Author Archives: Ed

LABYRINTH EVENTS

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Facilitated group walks are held at the Centennial Park Labyrinth at 9am on the first Sunday of every month. The next one will be at 9am on Sunday 5th May, led this time by bereavement counsellor, Erica Webber. All welcome! 

Come and experience the powerful metaphor of the labyrinth in a group setting. It’s an opportunity to learn more about the labyrinth and to remind yourself what it is to simply be in community in a gentle, peaceful way. These events are free and open to all. The labyrinth is on Dickens Drive. Go to the location page for directions and sign up to our newsletter to receive updates about all labyrinth events.

FACILITATORS FOR MONTHLY WALKS IN CENTENNIAL PARK

  • Sun 6th January 2019: Desiree De Klerk
  • Sun 3rd February: Maja Skrlj-Tufegdzic
  • Sun 3rd March: Heather Keens
  • Sun 7th April: Wendy Rose-Williams
  • Sun 5th May: Erica Webber
  • Sun 2nd June: Maja Skrlj-Tufegdzic
  • Sun 23rd June: Winter Solstice (Susanne Jones & Heather Keens)
  • Sun 7th July: Erica Webber
  • Sun 5th August: Desiree De Klerk
  • Sun 1st September: Heather Middleton
  • Sun 6th October: Joan Harcourt
  • Sun 3rd  November:Maja Skrlj-Tufegdzic
  • Sun 1st December: Heather Keens

ABC Radio National Interview

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ABC Radio National program about the construction of the labyrinth in Centennial Park, featuring Emily Simpson, William Zuccon (Architect) and Darren Finlayson (Stonemason). It was broadcast on 1st November and is now available online: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/offtrack/it-is-solved-by-walking/5840076  or you can read a comprehensive article by Ann Jones:  http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/offtrack/walking-sydneys-parkland-labyrinth/5847518

Radio National

Dr John James on Labyrinths

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Dr John James, architect, historian and psychotherapist talks about labyrinths. He is a world expert on the Chartres Cathedral and its labyrinth and helped us get the geometry right for the Centennial Park Labyrinth.  In this interview he offers some fascinating insights on astrology and the labyrinth. You can read an in depth article written by John in 1972 on the labyrinth in the Chartres Cathedral here: 36 labyrinth.  To find out more about this remarkable man go to http://www.johnjames.com.au/

You can see the full 30 minute interview here.

Labyrinth part of the Centennial Park Master Plan

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Centennial Park has put the privately funded sandstone Labyrinth at the forefront of their plans to revitalise the parklands, the Sydney Morning Herald reports…

smh-cp-labyrinth

Things are going well with preparations for the construction of Australia’s first sandstone labyrinth and it looks like it will be completed early next year. This is a surprisingly complex thing to build – with over 1500 individual pieces of stone, every detail needs to be perfectly aligned for it to work.  The good people at Centennial Parklands are ensuring that it will be on a par with the other significant stone labyrinths in the world – the one at the Chartres Cathedral in France and the one at the Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. In the meantime, before construction actually begins, there will still be a labyrinth painted onto the field for you to walk.  

Walking a Sacred Path

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I first walked a labyrinth in May 2009 at the Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Like many who have never experienced one before, I had assumed it would be like a maze, so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw its simple beauty and actually walked it…and walked it…again and again and came back the next day to walk it some more, slower and slower. I felt reeled in by its mystery, held by the structure of its winding path and liberated by the stillness at its heart. I fell in love with the labyrinth and the whole idea of walking meditation.

I’d been in a sort of emotional cocoon for sometime after a series of sudden leavings and endings and many of my definitions of self had simply fallen away. It wasn’t until I walked the labyrinth that I felt the possibility of a light at the end of the tunnel. Somehow the rhythm of its path gave me back a spiritual pulse. I felt held by the structure of its winding path and received by the mystery at its heart.

I hadn’t felt this lit up about anything for years and read every book I could find on the subject. Realising that there were no public labyrinths in Sydney, I created a proposal for the Board of Trustees of Centennial Park to inspire them to build one. Providing public spaces for contemplation is more important now than ever before. We need a new paradigm for non-denominational sacred space and opportunities to centre, calm and remember ourselves.

On the first day of Spring last year, my proposal to build a sandstone labyrinth in Centennial Park was approved by the Centennial Parkland Trustees. We now begin the journey of gathering the $500,000 required to build it. Based on the design of the 800 year old labyrinth in the Chartres Cathedral in France, the Sydney labyrinth will be a thing of great beauty – a significant public artwork in an iconic Sydney park.

Thank you for visiting this site and if you choose to contribute by making a tax-deductible donation, you will be investing in community well-being for generations to come.

May your path be peaceful

Emily Simpson

January 2012