World Labyrinth Day

Walking the Path

May 09, 2025

Last Saturday, May 3^rd, was World Labyrinth Day. For the last 7 years I’ve made sure to walk a labyrinth on World Labyrinth Day- apart from 2020 when I was in lockdown in Wexford.

I’m not sure exactly when the obsession with labyrinths began – a long time ago – but it was solidified in 2013 when I was in the midst of writing my poetry collection ~clew~ , firstly for the final portfolio of writing for the MFA I did at Kingston University. It was published a couple of years later as a pamphlet by Hesterglock Press, now over 10 years ago in 2015. There was also a lovely event to launch it in Bristol.

~clew~ - named after the ball of thread Ariadne gave Theseus to help guide him through the labyrinth in his quest to slay the minotaur, was full of poems referencing labyrinths or maybe behaving like them in some way. And full of strong women too, like Ariadne but also poems about Patti Smith, Pussy Riot, Leonora Carrington and Mary Poppins…plus a labyrinth in Camden.

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Last year I attended an labyrinth facilitator training course, which took place online over several days, with people in attendance from all over the world. At the time I was in the middle of getting my dad’s house (our home until last year) ready for sale and also looking for somewhere new to live. It was very stressful but this course was a great experience, a positive focus during a very sad time, where I could look forward to new adventures and possibilities for incorporating the labyrinth into my life and my work.

This is the first time I’ve written about it and also the first time I’ve had a chance to start thinking about DOING it. ‘Walking my walk’ if you’ll excuse the pun. The labyrinth is, in my experience, something that draws you in, it seems simple, a unicursal path to a centre and out again, in whatever shape it takes – and there are many kinds. It is ancient (more about the history another time) and it has turned up all over the world, carved on stones, rocks, walls and buildings everywhere.

That is the beauty of it – and also the complexity.

Since I last wrote I have been out exploring labyrinths and thinking about them and writing about them.

What about mazes you might ask?

Funny that – mazes are sometimes labyrinths – and sometimes they are not. Mazes – when they are not a single path are- like the famous maze at Hampton Court – designed to trick you, to send you in different confusing directions until at some point you stumble upon the centre. They are fun but they are not labyrinths – however traditionally the words have been used interchangeably.

I will finish where I started – last Saturday was World Labyrinth Day (the first Saturday in May every year) and I went up to the City of London in the hot sunshine and walked a labyrinth in what used to be an old church yard but is now a ‘garden’ in a very built-up space near Fenchurch Street. I went on my own to walk the labyrinth at 1pm, as labyrinth walkers across the world were doing, to create a global wave of labyrinth walking. So I was not really on my own, and there were two women sitting nearby on a bench eating their lunch, who didn’t bat an eyelid at my careful walking in and out of the centre of the labyrinth.

I carried on walking around old haunts and new after that, scouting out two other labyrinth possibilities and heading back to the Mithraem (go, if you haven’t been - it’s free and fascinating) for another look at the current exhibition in the Bloomberg Space 0.1% by Jonathan Baldock (see pics below)

“Drawing on the rich history of the Bloomberg site, home to the ruins of the Roman temple of Mithras, Jonathan Baldock’s 0.1% explores myths, legends, gods, rituals, and their influence on our lives. The British artist’s sculptural installations: formed from natural materials like hessian wool, clay, wood and metal, take influence from folklore and paganism.”

It’s on until July and definitely worth a visit.