By BARBARA CLARK
“May all who come to walk here leave in peace, to share the earth’s goodness and blessings with others.”
—From labyrinth dedication at Meetinghouse Farm, 2022
It could be a twisty, winding structure in the palace of a long-ago mythical king on the island of Crete, or a circular, woodland pathway welcoming walkers on a spiritual journey. Both ancient and modern descriptions can call to mind the image of a labyrinth, and since the early 1990s, there’s been a movement to re-introduce and revitalize labyrinth experiences in the present day, continuing the spiritual practices and traditions that have drawn people to their landscapes for thousands of years.
Ellen Karel at Meetinghouse Farm community labyrinth on the West Barnstable Farm property.
Lucky for us, Cape Cod is home to several labyrinths that welcome the public, each offering circular path designs for quiet, contemplative walks. Many of them connect up online to a new labyrinth movement, linking more than 6,000 registered labyrinths worldwide through a World-Wide Labyrinth Locator. In addition to the thousands of public labyrinth sites there are countless individual, unlisted meditative pathways appearing in back gardens and meadows surrounding private homes.
“There’s just something about the labyrinth” and its ancient design, said Anne Bonney, founder of the Center for the Spiritual Journey, which “caretakes” the labyrinth in Chatham. The quietly enthusiastic Bonney explained that the Chatham labyrinth grew out of an idea put together by seven churches in Chatham as a part of the town’s 300th anniversary in 2012, aptly connecting with the celebration’s theme, “Find Your Way Here.” Bonney, a Congregational minister who formerly served a congregation in Chatham, worked with others, including co-directors Kathe Rhinesmith and Dawn Tolley, to shepherd the project to completion. Besides being open to all walkers, the labyrinth offers weekly guided walks during the summer months.
Chatham’s inviting design is that of an 11-circuit medieval labyrinth, meaning the single winding pathway of gray and pink stone pavers circles the center 11 times. The central circle depicts six petals and is known as a “rosette,” signifying beauty and love. The design is derived from the famed labyrinth on the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France, which dates back to 1205 CE.
Bonney recalled the personal impact she felt when walking at the Chartres labyrinth at an earlier time in her life. During her walk, she said, “I began to feel…a connection to those who walked not only with me, but my ancestors before me. Walking the labyrinth remains for me today a way to reconnect with myself and the wisdom of those whose shoulders I stand upon.”
On a sunny summer day a visit to the Chatham location, just behind the Grist Mill at Chase Park, offered a tranquil look at the walking circle, bordered by a “peace garden” of foliage and flowers. Picnickers nearby enjoyed a shady spot, blanket spread out under the trees.
Asked about the Chatham community’s positive response to walking at the local labyrinth, she said it seemed like part of a current “yearning to find something peaceful.” Walking the labyrinth “takes the busyness away” from a frazzled day and offers a way for people to “ground themselves.” Whatever you may be facing, “You feel you’re contained in some kind of order.”
The Chatham labyrinth website (chathamlabyrinth.com) says that walking the path “can be a guide for centering, healing, spiritual growth,” and then adds, calmingly, “It may also just be a nice, quiet walk in the park.”
The many current websites devoted to explaining the labyrinth phenomenon all stress that a labyrinth is not a maze; there are no tricks, traps or dead ends. A single, circular path winds its way to the center, and the exit path is the same as that used to enter. The pathway design engages the walker and the whole circle is fully in view, giving the chance to concentrate on one’s inner focus when starting a mindful journey. Author and labyrinth expert Lauren Artress writes, “You enter a maze to lose yourself, and a labyrinth to find yourself.”
The site of the seven-circuit woodland labyrinth at Meetinghouse Farm in West Barnstable is located at the end of a tree-lined pathway, just past the farm’s community garden. The forested site was dedicated in 2022, after months of planning and design meetings that convened to work out issues of excavation, masonry, water drainage, materials and upkeep.
The late Meetinghouse Farm director Judy Desrochers, left, and board member Ellen Karel standing at the center of what will become the new labyrinth.
Ellen Karel, director at Meetinghouse Farm, said its creation sought to meet one of the farm’s goals, “to create an aesthetic and peaceful environment for contemplation and reflection.” The labyrinth’s peaceful setting, said Karel, blends well with the work of tending the garden just up the path.
