The Labyrinth

When we contact the Light within, we can become entangled in darkness because our shadow emerges and we are unprepared for its impact. Curiously, for most people who have a profound experience in the labyrinth that involves confrontation, it happens in the most loving way. The person is able over time to integrate it without much conflict. Such is the grace of the labyrinth.

Reverend Dr. Lauren Artress 'ritual of moving through labyrinths as transformative spiritual experiences'

Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Labyrinthus.svg

Unlike mazes, which consist of a series of forking paths and dead ends, a labyrinth is a unicursal winding path that leads to the centre of the circle—a centre that sometimes represented heaven or Jerusalem as the final destination in the Middle Ages. The development, popularity, and complexity of the symbol in the Middle Ages seems to show the labyrinth’s ability to represent medieval ideas about redemption, devotion, and faith. Very little evidence or documentation exists to demonstrate the overall purpose of medieval labyrinths on church walls, manuscript leaves, and paves stones, though they may have had multiple uses as a symbol of redemption, place of spiritual reflection, space for prayer, or a site for learning matters of the soul.3 Many medieval labyrinths, such as those found at Chartres, Amiens and Reims, were designed as paths for personal meditation. The labyrinths marked in manuscripts and pavement stones may reflect a bounded space in which to contemplate the path of the soul through life.

This labyrinth depicts a typical eleven-ringed circuit path around the circle—a striking characteristic of medieval labyrinths, though some paths can range from six to fifteen circuits. The four-fold symmetry and oscillation along the path as you move form each area of the circle shares this construction with some older, simpler Roman labyrinths as well. In the ninth century a monk named Otfrid took the classical seven-circuit labyrinth pattern and added four extra circuits, creating the more complex eleven-circuit labyrinth design known as the “medieval labyrinth.”2 His drawing in the end leaf of his Book of Gospelsbecame a base for the development of a number of later thirteenth and fourteenth century labyrinths found in cathedrals and churches across Europe. The spread of the eleven-circuit design in France and its construction on the pavement floor of Chartres Cathedral in 1201 attests to its significance as a religious symbol in the Middle Ages. In fact, the “Chartres Labyrinth” is one of the most walked labyrinths in the world, and the labyrinth found in the manuscript is almost identical.

http://sprightlyinnovations.com/leafandleisure/2013/05/10/meditations-on-a-medieval-labyrinth/

Artess, Lauren. Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Tool. New York: The Berkeley Publishing Group, 1995.

Bandiera, Nancy Ann. “The Medieval Labyrinth Ritual and Performance: A Grounded Theory Study of Liminality and Spiritual Experience.” Unpd dissertation. University of Texas at Austin, 2006. PDF.

ABOVE: The chartres labyrinth was converted from circular to square using a maze maker produced earlier this semester. Click the following link to view the maze maker in fullscreen
http://artworkprocess.com/projects/mazemaker/