The Labyrinth:  Path to Inner Peace

The labyrinth is an archetypal map for the healing journey….a way to deepen spirituality, connect to self and higher self, access intuition, and integrate body, mind and spirit.  It births people’s creativity.

Whoever you are, walking the labyrinth has something to offer you.  If a creative or work project is challenging you, walking can get your creative juices flowing.  When you are struggling with grief, anger or a physical challenge or illness, walking the labyrinth can point the way to healing and wholeness.  If you’re wanting a way to meditate or pray that engages your body as well as your soul, the labyrinth can be such a way.  When you just want reflective time away from a busy life, the labyrinth can offer you time out.  The labyrinth holds up a mirror, reflecting back to us not only the light of our finest selves but also whatever restrains us from shining forth.

The walk itself is a potent physical metaphor for the journey of healing, spiritual and emotional growth, and transformation.  In walking the labyrinth, we start at the perimeter.  The path of the labyrinth, like any journey, has its own twists and turns, sometimes drawing near to and then away from the center.  It is only by keeping to the path, step by step, twist by turn, that one arrives at the physical center of the labyrinth, which signifies arriving at the center of our own lives and souls.  Reaching the center of the labyrinth represents reaching the center, not only of our own hearts and spirits but of the goal we seek.  The labyrinth can be a path of prayer, taking us to the center: the center of creation and the center of our own hearts and souls.

The labyrinth offers us the great gift of making it easier to set aside the time to look inward.  During a labyrinth walk, the left and right hemispheres of the brain are balanced, leading to the perfect state for access to intuition and wisdom, inner sources of guidance that can give us invaluable feedback on questions and concerns we carry about our relationships, our work, our health and well-being, our spiritual lives.

The labyrinth’s gift is simplicity, both the simplicity of stripping away all external do’s and don’ts to listen to our own voices and the simplicity of the walk itself.

There is no “right way” to walk the labyrinth.  In simply putting one foot in front of the other, we are thrown back on ourselves and our own experiences.  In this simplicity, everything that takes place while walking becomes a mirror that allows us to look into our individual fears and anxieties. Walking the path of the labyrinth teaches us that we walk different paths in different worlds – the outside world of jobs and the inside world of our souls. We realize that everyone is on the same path, but we’re at different places on the path as we all move toward the center. We walk together, we move apart, but in the big picture we are all walking toward the center. Allow the labyrinth to take you back to your center, your body and soul.  It welcomes you with open arms as you journey on your path.

Click here to check out both past and current pictures of the labyrinth.