That was kind of a fun blogpost yesterday working on walking a labyrinth. It looks so simple, a labyrinth but it is really ingenious. It is striped down like a good poem is essence.
I’ll have to talk to our art historian Catalina and get some reading material about the topic lined up for the long dark winter ahead. Must be stuff on the history, locations, different designs. The artist engineer in me wants to work on a new design. Always room for the new, right?
Annie was here in the spring and we went down to Olympia, WA to St Michael’s for a showing of Phil’s Camino and to do our usual fantastic QandA. There at the St Michael’s campus is an outdoor labyrinth that is very neat and tidy. I had some time in between things so I did the walk. I had a vision where the flat labyrinth changed into a mountain and I was walking around the mountain on the trail and working my way upward to the center at the mountaintop. The tight 180 degree turns of the flat labyrinth changed into switchbacks on the mountainside. That makes total sense, right? Can you see it?
I wonder if there is such a thing as one that is big enough to say a rosary while walking. That would be good to figure out. I like the idea of that where the walker has something to do, to concentrate on, rather than just plain checking his progress continually which can drive one crazy.
Maybe I will find some paper here and work on a different design while I am thethered to my chemo. Lunchtime now though. I think I will investigate the cantina here on this floor. OK, all good once again, alperfect really.
Walking along loves, Felipe.
Hola Felipe,
You may have come across this one, probably the most famous. Yes, many people pray the rosary while walking it. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/labyrinth-chartres-cathedral
Alperfect!
Labyrinthine love,
Mary Margaret
MM ~ did I tell you your lovely niece made it up here to walk and tapa with us, fun times. Yes, thanks for the labyrinth news. Miss you. It was Angelia birthday yesterday or today. Felipe.x
Hola Felipe,
Feels nice to be back to the surface! A bad flu had knocked me down since Sunday evening… Have you read Rebecca Solnit’s book “Wanderlust: a history of walking”? I didn’t, but my priest friend Edu, mentioned this book to me last year, and we engaged into the discussion that in Spanish there is only 1 word to describe both the maze and the labyrinth, so we never thought of the difference… Edu shared with me this phrase from the book (I had it in my emails):
“That (labyrinth)…became a world whose rules I lived by, and I understood the moral of mazes: sometimes you have to turn your back on your goal to get there, sometimes you’re farthest away when you’re closest, sometimes the only way is the long one. …It was breathtaking to realize that in the labyrinth, metaphors and meanings could be conveyed spatially. That when you seem farthest from your destination is when you suddenly arrive is a very pat truth in words, but a profound one to find with your feet.”
Glad-that-flu-virus-don’t-surf-the-internet Love,
Cris
Cris ~ welcome back to the world. Of course I keep forgetting that it is winter there, flu season. Thank you and Father for your thoughts. It is all an interesting study and focus. I am glad that it came up. I will try and find that book that you mentioned. Wish that I had more time to read but oh well. Felipe.x