Arrive Magazine - July/August, 2008

it’s almost white noise. It’s with people on their walk, but it’s not anything they have to think about. It’s a comforting presence that’s not intrusive.”

For those who prefer to walk in silence, a smaller canvas labyrinth is set up in the crypt level of the cathedral.

The monthly walks attract a core of regulars that includes church and meditation groups, families and co-workers. In the summer, tourists add to the rolls. It’s a special time to be here. The sun setting through the church’s stained-glass windows sheds an ethereal light.

Simpson says first-timers tend to walk the labyrinth t wice. “The first time, they’re worried if they’re doing it right.” The second time, she says, they relax and are able to make it more of a spiritual journey.

Although the walks aren’t facilitated, prayer and meditation sheets are always available and labyrinth guides are on hand to regulate traffic. Some 200 to 250 people show up each month, making the labyrinth walk a communal experience rather than a solitary one.

“With so many people together, it provides a sense of community,” Simpson says. “People are walking, but they’re encountering other people on the path. They make space for each other. They get into a rhythm. It’s almost a ballet, the graceful way they share the path. It’s amazing.”

Anthony N. Fusco Reservoir
Labyrinth, Delaware Art Museum
Wilmington, Del.

When a group of local Wilmington women approached the Delaware Art Museum with an idea for a labyrinth on museum grounds, the answer was a resounding yes.

“Art museums are places of creative renewal, places to get into touch with one’s own imaginative senses, so I loved the idea,” recalls Danielle Rice, Delaware Art Museum’s executive director.

As it happened, the women not only proposed but also built it. The labyrinth opened last spring, next to the sculpture gardens, in a former reservoir that once served the city. The reservoir was drained in anticipation of an art installation that never came. A labyrinth, museum officials agreed, was the ideal use for the space.

The path is made of gravel and is marked off with native Brandy wine

River stones. T welve-foot-high granite walls surround it, the tops of which are also walkable.

The labyrinth is accessible to the public, and there’s no need to pay an admission fee for its use. Still, some people who bypass the museum exhibitions are happy to pay for it, says Rice.

“The spiritual journey is akin to making a pilgrimage to a religious site,” she says. “As believers, they often enter the labyrinth with a problem to solve. If the problem is resolved, they give money in support of the spirit of the labyrinth when they exit.”

The Labyrinth at Johns Hopkins
Bayview Medical Center
Baltimore

The single spiral circuit at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center is simpler than many labyrinths—and for good reason: It is accessible to the disabled and wheelchairs. The path, made of sturdy pavers, is extra wide, with fewer twists. Still, the labyrinth has been embraced not just by patients and their families but also by hospital employees and members of the greater Baltimore community.

The labyrinth, which opened in 2000, offers a healing respite on the hospital’s 130-acre campus. Dark green wooden arbors mark its entrance, which is prominently located near the main campus entrance. Ground lighting around the labyrinth’s perimeter encourages its use in the evening. Visitors are invited to walk the labyrinth and then to share their thoughts about the experience in a waterproof journal tethered to a nearby bench.

“Some are quite moving,” says Anita Langford, vice president of care management services. Langford heads a committee that meets biannually to plan labyrinth events. Among the activities are chaplain-led facilitated walks held April through October and a Remembrance Walk in November to honor those who have died.

Langford’s own experience on the path is one of calm and quiet.

“I find when I walk in, I’m often walking pretty fast,” she says. “Then I notice everything just slows down a bit as I get to the center. When I walk out of the labyrinth, it’s a very different, much more relaxed feeling than when I walked in.”