Spring
Baltic Labyrinth laid on Wôpanâak and Massachusett land, in what is now known as Boston, MA.
This labyrinth was laid with Hebe on Beltane Day.
Journal Excerpt And Map From March:
At this point along the Wheel of the Year, I began doing solo Druidic ceremonies in my home and in partnership with my collaborator, Hebe. As the living energy of the Earth began to stir in the ground, I was aware that I was tapping into something and I was beginning to see what it was...
Sowing seeds of what's to come which still seems unknown but is starting to come into view.
This time of year, specifically at the Spring Equinox, "is when the Sun is directly over the equator...where night and day are equal in length...The equinoxes are the times between the balance point before a transition and as they approach, we are reminded of the need for balance in our lives...and within ourselves...Our entire self. The good and the bad. Our light self and our shadow self" (Cross 86).
As we moved from the darker half of the year to the lighter half (based on the sun's placement), my attention was drawn to the feminine/ lunar nature of the season I was about to leave. This half of the year encouraged me to dream, rest, and plant the tiniest of seeds, it gave me permission to receive. I grew an appreciation for the darkness that I hadn't experienced before. It left me with a lot of visions of what was to come.
As we moved into spring, the hardiest of plants were starting to sprout from the ground and I naturally felt the need to plan for how to best nurture them. The seeds had been sown, the dream dreamt, and it was starting to come into view. So my question became how will I see it through?
My Map
Around March of 2022, I saw that the Laying Labyrinths project was aligned with the Wheel of the Year, and so I mapped out what it could look like if it continued to listen to the seasons. To the right is that map.
I began in the East with the spring. I envisioned small facilitator gatherings, practicing with materials, and the land. Seeing who wanted to be a part of the project.
Moving to the South, at the end of spring, and shifting to summer. This was the time to hold warm workshops, inviting people near and dear to the facilitators who would share feedback well with us.
AN exchange: Mapping Dreams to Action
Think back to the thick of Winter, was there any dream bubbling up in you? This dream can be related to anything personal, artistic, work, school, travel, or family. Any dream! Is there one that feels like there are already some things in the works? Conversations are being had, small details are envisioned, and you can start to see it a bit. If so let's continue. If not think of one that you can move in that direction.
Map out this dream, what could it look like if you took it through the rest of the Wheel of the Year?
Spring - New life comes out of the ground, blooming, opening up to the world. There is a lot of birthing energy at this time of the year.
Summer - Life is maturing, ripening, clarifying, and getting ready to be harvested.
Fall - The light begins shifting back to darkness. The Harvest is being gathered, transformed, stored up, and prepping us for Winter.
Winter - It's a time to rest, replenish, and dream of what is next.
You have lived all your life on this Earth. Trust that you know how the seasons feel in your body. What would this project call for at each time of year? Throw down some loose thoughts, do not be married to any of these happening at the time you state, but see what could lead to the next step. You are beginning to devise with the seasons, with the natural living system.
Feel free to share in the comment section any portion of your map or dream you are envisioning.
Spring Learning From the map
As I followed the map that came to me for Laying Labyrinths. I learned a lot from the gentle action steps. In March, Hebe and I met six times, and from our explorations together, the Laying Labyrinths project began to take shape and shift. We brought dear friends into a workshop with us. We saw the need to incorporate fewer exercises so that we could encourage more pause. The move to fewer exercises came from a lesson I was also hearing in many spaces of my life. The importance of pausing, giving time to reflect, or in Social Presencing Theater practices the "Ma". I was noticing my impulse to rush into thinking, rather than pausing to listen, see, and sense what might be already there. To come into a relationship and exchange with that which is already happening in a space. This, ironically, is another improvising muscle, this listening. Or, as Pauline Oliveros theorized and called: Quantum Listening, is the ability to...
"listen in as many ways as possible simultaneously - changing and being changed by the listening. [She stated,] I see and hear life as a grand improvisation - I stay open to the world of possibilities for interplay in the quantum field with self and others - community - society - the world - the universe and beyond" (Oliveros).
I have just touched the surface of Oliveros, Deep & Quantum Listening work, theoretically; however, much of this thesis has been living peripherally in some of her practices and calls to listen to the field that's already occurring all around us. As I was tuning into the Wheel of the Year, dancing with space, and getting my body outdoors, my capacity to listen deeply expanded. I slowed down, I began to see more offers around me. I began to trust impulses that were surfacing in my body more, including the one that I need to pause more. Pausing to hear deeply what is going on and giving space for that to arise is the muscle I was being asked to strengthen in my practice. Moving to fewer exercises allowed us to have space to integrate and not be checking something off a list. It also gave an opportunity to experiment with which exercises landed better. We could be selective. I saw it like a science experiment; when we were dealing with fewer variables, it could lead to a more refined experience and clarified results. The shift to less is more was a hard practice for my exuberant, overplanning facilitator style. But I was thankful this project continued to ask me to slow down, be with my senses, and invite others to do the same.
