Badass Ancestors by Patti Wigington

Author:Patti Wigington
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: badass ancestors;ancestor veneration;ancestor guides;connecting with your ancestors;patti wiggington;patty wigington;patty wiggington;pagan;paganism;how to connect to your ancestors;CVR01172020
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
Published: 2020-08-03T17:01:56+00:00

Ancestor Labyrinth Meditation

One of the best-known symbols of balance is the labyrinth. Unlike a maze, which leads us in twists and turns, to dead ends and false stops, a labyrinth is designed to have a beginning, a center, and an end, much like life itself. The labyrinth often becomes a magical geometric shape that lies somewhere between the mundane and the sacred. In some magical and Pagan belief systems, the labyrinth represents the return of the Goddess from the cold darkness of winter to the fertile season of spring. The labyrinth is also a highly useful meditative tool, and when you invite your ancestors in to join you there, it can be extremely powerful.

Labyrinths and images of them have been found at sites dating back thousands of years; at some point, it’s very likely your kinfolk walked through one. The most typical style is the seven-circuit Cretan labyrinth, named for the legendary labyrinth of King Minos at Crete. In 2005, a pair of Cretan labyrinth carvings were found etched in cliff faces near Tintagel, Cornwall, England. Their origins have not yet been determined, although they may have been carved any time between the Bronze Age and the nineteenth century.

During the period of the Crusades, families often built a labyrinth as a way to represent the pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and the Chartres design—a fourfold design with eleven circuits—saw a rise in popularity as a status symbol for the well-off. Churches often incorporated the unicursal patterns into floors in their chapels as an earthly representation of worshippers’ paths to heaven. This pattern could be walked or crawled, traveled quickly or slowly, and allowed those who were penitent to walk the fine line between the misery of their earthly lives and the joys they believed awaited them in holy salvation.

Later, labyrinths took on a less spiritual and far more playful meaning—wealthy landowners were known to commission labyrinth gardens with high hedges as a place for romantic assignations. Simple unicursal labyrinths were replaced by complex mazes, which forced travelers to make choices and decisions, occasionally pushing them into dead ends from which they were forced to turn back. A labyrinth’s purpose is not to misdirect us or cause us to get lost (which a maze is designed to do) but instead the opposite—to help us find our way. Though we may feel a bit confused because of the turns and winding circuits in a labyrinth—almost as though we are walking between the worlds—we’re always on the path to the center. Once we reach it, we’re always headed towards the exit, and the end of our journey will end with a feeling of harmony and balance.

Labyrinths may be found all over the world. If you have an opportunity to walk one, you can use this simple technique as a problem-solving meditation. If you don’t have an actual labyrinth to walk, that’s okay—draw or print out an image of one and trace it with your finger while visualizing yourself taking steps through the spirals.

As you enter the labyrinth, walk slowly and evenly.

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