Thursday 6 January 2011

Labyrinth or maze?

What is the difference between a labyrinth and a maze? Umm… that’s one of those questions that leave a lot of people puzzled, including me. But no longer… a member of my creative writing group has written a book about them – 'Labyrinth - landscape of the soul.' (http://www.diwilliams.com/)  Now, I haven’t read the book yet, so I can’t claim to be any sort of an expert but Di  tells me that a labyrinth is a single path which creates a pattern. Labyrinths have been created by humans for many hundreds of years and are sometimes used by people who wish to wander along them and contemplate. In other words they are a non-stressful environment which you can wander through until you reach the end.
Sometimes labyrinths  can be complicated such as the example below

Labyrinths are a great resource if you fancy some walking meditation and getting lost in a labyrinth should not be a problem. If you keep walking for long enough you will come out of the entrance where you started.

Mazes on the other hand are made up of a lot of dead ends and do not comprise of one single path… hence it is eminently possible to get lost in them.


You can find out more about labyrinths if you go to:
The site has simple but good information on it and it also gives the location of the beautiful Edinburgh Labyrinth in George Square, Edinburgh.

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