Sounding Between Land and Sea: Spanish Banks, Saturday July 3, 2010

Find ways for your vocal sounds to harmonize with the sounds and landscapes around you, while you walk a labyrinth. Introduction will start around 3:15 and may repeat around 4:15. Led by Kira Van Deusen.

For direction to the labyrinth, please see my June 19th Blog entry.

Labyrinth Event tomorrow - Saturday, June 26th - at Spanish Banks 11:00 am to 1:30 pm.

For direction please see my Blog entry on June 19th, 2010 . . . with the forecast for tomorrow, there will be a labyrinth walk tomorrow . . .

. . . the closing of Liminal Space - Summer Solstice 2010

. . . the flooding of the foreshore of Spanish Banks, just after Summer Solstice, as liminal space closes.

Happy Solstice!

There will be a Labyrinth Event today.

Solstice Labyrinth: Monday June 21 from 9 am to 12 noon

These pictures are of the location I use to draw on at Spanish Banks. Below are the directions to my location.

From the Spanish Banks East Cafe, walk to the circular patio overlooking the beach. Once there, look to your left, in the distance, for a white sign that warns of the ‘Rocks’ that are located there. Walk from the patio, down onto the beach and over to the ‘Rocks’ sign. Once you reach the sign, look for a path. Follow the path to the labyrinth.

Solstice occurs about 11:30 and, by that time, the tide will probably be high enough that there will be tide pools to walk through on the way back to the beach.

Solstice can be considered a liminal 'time' in nature because at the solstices, the Sun stands still in declination and the apparent movement of the Sun's path north or south comes to a stop before reversing direction.

Liminal Space . . .

- a place 'betwixt and between'
- liminal = limen = threshold
- liminality - an inner state
- anti-structure which gives direction, depth and purpose
- a place we can begin to think and act in new ways
- time when we are not certain or in control
- a place to choose the chaos of the unconsciousness over the control of explanations and answers
- the ideal teaching and learning 'place'

Richard Rohr

The Labyrinth as a visual meditation: Labyrinth on Canvas 4

The Labyrinth as a visual meditation: Labyrinth on Canvas 3

Labyrinth Event: Spanish Banks 11:30 am to 1:30 pm, this Monday June 14th

I will be at a regular spot I have used over the past couple years at Spanish Banks. Please email me for details

The Labyrinth as a visual meditation: Labyrinth on canvas 2

The Labyrinth as a visual meditation: Labyrinth on canvas

I painted these labyrinths on canvass and then photographed them on various walls in my home.

Labyrinth Event: June 8th at 11 am to 1 pm: Exploring the closing of Liminal Space

I will be drawing a Labyrinth at Spanish Banks tomorrow. Please email me @:

walkingalabyrinth@gmail.com

for directions or with any questions you might have.

Labyrinth Walk at Sunset Beach, tomorrow, June 3rd - from 3 to 5 pm

For location details, please read the previous blog enter for the Sunset Beach location.

Or email: walkingalabyrinth@gmail.com

Labyrinth walk today

Labyrinth Event: May 15th and 22nd at Sunset Beach

At Sunset Beach in English Bay, find the Beach Cafe which is located at
1204 Beach Avenue.
Make your way to the walking path in front of the Cafe, next to the beach.
Facing the water, look to your right for a metal ring sculpture.
Walk toward the sculpture and the waters edge. Look for the labyrinth where the
beach slopes toward the water.


Walking the labyrinth on May 15th will take place from 12 noon until 3 pm and 22nd from 8 am until 10 am.
Both of these events will be held WEATHER PERMITTING

For more information, please email me at:

walkingalabyrinth@gmail.com

Connecting with nature . . . experiencing wonder

I have grown to appreciate Kye Bay on Vancouver Island for the opportunity it offers to connect with nature.

In early April I drew a labyrinth at Kye Bay. I was in the process of photographing it, when a eagle flew by me and landed on a tree behind the labyrinth. The eagle sat perched in the tree while I completed my walk.

Several times I stopped to look at this bird of prey . . . what most caught my attention then and still, was the relationship between the eagle and the two crows sitting on a branch above the eagle. Why two crows and not more? Why were they above the eagle and not below? Were the crows a couple or were they acting together for the benefit of other crows - why??

I also wondered why I often see crows pursuing eagles, yet, they will build a nest next to a tree with a pair of eagles nesting in it.

In the 13th and then from the 16th to the 17th centuries labyrinths were walked by fishermen throughout the Nordic countries and countries above the Arctic Circle. They located their labyrinths along the shore of their homes.

Sunset Labyrinth at Sunset Beach . . .

. . . Sunset occurs at a 'liminal time' of day . . .

. . . somewhere I have read about "Double Liminal." I drew and walked a labyrinth on the Foreshore at both sunset and sunrise as part of my exploration of the Labyrinth and Liminality.

experimenting with Liminal Space

The Reverend Dr. Lauren Artress described walking a Labyrinth as a "liminal" experience.

In social and cultural theory, Victor W. Turner defined 'liminality' as moments 'betwixt and between' fixed cultural categories.

The beach of an ocean can be classify into categories.
The foreshore is the area of the beach between the average high and low water marks. It is covered and uncovered as the tide migrates. The seaward side of the foreshore is the nearshore, which is below the level of the low tide. Behind the foreshore is the backshore, it is above the the level of the high tide.

Symbolically then, because it is between the nearshore and the backshore, the foreshore can be used to represent liminality, a 'betwixt and between' place.

I walked my first Labyrinth . . .

. . . at St. Paul's Anglican Church, on Jervis Street, in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia.

Then I attended the Pilgrimage and the Labyrinth Facilitator Training in San Francisco, at Grace Cathedral,
with The Reverend Dr. Lauren Artress, founder of Veriditas. There I met Robert Ferre, Master Labyrinth Builder, at his workshop on Labyrinth Building and walked the Labyrinth at Lands End (above photograph).

During the summer and fall of 2008, I began to experiment with the Labyrinth and "Liminal Space."

The process I developed to do this was drawing labyrinths in the sand, on the Foreshore of the Ocean, at places such as Spanish Banks and Sunset Beach.

A Labyrinth at a wedding on Gabriola Island, August 2009

walking a labyrinth

. . . for the past couple of years, I have been exploring the Labyrinth and "liminal space" or "liminality."


Labyrinth or Maze???

Jeff Saward describes a labyrinth as a design that has one path and a maze as a design that has choices in the path.

Robert Ferre uses the following criteria in his definition of a labyrinth:

1. a continuous path
2. one path, one centre and one entrance
3. the path has no intersection or choices
4. the turns create a back and forth pendulum motion