The other change that occurred after the workshops was the order of the exercises. They began to mirror a journey from the micro to the macro in a triad that I held dear for years. That triad is
Connect to your Self, the Community, and the Earth. By connecting to one, you inherently connect to them all.
Triads are a form of knowledge sharing that I learned from the OBOD Bardic course. These threefold wisdom sayings are short lists of three that have a deep connecting point. The triad above I fell into in 2018, before I began my Druidry practice. Since then, I have used this triad as a form of inspiration in building warm-up exercises and curating curriculum. It reminds me that we are all holons that are interconnected to each other. By connecting with each other, we can connect with the world, and recognize the way we affect it.
The triad moves from a micro to macro view bringing awareness to the smallest of interactions that can fractal out and affect the whole. Fractals are a scientific and mathematical term that has come out of the study of chaos and systems theory. Fractals are "Patterns that repeat themselves over and over at different scales" (Hayward 186). The term was originally coined by Benoit Mandelbrot when he realized that "This property of self-similarity of patterning at many orders of scale is perhaps one of the most significant and far-reaching characteristics of nature" (Hayward 186). Mandelbrot's most famous example is looking at a coastline. If you map a coastline from an aerial view to a smaller section, the maps will appear to be self-similar, all the way down to even rock formations (Hayward 186). Mandelbrot used this theory to map a simple mathematical formula and when programmed into a computer it generated 2-D drawings of the micro-to-macro-fractal patterns. Here is a video of what is now known as the Mandelbrot set. (Mandelbrot Zoom Sequence)
What I have learned from fractals is that they do not only physically exist. But I have seen them used energetically when one youth's mood is low; how it can affect an ensemble, or in a social movement where hashtags spark like wildfires and move change along. It's all about patterning, feedback loops, how partly open and closed systems are, and how holons relate and affect each other. "Paracelsus (alchemist) wrote that all the patterns of heaven and earth are to be found in humans. In any philosophy or medicine…the macrocosm—the entire cosmos—must be found in the microcosm, the individual person" (Hayward 194). I was receiving my own fractal through how Laying Labyrinths: A Living Performance was being revealed to me through the seasons.
By trusting in the natural patterns that living systems participate in, the seasons were gifting me with visual cues of where the Laying Labyrinths project was currently! For instance, these were pictures I took throughout March and April of 2022. The tiny buds around where I live were beginning to flower and were matching the intentions of the project: slowly opening up and blooming for others to see the seeds that were sown.
As Hebe and I began opening up our process and letting others affect the layout of the performance, it was becoming something bigger than we could have dreamt. As we approached Beltane Day, the true shift into the solar half of the year, we bid the dreaming part adieu and stepped into the action-oriented, outward-facing, masculine side of our work.
Here is a video of the labyrinth we laid on Beltane Day.
By the end of spring, Hebe and I began to find the words of invitation for the Laying Labyrinths: A Living Performance. One night in our rehearsal together we fussed with words. We played, walked a labyrinth, and fiddled with the invitation. As we edited, a playful energy and spirit took us over. A kind of energy that we named Betchy. We came up with a funny to us hashtag, #layitdownbetch, even though we knew we weren't going to be using Social Media to promote the performances. We began dubbing ourselves the Labyrinth Betches and these characters held the edges of the energy we wanted to open with these labyrinth experiences. Not a completely solemn or somber one, but one that welcomed the wealth of experiences that could occur in the performance. From this place, our description was curated.
Laying Labyrinths: A Living Performance
You, yes You, watching Netflix, while scrolling through Insta, and checking your email, no worries; I do it too! You are invited to Laying Labyrinths: A Living Performance. A space to practice gathering. A place to participate in reconnecting to yourself, the earth, and the community we create. We will circle up, play, walk, dream, and remember how interconnected we are to everything! We might camp out (I wish), shout, paint, roll around (I’m down), do magic, sing, eat (are you bringing snacks)? But enough about my impulses; what are yours? It’s up to the people who gather together. It’s a living performance. It will be different every time, because of you. So come! I know making plans and canceling is the best dopamine spike on a Friday night. But come if you want, if you need, and even if you are a little curious! Come!
Oh, by the way, in case you missed it, we will lay a labyrinth too.
#layitdownbetch
The next day I wrote the following in my journal about this experience making a description with Hebe.
I wanted to pen something that said to people from jump I see you! I guess that's what I want to keep doing. Seeing people!
Hayward, Jeremy W. Letters to Vanessa: On Love, Science and Awareness in an Enchanted World. 1st Edition, Shambhala, 1997.
Mandelbrot Zoom Sequence. Directed by Mathigon, 2020. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b005iHf8Z3g.
Oliveros, Pauline. “Quantum Listening: From Practice to Theory (To Practice Practice).” MusicWorks, vol. #75, no. Fall, https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/736945/19af465bc3fcf3c8d5249713cd586b28.pdf. Accessed 10 Apr. 2022.