Photo Credit: Shakeel

‘As you start on the way, the way appears‘ Rumi

In a world that often moves too fast, labyrinths invite us to slow down, breathe, and reconnect with ourselves. These ancient symbols — spiralling, mysterious, and purposeful — are more than just beautiful patterns. They’re a form of moving meditation and spiritual reflection that has been used across cultures for thousands of years.

Whether drawn, walked, traced, or built with natural materials, a labyrinth offers a pathway to clarity, calm, and deep personal insight.

🌀 What Is a Labyrinth?

Unlike a maze, a labyrinth has one single, winding path that leads to a centre and back out again. There are no dead ends or wrong turns. Instead, it invites you to trust the journey — even when it feels like you’re going in circles.

Labyrinths have appeared in many cultures throughout history, from ancient Greek coins and Native American petroglyphs to medieval cathedrals and Celtic stone carvings. Their purpose has always been the same: to reflect the journey of life, inward and outward, and to support spiritual growth and healing.

🌿 Why Walk a Labyrinth?

This Chartres-style labyrinth has been stitched onto old linen sheets. Photo Credit: Pauline Cory

Walking a labyrinth is a form of embodied meditation. It’s especially helpful for people who struggle with seated stillness. As your feet trace the spiral path, your mind quietens and your awareness deepens.

A Test of Grace

Several years ago, I visited Chartres, where a 12th-century labyrinth is located in the center of the cathedral. An immense energy flows right through the centre of a six-petal rose, each petal refers to a quality of love needed. Service, surrender, forgiveness, faith, overcoming, and abundance. Standing in the centre of this labyrinth is pure bliss. I thoroughly recommend going. There’s a book by Kathleen McGowan that explains the labyrinth and the Magdalene line. It’s called ‘The Source of Miracles, Seven Steps to Transforming Your Life through the Lord’s Prayer’.

The deep cobalt-sapphire blue of Chartres’ stained glass is otherworldly. In the crypt below Chartres lies the Black Madonna — a powerful expression of the Divine Feminine in her most ancient, primordial form. She represents the dark, fertile void — the mystery before creation, the womb of transformation, the earth wisdom that holds life and death together.
Many feel she holds the frequency of deep, ancient healing — of grief, womb memory, and transmutation. Pilgrims often descend to her after walking the labyrinth, completing the alchemical journey from light to dark to rebirth.

Each time I walk to the centre, it’s timeless and unique. Someone may be drumming, or it could be still. I always make sure I have an intention or a question. As I walk to the centre, I release and let go of what no longer serves, and I reconnect with my heart. At the centre is a place of meditation and prayer, a place to be open, to listen and sense what needs or wants emerge within me or the issue I’m reflecting upon. Whilst walking back, I crystallise the idea and return renewed and empowered. The return path embodies this new way of being.

At Chartres, we encountered an unexpected challenge. A film crew had paid the cathedral management to clear the labyrinth for their shoot, and the manager was aggressively trying to remove all pilgrims from the sacred space. My friend, who had spent much of her life being told what to do by men, found herself triggered by this situation. But instead of responding with anger, something beautiful happened. She remembered the Lord’s Prayer and stepped into a state of grace. When the manager tried to block her path physically, she simply continued walking with her heart open, ignoring his interference.

We all managed to complete our labyrinth walk that day, despite the challenges. Being in that magnificent cathedral, with the Black Madonna altar and those healing blue windows, made the experience even more powerful. Sometimes our most profound spiritual moments come not despite obstacles, but because of how we choose to meet them.

Teaching Through Walking

Incorporating labyrinths into my teaching has revealed new dimensions of their power. With my students in the Camphill community, we created a labyrinth together, and I’ve woven labyrinth walking into the Mystical Path training. In these sessions, each participant takes their turn entering the labyrinth with a specific intention—to enrich the details of a visualization or dream journey they’re working with.

The process is beautifully structured: participants walk into the center to receive messages or images that support their dreams and visions. As they walk back out, they use this reflective time to examine what the first practical steps toward manifesting their dream might be. Meanwhile, the rest of us hold sacred space, witnessing and supporting each person’s journey. We remind participants to release any fears that may arise during their walk, creating space for clarity and courage to emerge.

