Floor Maze
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Since our floor maze was finished on October 31, 2003, we have walked
it daily, danced and entertained cats on it,
and used it for seasonal rituals and shamanic work. This article
is a summary of my impressions and experiences.
Heart of the House, Center of the World
The maze opens up the living room and a creates sacred, structured,
and protected space that is permanent and self-maintaining, growing stronger
with use. Walking it with consciousness and reverence encourages
a similar sense of purpose throughout the house, which turns our home into
a temple. The mood of the maze changes depending on the
time of day. It is oceanic in the early morning light, like a whirlpool
of waves and seafoam. At midday it is cool and quiet like a wandering
creek in the forest. In moonlight it is an ancient sacred well or
springhouse, a bottomless swirl of dark water within carved marble walls.
When candles are lit around the room and on the three copper tiles, it
becomes an underground cavern holding a rimstone pool filled with cave
pearls and moonmilk. When a single oil lamp burns in the center,
the heart of the maze expands but the edges merge into a low dome of shadow
as the lamp appears to float on water.
My black cats enjoy the maze, and view a mazewalk as an invitation
to play.
The maze is the shaman's door and path into the Otherworld, a safe
enclosure for journeying and return, a permanently-cast circle, a place
for meeting spirits and guiding transformations. Working with all
of these aspects, I have used it for psychopomp work, personal healing
and transformation, creative inspiration, and even physical therapy after
an illness.
Sacred Geometry
Most unicursal labyrinths are circular, although they can be adapted
to many shapes. Only the classical Roman pattern, with its four quadrants
that are traced in succession, is consistently square. We designed
a square maze for practical reasons, but this shape has several unique
and interesting effects. Our house is oriented square to the compass,
with the front door facing north. The maze entrance faces west.
The square corners encourage dancelike steps that develop agility and relieve
stiff leg muscles. The turns and angles enter the body, and when
combined with rhythmic music, help regulate breathing and heartbeat.
On the inward path there is the sense of spinning and being drawn toward
the center. The outward journey is more measured and geometric, and
the mind becomes the map itself, easily following its ever-changing position
on
the familiar pattern. As with many labyrinths, there is a release
of tension on the outward journey, a feeling of accomplishing whatever
inspired the journey inward.
Geology
The maze is designed to represent the four elements, but its overall
theme is Water, and the geology of the stone tiles reflects this. The "porch"
of tiny ceramic tiles creates a borderland with its own appeal, like a
gravel beach, and walking up and down this strip is a good way to prepare
for the mazewalk.
The dark green path is made of serpentine, a low-temperature, high-pressure
metamorphic rock that is recrystallized from ultramafic igneous rocks.
Ultramafics are derived from the deepest parts of the earth's mantle.
They are composed of dark green iron and magnesium-rich silicates, as well
as oxides, spinel, and other minerals. Serpentine is the name of
a rock composed of a group of soft, fibrous Fe-Mg silicate minerals that
have water in their crystal structure. It is found in ophiolites
("serpent rocks"), which are metamorphosed oceanic crust. In the
maze, serpentine represents Earth because of its deep mantle composition,
but is connected with water through its crystal structure and its origin
as an oceanic igneous rock. The swirling felted patterns of the mineral
fibers give the path a sense of flowing movement.
The white background of the maze is composed of limestone, a sedimentary
rock that precipitates out of tropical seawater. A few of the maze
tiles contain recrystallized marine snail shells. Limestone is made
of calcite, CaCO3. The tiles are chalky white and pitted because
the outcrops were exposed to weathering at the earth's surface. For
this reason they were chosen to represent Air, although they formed in
water. They have a softer, warmer, more organic look than the cold
sugary glitter of marble. Marble is metamorphosed limestone, and
is composed of larger calcite crystals.
In a canyon south of our house, we can visit a natural geological reflection
of the maze. Gray limestone and several types of granite form the
canyon walls and the outcrops on the hills that rise above the gravel wash.
But within the wash itself are small waterworn humps of heavy grayish-green
lamprophyre, an uncommon ultramafic igneous rock. A little further
upstream there is a marble outcrop, cool and white as milk, that the water
has dissolved into smooth hollows, domes, and tunnels. Both outcrops
hold small ephemeral pools of water after a rain. We walk the canyon
outcrops and then walk the maze, weaving their roots together with our
own, connecting our home with the land.
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| Water-worn lamprophyre outcrop
after a summer thunderstorm. |
Water has etched a twisting path
through the Marble Canyon. |
HILLCOIL: Outdoor Stone Labyrinth, Winter Solstice, 2004.
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A stone labyrinth induces a dynamic three-dimensional coiling effect
in which the walking path appears to curve up a hill or spiral down into
the earth. The path wraps around you on the way in, and swings wide
(seeming much larger than it really is) on the way out. These are
traveller's mazes - each is a way-station on a longer pilgrimage.
Walking one of them is like visiting a roadside shrine or laying a stone
on a crossroads cairn. In building stone labyrinths like the one
above, or visiting those that others have created (such as the Desert
Light Labyrinth near Arivaca, Arizona or the Olcott
Labyrinth in Wheaton, Illinois) I am especially interested in how the
materials and setting affect the mazewalk experience and purpose.
I prefer the classic seven-circuit labyrinth and its relatives (some with
"quick exits" or simpler paths) because they adapt so easily to shamanic
work. The more elaborate Christian labyrinths, such as the very popular
and historically significant Chartres pattern, appear to be designed for
the type of meditation that produces the mental and emotional state of
"nonattachment". Achieving this state is an important spiritual practice
in many organized religions, but it is essentially the opposite of shamanic
ecstasy. Shamanic work is all about connection, not detachment.
The shaman simultaneously communicates with spirit guides, the person who
has requested help, the geography and events of the Otherworld journey,
and the land itself.