The Healing Labyrinth: Finding Your Path to Inner Peace

Have you ever walked a labyrinth? I have; they have become en vogue in the past decade or so in Unitarian Universalist circles. I have found peace in them, and a way of moving from uncertainty to some knowing of myself. I like them, but I've never led ritual in them. I really liked this book by Helen Raphael Sands in most ways. She does a good job of explaining what labyrinths are, where they come from, and what you can do with them. Also how to make them.

I like the way she sets forth the four parts of a labyrinth journey: The Threshold, Journeying In, The Resting Place, and Journeying Out. I love the pictures - wonderful photographs and a few illustrations grace this volume.

I'm a bit leary of the cross-cultural aspect of labyrinths. I think it's so easy to say, "Oh, look, here's this symbol and process present in cultures across time and across space, let's refer to ALL of those cultures at once when we build/walk ours!" But I'm not sure it's respectful to prepare and energize a labyrinth using elements from paganism, Christianity, Native American tribal culture, AND Hindu chakra work all at once, especially if you don't happen to have any particular training in or connection to some of those traditions. For myself, I know that in order to properly prepare and energize a labyrinth - or use the symbol as a metaphor in my childbirth preparation work - I have to know which traditions I have authentic connection to and consider how to share those meanings and traditions authentically with the people I work with.

I also read Sacred Rituals: Connecting with Spirit through Labyrinths, Sand Paintings, & Other Traditional Arts by Eileen London & Belinda Recio. Similarly, it was a truly lovely book and I learned a lot. Also similarly, I had concerns about multicultural appreciation vs. appropriation.