Labyrinth not a maze…

Sunday Blog 31: 10th April 2022

I have found myself once again obsessed with labyrinths. It must be the extra time I’ve had this week to reflect on unusual topics in the wide expanse of my first week after leaving my job.

People often use the term maze and labyrinth interchangeably – but a maze is a puzzle with dead ends and is designed to trick you. A labyrinth on the other hand has no dead ends – it is a single path you move through in an orderly if circuitous way, in to the centre and back out again. Instead of getting lost, a labyrinth holds the promise of helping you find yourself on your way.

The oldest known labyrinth in the Western World is in Knossos on the island of Crete in Greece. (Very disappointed I didn’t realise this when I was there in 2017…) There are many labyrinths dotted around the world – they’re having a come back and there are quite a few in Perth where I am.

The labyrinth in this post’s image is a finger labyrinth you can trace manually, which apparently has the same therapeutic benefits of walking a labyrinth.

As I once again contemplate working for myself rather than a salary, I feel like I am walking past the same terrain I was in 2014 when I thought very seriously about setting up my own business but took a job instead. Like I have been slowly perambulating a giant cosmic labyrinth in the last seven years and am going past the same spot, but this time I am on a path a little closer to the centre.

I mean, essentially I am using the website I set up then although I have changed it to my name in the years since and have re-thought what I might do. Seven years have opened up other options. So it’s the same terrain but not exactly. Thus the labyrinth is much like life.

While I have had grandiose notions of putting a labyrinth in my front garden, someone on the interwebs shared the bright idea of buying four large plastic-backed drop sheets, sewing them together and voila, you have a movable labyrinth. It certainly sounds a great deal cheaper than committing to building one out of stone.

Or, like I could get on with writing projects…