The farm has held a “walk for guidance,” led by a facilitator, with shared meditation and music. “Walking in a group,” Karel said, “offers walkers a sense of community, while at the same time they’re doing their own thing.” Future activities at the labyrinth include planning a walk for area veterans.
The wooded site was the brainchild of Karel and of Meetinghouse Farm’s late director, Judy Desrochers, who dreamed of building a labyrinth there for a long time, and it came to fruition through many local donations and bequests.
Karel said the public’s response to the new labyrinth has been very “gratifying.” A notebook for public comments sits in a tiny kiosk nearby, and its contents bear out the community’s positive take on walking the path. “Life was here,” one said. Another: “The flow and the energy and the circle—it touched my soul.” And another, written in a child’s uneven print: “I had such a fun time walking here with my dad! We had so much fun.”
Churches have been quick to join the new movement to create labyrinth walks; among the local participants are St. Barnabas’s Episcopal Church, overlooking Siders Pond in Falmouth, and the Federated Church of Orleans. The sites are open to the public, welcoming visitors to their walks.
At Quashnet Elementary School in Mashpee, the school has an outdoor labyrinth that’s open to the public when school is not in session. In addition, many teachers have introduced a mindfulness activity called Calm Classroom in some of their student classroom instruction.
Planning began in the early 2000s for a seven-circuit labyrinth on the 100-acre grounds at Heritage Museums and Gardens in Sandwich, and Jennifer Madden, director of collections and exhibitions at Heritage, has taken charge of its evolution.
Instead of a committee to settle on a site, Heritage made use of well-known dowser and internationally known labyrinth designer Marty Cain to determine an optimal site for the installation. Cain’s Lithuanian grandfather taught her the art of dowsing when she was a child in Vermont, and she’s gone on to site and design more than 130 permanent labyrinths worldwide using the energy of that technique. “The dowsing rod and the earth tell her the best spot” to create the labyrinth, Madden said..
The shaded labyrinth, which sits just at the center of the Heritage complex, seems to confirm Cain’s search for “positive energy.” Its pathway, formed of pink granite blocks and crushed shells, winds around tall black spruce trees and Canadian hemlocks with darkly grooved trunks, their green foliage creating a forest canopy that rises far overhead.
Teaticket Park
On one recent day at the labyrinth, a family visiting Heritage was negotiating the circuitous route to the center, in what amounts to about a half-mile walk. “Don’t cross the border!” one called out to the other, hoping to keep them from stepping off the winding route.
We’re each on our own journey, Madden said. “Experience a labyrinth however you want to. There is no correct way. Everyone who comes through the gate is unique.”
A modest sign announces the entrance to the 11-acre Teaticket Park, completed in 2014 and situated in the midst of a commercial district on the eastern edge of Falmouth, in the village of Teaticket. The park offers a refreshing oasis of walking paths, picnic areas, picturesque wetlands and a meadow filled with multi-hued grasses, and now, thanks to an Eagle Scout project created by an East Falmouth youth, it holds Falmouth’s newest labyrinth.
Will Thrasher, who is about to enter his junior year at Falmouth Academy, chose a labyrinth as his Eagle project for Troop 38 in North Falmouth, with Falmouth’s nonprofit The 300 Committee Land Trust as the proposal’s beneficiary.
Describing the park’s new addition, which was created this spring, Will said, “The 300 Committee chose and mapped out an area in Teaticket Park where the labyrinth could go. They have a lot of preserved green space in town and they were very helpful and supportive of my project.”
“I thought it would benefit the community,” he said. “I’ve visited the 9/11 memorial labyrinth at Boston College,” and he added that he found it “beautiful and meditative.”
Will said the new labyrinth was completed in early June, and made use of local volunteer help of all kinds, over a period of about five days, including “mapping the whole thing out and construction.” Will’s proposal got hands-on assistance from The 300 Committee, local community members and fellow Scouts and their families. Help with materials and construction came from area companies Lawrence-Lynch (Falmouth), Big Guy Landscape (Mashpee) and Drywall Masonry (South Yarmouth).
Added to the commercial supplies of gravel, cobblestones and pavers that formed the labyrinth were donations of stones from individual area residents who wanted to contribute to the project. The new installation, just a short walk from the parking area, looks across a walking path to the grassy meadow and nearby picnic tables.
Traveling through a labyrinth turns out to be a personal journey. It’s where walkers may discover that what seems like an end can also be a beginning, with twists and U-turns, but no dead ends.