The image of the labyrinth appears in cultures the world over, from Italy
to Navaho America
to the Celtic lands of Wales, Ireland, Scotland and Britain
to Syria
to Greece, the home of the perhaps most famous story of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth–Crete.
The seed pattern is the most basic way of creating a labyrinth. The animated drawing above demonstrates how it begins with a few lines and dots and grows into the full labyrinth.
Isn’t it so with our lives? We, ourselves, are literally the product of sowing. Human genetic material through the lives and loves (or not) of our parents began as the most microscopic of material and developed, initially, over 9 months but continually to this day to bring into being the journey of the life that we are. That each of us is.
Often, when walking a labyrinth, I have this deep, non-verbal sense of walking the pattern that I am. The turning back and forth is what my brain looks like, is what genetic material looks like, is what my vascular system looks like, is what my digestive system looks like. Thinking. Patterning. Flowing. Nurturing. The dynamics that make up who I am is captured, somehow, an ancient somehow, in the pattern of the labyrinth, a labyrinth that shows up in cultures all over the earth.
What if the pattern of who you are and the pattern of who the Earth is were related? What if the pattern of the Earth and the pattern of the Universe were related? What if the pattern of what you say and who you are, of who you are and both who you love AND who you hate, were the same? (I know that hate is hard for some of us, but when we hate, we are expressing a strong emotion–energy moving from the depths of who we are).
You are seed. You do sow. You are sown. You see what you sow. You witness the patterns of life growing . . . in . . . around . . . under . . . through . . . you.
Bob Patrick
* image from The Labyrinth Society
All other images from http://www.labyrinthos.net/
