Thursday, June 30, 2011

Walking a Labyrinth

It's easy to forget what it's like to work in a beautiful natural setting.  My program is housed in the interior of the Eastside satellite building.  The entrance is through a gritty parking lot.  There is no comparison to Chatham University's lovely main campus on a sunny day with balmy temperatures.

My students were doing ergonomic computer work station evaluations for administrative employees on the main campus.  Outside Berry Hall there is a labyrinth that was built in memory of a young woman's tragic death.  Its made of grass and cobble stones in an ancient design.

It had a wonderful sense of invitation about it and I got drawn into the walk.  I experienced it as a unique participatory art form.  The shadows on the labyrinth made me think of Maxfield Parrish's sense of color and fantasy.  I found myself trying to figure out if the path was positive or negative space.  I don't know why that is important but I kept thinking about it.
There was a distinct sense of destination when I arrived at the center.  The photo below shows the path into the center.  I had just enough time to follow the walk back to the beginning before my students arrived.  It was a wonderful start to my work day.
This evening I've learned just how old labyrinths are.  This is a stone carving from the bronze age. 
I like this type of archetypal imagery.   I don't know what it symbolizes and yet it still draws me to interact with it. It occurs to me that a piece of jewelry of a labyrinth would be very useful when I must endure a long and boring meeting. 

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