Stone labyrinth in a garden

Labyrinths are used today in hospitals, schools, churches, and wellness centres as tools for:

• Reducing stress and anxiety
• Processing grief or emotional overwhelm
• Supporting spiritual practice
• Navigating life transitions
• Clarifying a decision or life direction
• Enhancing creativity and self-reflection

Even one walk can bring a sense of peace and perspective.

Hand tracing a printed labyrinth

✨ How to Use a Labyrinth: A 3-Stage Practice

Labyrinth meditation typically follows a three-part structure:

1. Release – Walking In
   As you begin, focus on letting go of stress, expectations, or whatever you’re carrying. Breathe deeply with each step.
2. Receive – The Centre
   Pause in the heart of the labyrinth. Listen. What message, feeling, or image arises here? You might pray, journal, or simply rest.
3. Return – Walking Out
   As you follow the same path outward, reflect on what you received. What might your next steps be in life? What new perspective are you carrying?

This spiral journey mirrors the cycles of nature and the spiritual path — a dance of descent, discovery, and return.

Rainbow labyrinth painted with watercolours

🎨 Creating and Exploring Your Labyrinth

You don’t need access to a cathedral floor to experience the magic of labyrinths.

Here are some simple ways to begin:

• Trace a printed labyrinth with your finger during meditation.
• Draw your own using the classical 7-circuit design.
• Lay one out in your garden using string, sticks, fleece, or stones.
• Paint a rainbow labyrinth for chakra reflection or personal ritual.

In workshops, I often guide people to build nature-based labyrinths, where found materials become part of the sacred design. Each creation becomes a living prayer — a collaboration between maker and land.

Labyrinths can also support the creative process, ancestral connection, and rites of passage. I’ve seen them used in powerful ways during menopause circles, grief rituals, and dreamwork sessions.

💫 A Living Symbol of Inner Wisdom

What I love most about labyrinths is how adaptable and timeless they are. They meet us wherever we are — whether we’re in search of peace, answers, or inspiration.

Each walk is different. One day it might bring tears, another day clarity, or simply quiet presence. You don’t have to know where you’re going. The path knows. You just have to show up.

In many traditions, the labyrinth is a mirror of the soul — a space where unconscious thoughts rise to the surface, and intuition speaks more clearly.

When shared in the community, the experience becomes even richer. Holding space for someone to walk their path while others bear witness is a sacred and humbling act.

People walking a labyrinth in nature

📍 Where to Find or Build a Labyrinth

Many public gardens, churches, and retreat centres now have labyrinths open to visitors. You can also use the World-Wide Labyrinth Locator to find one near you.

If you feel called, you might even build your own. It doesn’t have to be perfect — it just has to be intentional. Trust that the act of creating it is part of the medicine.

The Continuing Path

Labyrinths have taught me that the spiritual path isn’t linear—it’s a spiral dance of going deeper while covering familiar ground. Each time I walk or create a labyrinth, I discover something new about myself, about faith, about the mysterious ways the divine works through simple acts of devotion.

Whether built with thread on the land, stitched from old sheets, painted in rainbow colours, or walked in ancient cathedrals, labyrinths continue to offer themselves as vessels for transformation. They remind us that sometimes the most profound journeys happen not by going somewhere new, but by walking familiar paths with greater presence and deeper trust.

In our local area, there are labyrinths waiting to be discovered and others waiting to be created. Each one holds the potential for healing, insight, and connection—not just for individuals, but for communities gathering around these ancient patterns of sacred geometry.

The labyrinth keeps teaching, and I keep learning to listen.

🌈 Final Thoughts

There is no right or wrong way to walk the labyrinth. I hope I’ve inspired you to try it!

A spiritual labyrinth is more than a path on the ground — it’s a sacred container for transformation. It helps us to slow down, listen more deeply, and reconnect with what matters most.

So if you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or simply in need of stillness, step into a labyrinth. Walk with intention. Trust what unfolds.

Sometimes, the way forward begins with a single spiral step inward.

If you would like to be sent a free resource about working with labyrinths, please contact Ali directly here.

You can also see my YouTube Video about the labyrinth here.