Living Labyrinths for Peace, Inc.Inner Peace to World Peace
LabyrinthsWhat are Labyrinths?Over 4000 years old and found worldwide, labyrinths symbolize life's journey. Unlike mazes, they have only one path to the center and back, so you cannot get lost. Many find the winding path slows the breathing, focuses the mind, and brings a peaceful state.
Labyrinths find their way into almost every country in the world: Greece, Egypt, India, Peru, Iceland, Europe, and the American Southwest, to name a few. A Tohono O'odham basket from southern Arizona has a Man in the Maze design. The Hopi Indians have two forms: a spiral sun father, and a square mother earth with unborn child. Three major patterns are the Classic 7-circuit, believed to be the oldest; the Concentric, formed from the meander pattern, and the Chartres Design, seen on the floor of that Medieval cathedral near Paris. The labyrinth design combines the circle and the spiral form found throughout the universe from the galaxies to our DNA, and which is a symbol for wholeness, unity, and transformation. In most cultures labyrinths celebrate life's major events: birthdays, weddings and funerals, the cycles: birth, death, and rebirth.
Today labyrinths are found in parks and prisons, churches and retreat centers, schools and playgrounds. Lying dormant for centuries, they are undergoing a revival for meditation, dance, rituals, decision In 1998, as a founding member of The Labyrinth Society, Sandra Wasko-Flood directed its traveling exhibit, "Labyrinths for Peace: 2000" first shown the Cannon Rotunda of the House of Representatives, which included labyrinth walking on the east lawn of the U.S.Capitol. At the turn of the millennium, labyrinths are an apt symbol for peace within oneself, one's communities, and the world. * Kern, Hermann, Through the Labyrinth: Designs and Meanings over 5000 Years, Prestel, 2000 What is the LLP Center?The LLP Center located in Washington DC is the former studio of Sandra Wasko-Flood. The Meeting Room has a library and labyrinth store with space for workshops, receptions, and other events. The Labyrinth Room contains the interactive installation, “Dance of the Labyrinth’ composed of computer programmed light box images designed for open walks and other educational programs.
What is “Dance of the Labyrinth?”In Virginia Westbury's recent book available in Discovery or Nature stores, she describes First shown in 1994 at Gallery 10 in Washington DC, the large installation (18' x 15' x 10') received a grant from the Virginia Commission on the Arts in the same year. Now located in the artist's studio in NW DC, it is open to visitors by appointment. The artist attributes her inspiration first to a trip to Russia in 1990 where s In this sacred marriage for all times, she invites us to dance with opposites: opposite images, and those opposites in ourselves--to meet characters from previous series: the "Brazilian" macumba (Afro-Christian religious) dancers, strange animal "Totems"-- monkeys, birds, and snakes--and even stranger "Goddesses" icons merged with mummies and animals. As one follows the earth, water, fire, and air paths, the phosphorescent painted mulch glows like moonlight, and the colored Japanese papers shine like stained glass. As pillars rotate, the mirror ball turns and the surrounding figures dance, she invites us to "Cycles" of transformation. To confront oneself in the mirror at center. Is the image is real? Or a reflection? A passage to another world? Life, death, or rebirth? *Westbury, Virginia, Labyrinths: Ancient Paths of Wisdom and Peace, Landsdowne Publishing Pty Ltd, Sydney NSW 2001 Australia, page 94 [http://www.paragate.org/Labyrinth/Westbury.html]
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Of mysterious origins, the first labyrinth, according to labyrinth expert Hermann Kern* may have been a dance whose steps were later recorded. The oldest ones are found on Syrian pottery fragments and on clay tablets from Pylos, Greece around 1200 B.C. A labyrinth, in a tomb in Luzzana, Italy is thought to be 2300 BC. 
making, problem solving, and just plain fun. Children love them, and researchers speak of their benefits for those with such diseases as dyslexia, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
"Dance of the Labyrinth" as "an interactive labyrinth installation under glass which is designed to be walked. The path is made up of large photo transparencies in glass boxes surrounded by computer programmed lighting and wall hangings. The design is based on a combination of the spiral and the seven-circuit path. The visitor walks on pressure-sensitive glass towards a central mirror ( where they see their own face) and to a mirror ball. The path contains composite images of icons, people mummies and animals, superimposed to show the 'single reality of existence.' The idea according to Wasko-Flood is to 'dance with opposites.' Her aim is to offer her audience a 'multi-sensory journey uniting art and life, darkness and light."*
he envisioned the icons leaving the walls and ceilings of cathedrals and coming from the earth, where to walk on icons would not be irreverent but sacred. Next she recalls a vision at the Great Kiva, or Indian ceremonial center in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, of the Anazazi Indians dancing through the circular wall in a labyrinth motion inviting her to their step. 
Living Labyrinths for Peace,
PO Box 51441, Washington DC 20091 OR PO Box 1199, Angel Fire, NM 87710 |