THIS IS IT?!?
That’s what the kids said when we hopped out of the car in front of the grass labyrinth at the Ignatius Jesuit Centre in Guelph. I did share some of their trepidation. The labyrinth occupies the amount of space of a small parkette, maybe the dimensions of the centre section of Remembrance Park here in Georgetown. The grass was fairly long, so on first glance it was hard to make out the winding path. And not far from the roadway, you could see the tall plumes of grass that encircled the heart of the labyrinth. Even at eight months pregnant, I didn’t think it was going to take very long for me to waddle to the middle and back out again. In the moment, I felt a bit badly for dragging them all the way here in the car on a gorgeous closing day of summer.
Now when you come with family which includes kids, I’d say give up on the notion that it’s going to be some kind of ultra personal meditative experience. As always with kids it’s a learning, explaining experience. So lots of chatter and questions fill the air. Although it’s hardly quiet without the chatter. You can hear traffic from neighboring Highway 6. The loud truck sound we heard on the property turned out to be a hay wagon. And the crickets are so noisy you can scarcely hear yourself think!
Last out of the starting gates at the labyrinth entrance sign and making my way over ground thick with airborne grasshoppers, I heard a bit of excitement farther in. My son and husband had spotted a toad, they said, in the grass. A little brown toad, I thought. They were lucky not to have stepped on it and crushed it. When I finally saw the beast for myself, I realized it was in no danger of being missed. A substantial green spotted leopard frog, they were fortunate it hadn’t hurt them.
On our visit, the grass between the footpaths was about six to eight inches high. As you pick your way along, you can see tiny buttercups and wild carrot, purple clover and thistle. There are blown milkweed pods. The labyrinth is sort of enclosed on two sides by tall cedar hedges, at least 20 feet high, forming a sort of L–shape. Beneath one cedar wall, there are raspberry canes and knobby red pines.
The original Ignatius labyrinth was the particular handiwork of Mr. Craig Chamberlain, the Centre’s land manager. Craig later adopted the traditional Chartes Cathedral design for the current labyrinth which he continues to maintain. The Centre has a brochure with some great background detail on how Craig came up with the design of the first labyrinth on the property. Well worth reading!
You can read lots about what labyrinths are supposed to do for you. I first walked one a few years ago, and was surprised at how powerful the walk was in channeling off various tensions I was carrying around at the time. That labyrinth was a canvas one marked out in tape. I hoped, but didn’t know for sure, whether the outdoor labyrinth, cut with a humble lawnmower out of common grass, would be more powerful.
I had also read since about labyrinths being installed and effective in rehabilitative institutions, and therefore having valued healing properties. I’ll admit, some of this sounded too new age–y for this practical girl. But I did wonder if that first experience of mine could be re–created.
This time I walked it as a late–term pregnant person. And when we first hopped out of the car, and the kids expressed their disappointment, while I felt for them, I was happy for me. The small scale of the structure in front of me was about all I felt I could navigate in my current distorted (in its own special way!) shape and posture.
And you know, the slow crawl through the grass was exactly what I needed. There’s something about the low level cardiovascular process that helps with the channeling, maybe fuels some kind of endorphin rush that you may not appreciate as much when you’re more able–bodied. I could completely see how such a structure would be wonderful for people with mobility challenges, whether short or long–term. And I think if I were not well and recuperating, I’d prefer to have a reason to go outdoors.
At the heart of the Ignatius labyrinth, enclosed in a tall, about four foot high circle of grass, is a wooden chair for one person with a large rock beside it. These sit on bark mulch, and around the mulch is a circle of smooth round black stones, each about the size of a jelly donut, laid out in a 6–petal clover pattern.
When I reached the centre, my nine–year–old daughter was sitting on the stone waiting for me (did I mention letting go of the individual spirituality theory on this kind of visit?!) While I sat for a minute, she picked up one of the black rocks. “It’s warm,” she said. She was right —the black stones had picked up and retained the heat of the day. And you could see how on a cooler day, the heat generated by the stones would be trapped by the wall of high grass. It would be right cozy there in the middle. I was glad she was with me to point that out.
After leaving the centre, I had the same sort of pangs of regret at each corner that I’d felt on approaching the centre. I think whether you’re coming or going, you don’t want the walk to be over too soon.
“You’re right, Mom. It does make you feel happy,” my daughter said later. I’m still at a loss to explain why it works. For me it has a similar effect of collective or small group prayer. In the past I’ve felt a great sense of relief when someone else has put into words other than my own the thoughts, feelings, worries and petitions that have fallen into the some worn footpaths in my mind.
I think when you walk a labyrinth; the structure becomes just that — a structure that you can hang your fears on for a time. And the resulting lightening of the load is, I think, where the happiness comes from. I also didn’t know if kids would feel some or any of the same kind of lightening. As this same daughter had said on the ride over when we were talking about the labyrinth, “But Mom, I’m a kid. I don’t have any worries.” Her dad pointed out that she often has worries before bedtime. Kids can worry about going back to school or about new babies coming. She went quiet thinking about that for a while.
Our 13 year old son agreed that it turned out to be a cooler experience that he expected. My 11 year old daughter is still not sold. But when I told her Pat Dares, the admin assistant at the Ignatius Centre, mentioned maybe a visit could be worked out for our youth group where kids could walk the labyrinth and then make use of some of the Centre’s other facilities, she thought that might be a neat idea.
— Sept. 2005