August 2015 |
On August 14th and 15th, Veriditas hosted a community celebration at Grace Cathedral to honor our 20 year Anniversary. Many of you were there, and we hope our eNews celebration summary will bring back good memories, and for those who weren't able to make it, here is a snippet of what was shared during the event, written by Judith Tripp. For a full overview, please visit the new "history" section of our website. |
Lauren once told me that she was very good at perceiving important underground streams in the culture. That she was enthralled by the Labyrinth and knew without question that she was to shepherd its reemergence in the culture is part of our story. We are grateful that she heard the call, perceived the long hidden in plain site teachings and persevered to bring us all this remarkable path of wholeness and peace. Lauren is woman immersed in the inner life with her religious calling, psychotherapeutic training, and deeply introspecitve nature. She had made a bridge to the patriarchial world as a priest and held respect from people both in the conventional religious world and a collection of wild unchurched women and men. She was made for this assignment. Her deep friendship with Alan Jones, Dean Emeritas of Grace Cathedral gave her project the support it needed and Lauren's tenacity and steady, sure knowledge of what the labyrinth called her to do has given us our remarkable organization.
At the Celebration event, the letter was read aloud by Barbara Hartford, Manager of Peacebuilding Programs at the United Religions Initiative. Barbara has been a close friend of Lauren over the years. |
Beginning in 1998, Lauren led pilgrimages which included Chartres and her labyrinth. In 1999, the first of Veriditas' Chartres pilgrimages began and continues to this day. I was priviledged to be part of that first event when the labyrinth was opened for the month of May and hundreds of pilgrims from the US came to our programs.
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From July 21-23, I had the long-anticipated pleasure to be a student of labyrinth design and construction with Robert Ferre and Lars Howlett. Sixteen congenial, compatible, eager labyrinth appreciators did our best to take in a plethora of labyrinth designs, including Lars’ categories of ancient, classical, medieval, contemporary, and avant garde. We created labyrinths out of beans, bottle caps, and using pens and colors. Robert explained basic concepts of sacred geometry as it relates to labyrinth building and created a flour 7-circuit classical labyrinth outside and a square 5-circuit classical one inside. | We tried to digest how to change the classic one into a medieval one, as well as information about materials, ready-made and hand-made tools, and resources. Our grand finale was building a full 11-circuit Chartres design labyrinth among trees nearby, created with multiple-colored cautionary tape and utilizing the group methods of 12 people tacking the tape to the ground at consistent intervals. The result? Voila! An 11-circuit Chartres design labyrinth, completed in 1½ hours. We walked it as a group prior to our final goodbyes. Thanks, Robert and Lars! |
Note: We will be holding Labyrinth Summer School on the East Coast next year. Hope to see you there! |
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