Emily Simpson in the labyrinth

In early June Emily Simpson, someone I’d never met, said, ”Can I come and talk to you about putting a labyrinth in Chippendale?”.

We met the next day.

After five minutes of Emily showing me photos of the labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral and different cultures around Earth I was persuaded.  I rang Jane Hooper at the nearby Pine Street Creative Arts Centre and she, too, loved it.

Unlike a maze which is intended to confuse, a labyrinth allows us to walk meditatively.  They’re all over the world, a centuries old way of finding solitude and simplicity while walking.  In churches, parks, schools, hospitals.  And now on the former basketball court at Pine Street.

Today, less than a month after we first met, Emily and I met there at 8 am and we’d finished marking it out and had each walked it by 9 am.

Emily walked into it, letting out the thoughts and ‘stuff’ in her mind, she reckoned, then paused at the end a moment.  With her mind ‘cleared’ she was ready for the return trip.  Then Emily walked back out to the entry, open for what emotions happened along the way.

She says some people dance it, some do Chinese exercises and some walk slowly or fast – whatever.

In the US it’s on school kids’ desk computers for those with attention deficit syndrome.  After doing the labyrinth on their computer the kids concentrate more effectively on their school work.

Labyrinth novice, first go

I walked in, not quite believing it, but I love to have a go at new things.  I’m pretty awful at meditating.

Well.  I feel terrific now.  Such a simple thing.  Now it’s a short walk away from my house and for many residents and businesses who wish to try it out.

Jane Hooper has been terrifically supportive.  She’ll now get kids to decorate it and over time the colours and textures will change as others get involved.

Emily is working to put one in Centennial Park and wrote to me:

Smiling I am, savouring a simple thing, simply done and produced by ready cooperation between our community and the local council officers; congratulations Sydney Council for ‘getting it’.

May the labyrinth be with us all,

M