Meander Along Maine’s Labyrinths

Labyrinths provide solace for the soul while walking.

David-Anthony Curtis of Phippsburg, Maine, likes to think of the labyrinth as a metaphor for life’s journey.

However, when the twists and turns of fate led him to Maine from Miami, in June 2001, he had no idea that his journey would also lead him to help institute a renaissance of labyrinths in the mid-coast Maine area. In the last four years, he has helped design and build four labyrinths in this area, with more on the drawing board for the future.

It wasn’t until after the events of September 11, 2001, that he seriously considered the possibility that his land in Phippsburg was large enough for a labyrinth.

A walking labyrinth usually measures from thirty to fifty feet in diameter and consists of a series of single concentric lines, usually circles, but sometimes squares, that always lead to the center and then back out again. Unlike a maze, it has no dead ends or false pathways.

“At that time, I was overwhelmed and reeling with the grief of the 9/11 tragedy,” said Curtis, now thirty-two.

While working in the woods, he noticed how the wind seemed to whisper in the pines and the way sunlight peeked through branches and gave the ground a golden glow. “The land is very beautiful here,” he said, “and it almost seemed that this land was waiting for something special like a labyrinth.”

After measuring carefully, Curtis decided that the land was the right size for the space needed. His decision to build a labyrinth was, in part, linked to watching scenes on television of people in New York City on September 11. “As ashes were falling from the sky, people were clearing them to walk the outdoor labyrinth at Trinity Episcopal Church.”

Walking a labyrinth has long been considered a source of solace, but its origins remain a mystery. Although prehistoric labyrinth petroglyphs, or etchings on rock, have been found along the coastline of northwestern Spain and northern Italy, it remains hard to pinpoint their date or purpose.

The earliest known example of an authentically dated labyrinth is on an inscribed clay tablet which was preserved by fire, from1200 B.C., in a palace in southern Greece, according to Jeff Saward, labyrinth scholar and author of Labyrinths and Mazes: A Complete Guide to Magical Paths of the World.

Early evidences of the labyrinth, often in art, pottery, and stone etchings as well as large areas of the ground, have been found in practically all religious traditions, cultures, and places, including Peru, Iceland, Egypt, India, northern Mexico, Brazil, Europe, northern Africa, and the United States, especially in Arizona and New Mexico.

According to Sig Lonegren, a European geomancer (one who studies energy lines of the earth) interest in labyrinths is cyclic: “It comes and goes in cycles throughout history.”

“It was the geomancers,” Lonegren said, “who built the ancient sacred sites from the Great Pyramids and Stonehenge to the gothic cathedrals in France and England where a number of labyrinths can be found.”

Legend has it that the labyrinth can be linked to the ancient circles supposedly used by the KnightsTemplar, and supposedly transported to France.

“Perhaps, more old labyrinths can be found in Scandinavia than in any other place. The Vikings built them at inland sites along the coast, thinking that by walking them, they would ensure good wind and good catches.”

At the beginning of the twentieth century, he said, people stopped walking these labyrinths when motorized ships became the mode of water transportation and the need for good winds decreased.

A resurgence of interest started in the late 1960’s and continues today.