Carved on an ancient cave wall in Galicia, Spain is a pattern that
twists and turns, looping back upon itself, circling ever inward. You
can run your finger along its cool rocky surface and follow the path to
a central point. Nothing blocks your way as you trace the design, easily
sliding your finger back and forth from the outside to the inside and
back again. Doing that is oddly calming, almost soothing, and one can’t
help but wonder who it was that placed the petroglyph there almost 2000
years ago and why?
The mystery becomes even greater when you realize that the same
simple curved design found on that ancient cave wall has also been
discovered on every continent from Southern Russia to India, Africa,
South America, the American Southwest, Indonesia, and even among the
ruins of the mounds of Poverty Point in Louisiana. What is even more
intriguing is that the same gentle design that fascinated ancient cave
artists and countless others across the centuries is still enchanting
people today.
The labyrinth is a design consisting of a unicursal (one way) path
that leads to a center. Unlike a maze, which has several twists and
turns that lead to dead ends, labyrinths have no tricks. Once popular in
medieval cathedrals as a tool for making a symbolic pilgrimage to the
holy land (legend says that pilgrims walked it on their knees),
labyrinths have been undergoing a contemporary resurgence of interest.
Hospices, drug and alcohol counselors, and integrative medicine
practitioners are finding that taking a walk along the winding paths of
a labyrinth can help with healing. Churches of all denominations across
the nation are using labyrinths for meditation and prayer walks. Prisons
are using them as tools to help prisoners cope with incarceration, and
businesses are using the design for brainstorming and creative problem
solving. And with good results, labyrinth walkers claim it helps them
relax, focus, and gain new insight into old problems.
But what is the real story behind the labyrinth? Why did that ancient
artist carve the design on a cave wall? Why did it appear in so many
other cultures? No one knows for sure, but several legends surround the
labyrinth.
The most common story is the Cretan labyrinth which imprisoned a half
man/half bull monster, the Minotaur, who required human sacrifice. The
monster was the offspring of the wife of King Minos, who copulated with
a bull because of a curse placed on her husband from the Gods. Coins
were found on Crete with the seven circuit design, now known as the
Cretan labyrinth, which was believed to be the replica of the larger
prison labyrinth where the Minotaur was kept. The story claims that
those sent into the labyrinth couldn’t find their way out because of
its confusing twists and turns. King Minos’ daughter, Ariadne, fell in
love with one of the sacrificial victims, and gave him a ball of yarn
which he unwound as he descended to the center. There he killed the
monster, freed the other victims, and followed the string back to his
love.
While we can only speculate whether Ariadne had ever ventured to the
center of the Cretan labyrinth to get a glimpse of her monstrous
half-brother (How else did she know how much yarn to give her lover?),
finding a young woman with the Cretan princess’ characteristics in the
center of the labyrinth is more common than a monster. Remember Helen of
Troy? The poor Trojans had to build a giant horse filled with soldiers
to trick her captors to get her back. Why? Some scholars speculate that
Helen was being held prisoner in the center of a labyrinth-shaped fort.
Both Ariadne and Helen are considered by some researchers as being
representative of early vegetation/fertility goddesses. The idea of a
goddess protected inside a multi-walled fort is a common theme in
eastern religious texts. One Hindu Goddess, Sita, who took birth from
the earth, was the consort of Rama, the central figure in the famous
Indian text the Ramayana. Sita is taken captive by the demon Ravanna,
who holds her hostage in his fortified palace built in the shape of a
five circuit labyrinth called the Chakra Vyuha. Following a major battle
between Rama and Ravanna’s armies, Sita is rescued from the demon’s
clutches and removed from the labyrinth. What is interesting about the
Chakra Vyuha pattern is that not only does it represent a fort in
religious texts, it is often drawn on the bellies of women in labor to
help them give birth.
This
notion of the labyrinth as a birth symbol is common in labyrinth lore.
Many scholars speculate that the labyrinth was an ancient symbol used in
early Goddess religions to represent rebirth and regeneration. Anyone
who has studied ancient religions knows how closely tied they are to sun
and moon cycles, and many believe that the labyrinth is a design that
mimics the path of the sun as it rises and sets. Others speculate that
it represents the progression of moon cycles. While we often relate
ideas about planetary and solar cycles to earth religions, the labyrinth
that seems to contain the most obvious connection to moon cycles is the
Chartres labyrinth, which was developed by monks during the middle ages.
This labyrinth, most commonly used in Christian churches, is filled with
symbols which relate to the heavens, and many believe that the small
notches on the outside of the design, called lunations, were used to
calculate moon cycles to establish the date for Easter.
Labyrinths haven’t always had religious connotations. Many European
traditions believed the labyrinth was magical. One researcher speculates
that labyrinths may represent maps of the paths of the planets. He has
found that magic number squares, believed to contain information about
planetary cycles, also contain the seed patterns for drawing labyrinths.
In northern Europe, people believed walking the labyrinth could help
fisherman control the weather. In Sweden, people believed the labyrinth
was a protection against wolves and could be used to predict reindeer
migration. Alchemists believed the secret of the philosopher’s stone
could be found in the center of the labyrinth. And whether it harkened
back to the earlier stories of Helen and Sita or not, young European
girls were often known to wait in the center of the labyrinth while the
boys raced through its twists and turns to see who could reach them
first.
We may never know why that unknown artist carved the labyrinth on
that stone wall in Spain, or why the labyrinth symbol spread across the
globe. But whatever it was 2000 years ago that fascinated the ancient
stone carver enough to etch the labyrinth into the cold walls is still
intriguing us today.
Copyright 2004 by Daria Woodside
