering path toward a central location. The design has been appearing in caves, on coins and pottery, and as turf or stone structures from as early as the Stone or Bronze Ages.
Traditional labyrinths have the entrance/exit at the bottom, while a separate, radial style show the entrance/exit at the top. Prehistoric or ancient labyrinths may have been used in sacred dance and ritual. Roman labyrinths appear at the entrance of buildings which could have had a function of protection or been meant to symbolize a sacred path to deity.
Medieval Christian labyrinths appeared both in church entrances and on the sanctuary floors. Although their purpose is unclear, they could have been used in Easter rituals with penitents following the labyrinth on their knees or been designed as protection from demons. In India, there is a belief that labyrinths are the refuge of a trickster spirit and that the demon Ravana rules over labyrinths.
The first labyrinths, is found in myth of Minotaur, where Minos refuses to sacrifice a bull to Poseidon out of greed. The angry Poseidon punished the king by making his wife fall in love with a bull. The fruit of this union was the monster Minotaur, half-bull, half-man. Full of shame, Minos imprisoned the monster in a labyrinth – a word which comes from the Greek “labrys” and refers to the double axe – the symbol of the supremacy of the Cretan Mother Goddess. The deeper meaning of the labyrinth is associated with the feminine life giving force, the earth-bound instinctual nature of our bodies. The centre of the labyrinth is the goddess’s womb.
The power of nature and instincts, the Greek zoe, the sheer life force – this is how the ancients perceived the bull. Only a woman – Ariadne – knew the way around the labyrinth into its centre. It seems that this first labyrinth was designed to guard the darkest heart of nature and to keep its secrets from the solar, upper-world consciousness. Alternatively, it symbolized the fear of Minos, that is the ego consciousness, of the bestial instincts, which he tried to repress.
Interestingly, also in Christianity the labyrinths were constructed to worship Mother Goddess. The most famous example is the stone Labyrinth from the cathedral in Chartres. It is believed that originally it had the image of Minotaur in its centre, but it was later removed. Now the centre of the Labyrinth features the Mystic Rose, emblem of Mary on the one hand and the ultimate symbol of the Self and the union of the opposites on the other.
Some researchers make a point of differentiating between the maze and the labyrinth. Karen Ralls explains:
“A labyrinth eventually takes one to a Center. A maze does not, but has many twists and turns in its path, even the occasional “dead end.”
Those who walk the labyrinth do so to find inner peace, to meditate and find a way through silence to inner truth. Cirlot adds that at the centre of the labyrinth conjunction occurs between the conscious and the unconscious. Perhaps the seeming duality of the confusing maze and the orderly labyrinth can be reconciled by invoking human and divine perspective:
“From within, the view is extremely restricted and confusing, while from above one discovers a supreme artistry and order.
According to symbolreader.net:
"The maze, thus, seems to symbolize our human limited perspective, our entanglement in the world of the senses and desires, our getting lost, taking the “wrong” path, occasionally feeling lost and desperate."
"The maze, thus, seems to symbolize our human limited perspective, our entanglement in the world of the senses and desires, our getting lost, taking the “wrong” path, occasionally feeling lost and desperate."
So brothers, sisters, and non-binary siblings, however you navigate through your labyrinth of life today, do so with a kind spirit, for we are all in this together regardless if we walk or not,
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