The Labyrinth Path: Mind Unwinding

The air was crisp, the sun filtered through the leaves bursting with reds, oranges and yellows. The craggy stones made a pathway, inviting you to walk, meander, and find your way.

I entered the pathway hesitantly, unsure why I was following this circular path, yet intrigued.

Something tugged inside me, telling me to continue, as I found my thoughts unwinding, and letting go with each circuit walked, my mind quieting more with each step.

I paused in the middle, wondering about this pathway and the unusual quieting I was feeling inside my mind and heart.

I was surprised I felt at home walking this path that lead me around and around in circles, into the center circle, and then back outside the circuits.

That was back in the late 1980’s at a friend’s house in Vermont.  I had only recently heard of labyrinths through Tellington TTouch,and was totally fascinated by my experience.

 

The Mysteries of Ancient Labyrinths

A labyrinth is an ancient, mysterious symbol and a spiraling, circuitous path. The complicated network of paths can serve as a metaphor for finding yourself or represent a journey to your own center.

“The ancient wise women of Great Britain used the labyrinth to initiate states of high perception by continuously running their finger through a carved stone labyrinthine tablet while inducing sacred harmonics to initiate the higher state.”   from http://www.labyrinthina.com/path.htm

The use of labyrinths has been revived in the last few decades, being seen as a sacred path, a place of rebirthing, meditation, a mindful walking prayer to help you come back to yourself more deeply with wholeness, balance and insights.

 

TTouch Labyrinths with Animals

In her infinite wisdom, Linda Tellington-Jones, creator of TTouch, began using a labyrinth with horses over 30 years ago.

In the 1980’s, Anna Wise, then director of Biofeedback Institute of Boulder, Colorado, and Linda used the MindMirror to gauge brainwave patterns at one of Linda’s trainings.

They found whenever a horse stepped around each turn in the labyrinth, Beta brainwaves were activated. This indicates that a hinking process was activated during this movement in the horses.

Linda says, “This information supports our experience, over many years with thousands of horses, that mental, emotional and physical balance improves markedly when horses receive TTouch or are worked through the TTEAM labyrinth.”      TTouch.com

 

The Sacred Path of Chakra Labyrinths 

When I was teaching at the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, 1995-2001, one of the faculty, Lisa Casselli helped us create a large labyrinth for the first year students to walk as part of their sacred closing ceremony for the year.

This was one of my all time favorite ceremonies, the tradition continues today at the school.

I hosted Lisa to come to teach a group at my home how to make a labyrinth on the land. We created a ‘Chakra Labyrinth.’  I’ve never seen anyone else do this particular type of Labyrinth.

Since then, I’ve created dozens of labyrinths on each of the farms where I’ve lived, all large enough to walk the horses through!  It’s a blast!

 

Beach and Lavender Labyrinths

I’ve made labyrinths on different beaches I’ve visited.  Each was incredibly fun, exhilarating to make, and walk.

We had  2 day In Person, Essential Oils and Animals Educational Retreat at my farm in Virginia.

We walked the labyrinth with the participating dogs, using essential oils, having sacred ceremony along with learning many techniques and methods for using essential oils with animals.

This was the integration and culmination of over 30 years of work, play, creativity, ceremony, training – unfolding into something new – that had never been done before.

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