In Greek mythology and Hollywood fantasy, the labyrinth was a perilous maze with either death (the monstrous Minotaur) or doom (David Bowie as the shaggy-haired Goblin King) awaiting those who made it to the center.
At St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 2770 Central Ave., the recently completed labyrinth, located near the church’s front entry and open to the public, is a conduit to personal reflection and perhaps spiritual insight for anyone who walks the single-path journey to the center and back.
“I have found that walking a labyrinth helps clear and calm the mind in order that we might focus our thoughts and enter more fully into a contemplative space,” said the Rev. Bridget Coffey, rector at St. Andrew’s. “The experience is never the same twice, but each can bring about profound and holy moments. Our hope is that anyone who passes by will feel welcome to enter into that sacred space of contemplation even in the midst of the busyness passing them by.”
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There are nearly a dozen — perhaps more — publicly accessible labyrinths in northwest Ohio and southeastern Michigan. The website labyrinthlocator.com provides the address to some of these and thousands of others worldwide.
Among the more popular labyrinths in the Toledo area are those at the IHM (Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary) River House Spirituality Center at 805 West Elm Ave. in Monroe and the Norma Stark Memory Garden and Labyrinth Foundation at 345 W. South Boundary in Perrysburg.
Both labyrinths were completed in 2007 as memorial tributes: the former to Sister Ann E. (Mary Aquin) Chester, who died in 1999, and the latter to Mrs. Stark’s parents, Norman and Anna Belle Swaisgood, who died Oct. 13, 2005, and April 23, 2006, respectively. Mrs. Stark died in 2011 at the age of 62.
Molly Hunt, communications director for the IHM Sisters, said the labyrinth’s appeal transcends the specifics of age, from children on bikes to those in their 80s with walking canes, with no one way to experience it. Some are keen to hurry through only a portion of it, while others take their time and go through all of it.
“The wonderful thing about the labyrinth is there is no right or wrong way to do it,” she said.
Almost as varied as the paths people take in the labyrinths are the pathways themselves, which can be made of bricks, grass, stones, or painted on an indoor surface in a church or even an office building.
Don Schooner, owner of Schooner Farms at 14890 Otsego Pike in Weston, Ohio, about eight miles west of Bowling Green, said he planted 750 lavender plants to turn a grassy field into a replica of the indoor labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral in France. Unlike the original, though, the Schooner Farms labyrinth features an obelisk at its center that aligns with the spring and fall equinox, a symbolic nod to its location on a farm.
The labyrinth is not only open to the public — visit shoonerberries.com for hours — that is its point, Mr. Schooner said.
"Walking, self-reflection, healing, meditation, and all those reasons, that is about the Me,” he said. “But the reason we built it is for the many Mes, the We.”
Contact Kirk Baird at: kbaird@theblade.com or 419-724-6734.
First Published July 22, 2018, 12:15 p.m.
