There is today a renewal of interest in an ancient pattern which represents the inner path at the heart of all traditions. For millennia people have laid out on the ground the pattern of a labyrinth, or elsewhere marked out labyrinth images. The earliest are prehistoric, but the most prominent are in medieval cathedrals and churches. It is almost undeniable that these had a ritual significance arising in prehistory and brought into Christian service during the middle ages.
    Most follow a common design: a unicursal labyrinth, in which a single path leads, without any alternative, to the centre. It is usually circular and formed on concentric rings, often seven or eleven.
    Labyrinths are set out in stones on prehistoric sites, they are found cut as gravel paths in turf and, most conspicuously, they are found set in the paving of some great medieval churches. All of these are large enough to walk in comfort, most taking five to ten minutes. Such a labyrinth is different from the puzzle-maze, as at Hampton Court, a confusing mass of dividing paths which makes the journey to the centre a considerable challenge.
    No contemporary explanation exists for the ancient labyrinths. They are just there, without reason or commentary. However, anyone who walks such a labyrinth will appreciate that this action inescapably becomes a ritual that is at least subtly calming, and at best may evoke a profound inner stillness; in this it participates in the true function of all ritual. Walking a labyrinth can become a meditation. The natural pace is stately; one has to be intensely alert because every few paces produces a sharp turn or complete half turn. Paying attention diverts the mind from its usual petty concerns, and restores something of its true condition – the real function of prayer, for true prayer should be more an appeal for help in reforming one’s state of mind than a request for advantage.
    Walking the Labyrinth includes the three essential elements of a way of inward spiritual growth: a world view, rules of life, and a method of awakening. The world view is contained in the certainty of the destination and the purpose. The rules of life are contained in the necessity of following the one path which leads to the centre. The method of awakening is in the necessity to pay attention, and that within the rhythmic pulse of the steps along the path so that the renewal of attention flows into a mantra-like repetition. Any route to inward enlightenment needs these three elements.
    Walking the labyrinth in company can produce further insights. The walkers should avoid being too close, so that each can walk at a personal pace, and they should shun the social nicety of acknowledging one another when passing. The walkers will pass and re-pass each other, sometimes in a line of three or more moving in contrary directions. This can produce a more profound sense of rapport than social eye contact, as if larger selves are meeting. In the ancient idea that each of us is body, soul and spirit, it is not the soul that is in the body, but the body that is in the soul; and both within the spirit. The silent meeting on the labyrinth can evoke a sense of an encounter at a deeper level.

Medieval Labyrinths

Medieval examples can be found in France at Chartres, Saint-Omer, Saint-Quentin and in Belgium at Maastricht. Some were removed after the Middle Ages, but others have been restored, as in Amiens Cathedral. In these, the labyrinth usually occupies the full width of the nave, often with eleven circles. It appears, at first, a strange intrusion but the effect of walking a labyrinth can evoke such an inner peace that it is less strange than other aspects of the medieval church. After the Middle Ages, the labyrinth degenerated into a garden ornament but perhaps with some element of the ritual mystery remaining.
    Pre-medieval labyrinths usually follow a pattern simpler than the rich design developed in the cathedrals. Many turf labyrinths have been recorded all over England, but they require regular maintenance and have suffered varying fortunes. Many were allowed to degenerate and may not have been correctly restored. The Winchester labyrinth on St Catherine’s Hill is one example, and is probably now not exactly in its original form. Others, such as the Wing Maze in Rutland, conform to the traditional pattern more exactly.
    Miniature examples are found in various settings. Labyrinth images from the Bronze Age are incised on a rock face in Cornwall, moulded on a Cretan coin, and carved on a medieval vault boss in St Mary Redcliffe church in Bristol. The form is mainly European: Asian and Central American examples have been mentioned, but the latter may be of Spanish origin.
    The contemporary assessment of the traditional labyrinth is that it represents symbolically a ritual path to the spiritual centre, the Holy of Holies. There is one place where it has been suggested that there was a real path to a sacred centre, a path of which signs can still be seen: Glastonbury Tor. This is an evocative site and has clearly been formed into artificial terraces, sloping steps up the side of the hill. These have eroded over the centuries since the Bronze Age and are far from clear, but they have been interpreted as a ramped labyrinth, or sacred path, of the traditional form.

