Labyrinth: A single (unicursal), non-branching path, which has an unambiguous route to the center and back and is not designed to be difficult to navigate.
wikipedia.org

May 2010 was comfortably cool and moist, and I could not resist working in my yard. I started by trimming bushes around the foundation and next to the driveway. I moved on to cleaning up an overgrown area on the side of my house. I enjoyed it (the exercise and the results) so much that I decided to tackle an enormous project - the woods behind our house. We let it go wild over the last 10 years or so and had dumped fallen branches and raked leaves from the yard in the clearings. For over a week, I removed bundles and bundles of invasive plants and sticks under the tall trees.

For another week, I cut and bundled the sticks and branches in the large clearing next to the stream. It occurred to me that the space in which I was working was almost perfectly circular, and the idea for my own labyrinth took shape.

It was a fascinating process. Once I started, I was compelled to keep working on it from morning until I ran out of light each day. I literally could not put any effort into anything else until it was finished. It took about a week to clear the site and 3 days to actually build. Thankfully, my husband and son helped move the bricks and mulch to the site.

The result: a 26-foot-diameter, 8-circuit labyrinth made of 339 foot-long bricks and 168 cubic feet of pine bark mulch.

There were some interesting things I observed on this journey:

People have used labyrinths as meditation and prayer tools for over 4000 years. I first became conscious of labyrinths a number of years ago in a Toronto hotel lounge where I picked up a book about them. I couldn't put it down until I had read the whole thing. Since then, I've enjoyed experiencing labyrinths at a number of spas including The Cliff Spa in Maine and Rancho La Puerta in Mexico as well as other locations such as the nearby Delaware Art Museum.

According to Melissa Gayle West, psychotherapist and author of Exploring the Labyrinth: A Guide for Healing and Spiritual Growth, walking a labyrinth fulfills six important contemporary needs:

Research conducted at the Harvard Medical School's Mind/Body Medical Institute by Dr. Herbert Benson has found that focused walking meditations are highly efficient at reducing anxiety and eliciting what Dr. Benson calls the 'relaxation response'. This effect has significant long-term health benefits, including lower blood pressure and breathing rates, reduced incidents of chronic pain, reduction of insomnia, improved fertility, and many other benefits. Regular meditative practice leads to greater powers of concentration and a sense of control and efficiency in one's life. Labyrinth walking is among the simplest forms of focused walking meditation, and the demonstrated health benefits have led hundreds of hospitals, health care facilities, and spas to install labyrinths in recent years.

I honestly haven't given the deeper meaning or possibilities of walking a labyrinth much thought yet. Right now, I simply enjoy the walking meditation, focusing on my breath, listening to the sounds of the stream and the birds chirping, smelling the aroma of honeysuckle and feeling the deep, cool shade of the woods.

If you've never walked a labyrinth, you may want to follow these six steps from How to Walk a Labyrinth to get the most out of your experience: