Walking a pop-up painted labyrinth

Blue Skies RI: Local Resources for Anxious Loved Ones

Walking a labyrinth is an activity that like jogging, bicycling, or swimming, allows us to get into a state of mind that psychologists call the “zone” or the “flow.” This psychological space is the present moment, and it is temporarily apart from concerns about the future and regrets about the past. It is a space for recovering a sense of balance in a turbulent life.

Labyrinths offer safe and calming spaces for reflective walking when we are dealing with anxiety, grief, or feelings of disconnection. The Warren walking meditation labyrinth project is working to raise public awareness of the silent emotional struggles that burden our communities, and to raise town-wide interest in labyrinths as behavioral health assets. As a community, our willingness to install one or more public labyrinths signals our care for each other as neighbors. The Warren labyrinth project offers talks, exhibits, and experiences to help us consider what we would want from a town labyrinth.

To spark and spread discussion, Blue Skies has recently painted a temporary labyrinth in the parking lot of Thrive Behavioral Health and the East Bay Recovery Center, at the corner of Joyce Street and Railroad Avenue in downtown Warren and just west of the bike path and north of the police station. Everyone is invited to walk the labyrinth and let us know what might make the experience more meaningful.

HOW TO WALK A LABYRINTH. Meditation and gentle, rhythmic walking help relieve anxiety. Feeling each footstep naturally grounds us as we sense the flow of a path as it turns and spirals towards the labyrinth center. At the center, we pause, remind ourselves of changes in how we are feeling, then continue to gently walk back to the labyrinth entrance.

Some labyrinth walkers prefer to walk in silence, some prefer listening to music, and others prefer to feel themselves softly humming as they walk. Labyrinth walkers vary in how long and how frequently they walk the labyrinth. Whether walking day or night, walking has been used formally as a meditation, creatively as part of a ceremony/ritual, or individually for personal healing or transformation.