Walking the Labyrinth

Reading the labyrinth as a ritual path to a spiritual centre is reinforced by the traditional layout, best seen in Chartres Cathedral, the greatest temple of the Middle Ages, where it is set in the nave just where the western rose window would lie if the façade were folded down into the church. But the nave floor is covered in chairs, so the labyrinth is more practically walked in Amiens or Saint-Quentin. Entry is from the west, on the cathedral axis, towards the high altar. The path begins eastward, but halfway to the centre diverts left (north: winter and spiritual darkness) for quarter of the circle, then back to the central axis, and then again inwards, as it began. The path goes to the circle beside the centre, and then the walker is kept within the inner circles for some time, turning back and forth, but always near the centre.
    It is as if the "novice" is, at the beginning of the pilgrimage, given a strong display of the spiritual light, and is then kept near the light for some time. Then the path starts to move out to the much longer trek through the outer circles far from the light. The "novice" is now reliant upon personal resources, not sustained by glimpses of the light. Then, after a final semicircle along the outermost path, the journey returns towards the centre, moving eastward, next to the initial path.
    At the point where the first path diverted left, this path diverts right (south: summer and spiritual light) and after a quarter of a circle turns back to the axial path and the seeker takes the last few steps to the centre. When one stops, and in the peace that can be the grace arising from the effort, looks down the length of the cathedral, it may perhaps be seen clearly and innocently as if for the first time.
    This is the whole purpose of any spiritual Way: to see clearly and innocently as if for the first time. This pattern of pilgrimage has been felt in many ways, in undertaking meditation, in following almost any path of self-discovery. We start with energy and are given early rewards which impel us onward, but then we have to learn that the rewards are not the purpose of the Way and we are left to find perseverance, apparently (but not truly) without help, until the effort bears fruit and we are lifted to the next step.
    The labyrinth is usually seen as symbolising the journey towards the light but in the Middle Ages there was another understanding. In the labyrinth of Chartres, until the French Revolution, there was in the centre a bronze plate bearing three images: Ariadne, Theseus and the Minotaur; why such a reference to classical mythology in a Christian cathedral?
    Theseus was a career hero; when he returned to Athens, he found it subject to King Minos of Crete and required to send, every seven years, seven young women and seven young men to feed the Minotaur, a monster, the offspring of one of the gods and kept in a labyrinth. Theseus, outraged, demanded to be included. Fortunately for him, Ariadne, daughter of King Minos, immediately fell in love with him. She gave Theseus a ball of thread which would lead him to the Minotaur, enable him to surprise and kill it, and help him escape. Theseus accomplished this but sadly for Ariadne, the gods, angry at the killing of the Minotaur, made Theseus forget his love and Ariadne died with her love unrequited.
    This myth had real significance in the Middle Ages. Theseus survived his ordeal in the darkness through the gift of a virgin; one who died a virgin. To medieval thinking, all are helped in their journey through the darkness of life through the grace which is the gift of the Virgin Mary; the gift of Ariadne in the myth was considered prescient of the gift of Mary, an idea demonstrating the continuity of valid mythology.
    The labyrinth symbolises both a journey towards the light and into the darkness. T.S. Eliot, in his Four Quartets, quotes a passage from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus: that the journey into the darkness and the journey into the light are the same. A similar truth is expressed in Eastern tradition, that Nirvana (enlightenment) and Samsara (everyday life) are one. Enlightenment comes with seeing the full significance of what is happening right now. Eliot himself says that within the dance of life there is a still point, and but for the still point, there would be no dance; and yet there is only the dance. A Buddhist Master said that all the scriptures are mere commentaries on the single exclamation, "Ah, This!", the experience of complete consciousness in this moment. Complete consciousness, and God, can be reached only in the present moment.
    Walking the labyrinth in a cathedral, risking being thought silly but persevering in silence, attending to the rhythm of the steps, and responding to the Way, might bring some taste of this enlightenment, a new vision, a hint of sublime consciousness, a dazzling darkness, a resurrection.

Clive Hicks, B.Arch., RIBA, is a photographer and an architect with special expertise in designing for the Hospice movement. He is co-author of numerous books including, The Green Man (1990).