‘IT’S ALL ABOUT LIFE’
SF’s Labyrinth Resource Group celebrates its 20th anniversary
After more than a decade of walking the complex paths of labyrinths, Liz Paterson still gets a feeling of tranquility each time.
The 78-year-old potter who lives in Cerrillos took a slow walk last week along the stone labyrinth at Museum Hill’s Milner Plaza, just a few yards away from the Museum of International Folk Art. The path includes many twists and turns before a walker reaches the center, something she says gives people time to relax and reflect on whatever life is throwing their way at that moment.
“And if it’s not quite right, I’ll walk it again,” she said. “Because sometimes your brain is full. It’s a time to empty it … just to quiet down.”
Paterson is the vice president of Santa Fe’s Labyrinth Resource Group. The organization, known for designing public labyrinths, as well as hosting monthly meditative walks, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this spring.
This weekend, the group is hosting one of its popular walks in honor of Earth Day at the Museum Hill labyrinth. On May 27, the LRG will stage a 20th-anniversary talk at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture about the history and meaning of labyrinths.
Labyrinths, which can be made out of paving stones or on the ground using natural materials like rocks, date back to ancient civilizations like those in Egypt and Medieval Europe. Today, they can still be found all over in the world.
Santa Fe is no exception. Since forming in 1998, the LRG has helped develop more than 30 local labyrinths. While most were created for private homes, 14 are in local schools and other public spaces, including the grounds of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi and Christ Lutheran Church on Arroyo Chamiso Road. The LRG also maintains the 20-year-old Frenchy’s Field labyrinth, not one of the group’s creations, by remudding its adobe bricks each year.
The group’s first project was a temporary labyrinth on Museum Hill where the permanent stone version was created in 2001, according to group founder Marge McCarthy.
Marge and her husband
Bob retired in Santa Fe in 1994 and created the labyrinth group a few years later, after going on a retreat in Sedona, Ariz. On that trip, the couple met Rev. Lauren Artress, a speaker and author who founded a nonprofit to create labyrinths across the world. Artress will be giving the LRG’s 20th-anniversary talk in May.
“I was just blown away, like, ‘Wow, this is a really powerful tool,’” said Marge McCarthy. After she and her husband traveled to Europe with Artress, including to France’s Chartes Cathedral, where one of the world’s most famous labyrinths can be found, they returned home and put together a group of locals interested in bringing the labyrinth experience to Santa Fe.
She credits the group’s longevity to the fact that the world has become a more stressful place. Paterson echoed that observation, saying the world has become “so incredibly immediate,” it can easily overwhelm the everyday person.
A growing need for reflection is why Paterson, who helps organize the groups’s walks, has started putting more effort into “pop-up” labyrinth walks, or walks connected to current events. Back in March, the group’s equinox walk at the Folk Art Museum was dedicated to the victims of the Parkland, Fla., high school shooting in February that left 17 students dead. The walkers carried cards with the names of the kids and the group led a talk about the victims.
The pop-up idea began on President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day in 2017, Paterson said, when she organized a walk that attracted about 60 people, so they could get through the “tough day” together. “People needed to be together that day… . It’s all about healing,” she said.
Paterson says the walks, which usually attract between 20 and 40 people, bring in a wide range of Santa Feans — from kids who might run through the labyrinth, to older people who have been walking them for years to newcomers who need instruction.
The first instruction Paterson gives is, of course, to follow the path.
“And the second one is for them to think of it as a walking meditation,” she said. “If there’s something that is bothering them, keep it in mind until you get to the center. Generally speaking, if you pay attention, coming out, you’ll find some kind of relief for yourself. Either an answer to your question or, sometimes, it’s just a matter of slowing down. Life is so quick right now. And the whole idea is to take your time, step by step.”
Walkers can have a variety of issues on their minds, McCarthy said — grieving the loss of a loved one, trying to stimulate creativity or reflection on personal relationships.
“I remember a child that after she walked the labyrinth, she was going to go home and say sorry to her sister,” McCarthy said. “You don’t know what she thought about, but it made her think about her relationship with her sister.”
The LRG now focuses most of its energy on its monthly walks and tours of the various labyrinths around the city. In its early years, the group spent more time designing and building its public labyrinths.
But with Marge and Bob, at ages 88 and 89, stepping back a bit, board members like Paterson have new goals as the group passes its 20-year milestone. In addition to more “pop-up” events and returning to schools to check on the conditions of labyrinths built years ago, the LRG is focused on two new public labyrinths near Santa Fe and Las Vegas, N.M., expected to be completed by this summer.
The group is working on a labyrinth at Horses for Heroes, a nonprofit that assists veterans with PTSD by allowing them to work on a ranch and with their horses south of Santa Fe. Outside Las Vegas, the group plans to build its largest labyrinth yet, a 120-foot Chartes-inspired path — big enough to accommodate wheelchairs or for two people to walk it together — at Leaping Deer Ranch.
The bed and breakfast has also become a popular place for yoga retreats and other forms of meditation, said owner Colin Masterson, and wanted to create a space to complement those efforts. The labyrinth, made from rocks and mulch found on the property, will be built at the end of June.
Masterson said the path people take — whether it’s as a reflection or to find peace in a time of loss — is metaphorical. Paterson said they’re designed to imitate life’s journey.
“When you think you’re close to the center, all of a sudden you’re on the outside,” she said. “You have people coming toward you and you say, ‘Wait a minute, didn’t they come in after me?’ There’s always little surprises and, as we come together, people will step aside and let someone else through. Like we always should be doing in life, anyway. It’s all about life.”