POLOKWANE – Shed the details of your life for a time. Be alert to “the work you feel your soul is reaching for”.
The labyrinth is described as a divine imprint. Unite with God, a higher power or the “healing forces at work in the world”.
In 1911 in the Country Wicklow during the pursuit of a weasel, a granite boulder overturned, revealing a flat surface with the same labyrinth design carved on it in circular form and about 30 inches across. Although it may be difficult to date precisely, it is suggested that the design may be early Christian or as late as the 14th century. The boulder is now in Dublin’s National Museum.
A complicated church labyrinth at St Omer, near Calais in France, is supposed to have represented the road to Jerusalem. To make your way through it to the centre could have been a spiritual exercise. Some performed it on hands and knees as repentance. The journey inward symbolised involvement in earthly evil, and the journey out symbolised recovery and redemption.
In 2007 at the Mental Health Centre of Madison country, the therapeutic use of labyrinth walks is done as part of their treatment programme for recovery. Mental health clients and health care professionals concluded that the labyrinth course has far more impact than talk therapy and that its use is especially effective in grief and loss, post traumatic stress disorder and sexual abuse.
The labyrinth is no miracle cure, but across the centuries it still invites everyone to reclaim a lightness of spirit, to turn away from vile impulses and fear. It points the way to a homecoming.
The two main styles of labyrinths are the classical (or Cretan) and Chartres (Medieval) ones.
I still need your investment financially and in time to make this dream come true as a community project at Bolivia Lodge.
Lizel Britz
072 243 7707
