Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas.
Speaker 1: And in our last episode we deal with mazes. We
Speaker 1: actually started in a maze and steadily worked our way
Speaker 1: out of it. And now we have escaped from the maze.
Speaker 1: We are outside of this confusing, confining, perplexing, stressful environment
Speaker 1: of enclosing walls, and we have now escaped into the
Speaker 1: realm of the labyrinth. Now, as we mentioned in the
Speaker 1: previous podcast, and we're gonna rehash here, there's a difference
Speaker 1: between a maze and a labyrinth. These terms are often
Speaker 1: used interchangeably to a certain extent. It's kind of an
Speaker 1: elegant variation where you use use a word to describe
Speaker 1: something that is similar but it's not quite the same.
Speaker 1: They're often used interchangeably, so he can't get too up
Speaker 1: in arms over the distinction, but certainly for modern users,
Speaker 1: there is a distinction between labyrinth and mazes. The maze
Speaker 1: is a path of it's not even a path, it's
Speaker 1: just the space of walls that are confining you in
Speaker 1: and you're trying to find your way out. There dead ends,
Speaker 1: there are corners, There may or may not be a
Speaker 1: minotaur wandering around after you. Uh. It is the stuff
Speaker 1: of the hedge maze and the shining. It is the
Speaker 1: stuff of everything you see in the movie Labyrinth. Despite
Speaker 1: the name Labyrinth, that is uh, it is a movie
Speaker 1: in which the individual rooms through mazes. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: spatial puzzle. And I really think about Labyrinth as more
Speaker 1: of the antidote to a maze. Yes, because you're not
Speaker 1: engaging the hippocampus as you would in a maze. Because
Speaker 1: in a labyrinth, you don't have to really really worry
Speaker 1: about the path or your memory or even trying to
Speaker 1: stake out a blueprint, because really the blueprint is in
Speaker 1: front of you. It may look like a maze, but
Speaker 1: really it's one uh, continuing path that just circles around. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You there's one entrance, there's one egg it and there
Speaker 1: are no choices to make you simply follow the path.
Speaker 1: And the path is winding, and the path is slow
Speaker 1: going because you're having to take all these turns in
Speaker 1: these in these twists, but never do you have to
Speaker 1: actually think do I go this way or that way?
Speaker 1: Because there are no choices. It is. It is one
Speaker 1: curving line from one end to the other. It's like
Speaker 1: a ball of string, you know, if you were to
Speaker 1: travel through that string on the outside, and it looks
Speaker 1: intricate and complicated, but but really it is one path.
Speaker 1: And I really think about it as an act of
Speaker 1: submission when you enter into this labyrinth, because you are
Speaker 1: following a preordained path, right, and you are submitting yourself
Speaker 1: to this path, and in doing so, UM, it is
Speaker 1: a sort of meditative practice because you are now UM,
Speaker 1: I guess you could say you are busying your mind
Speaker 1: just with the act of walking. And that's what we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about today. We talked about the stress
Speaker 1: response with m mazes, but now we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about this more meditative quality of the labyrinth and what
Speaker 1: it means to us on a logical and physical level.
Speaker 1: But first I want to mention that labyrinths are all
Speaker 1: over the world, um, and have been for for many
Speaker 1: thousands of years. You can find them in the United States,
Speaker 1: in Europe and India, Afghanistan, Java, Sumatra, and various sights
Speaker 1: in the US left by Pueblo Indians, the Happy and
Speaker 1: Zuni and others. Yeah, you see the design of a labyrinth.
Speaker 1: You see it on a classic room and flooring, you
Speaker 1: see in the remains of labyrinths throughout Scandinavian Northern Europe.
Speaker 1: You see it in the graffiti at Pompeii, Ancient Britain's
Speaker 1: cut labyrinths into the turf, Bronze Age tombs in Sardinia,
Speaker 1: other carvings dating back to three thousand d C. It's
Speaker 1: like the maze. We discussed how the maze. It's like
Speaker 1: this pure physical or pattern base, but certainly a physical
Speaker 1: embodiment of either internal confusion or external navigation confusion. It
Speaker 1: is about the state of confusion in the human mind
Speaker 1: as a physical reality, and like you said, the the
Speaker 1: labyrinth is an antidote to that. Yeah, it really is
Speaker 1: the polar opposite. And it's funny that those terms are
Speaker 1: used interchangeably because when you think about a labyrinth, you
Speaker 1: think about wide open space. It's right, because this is
Speaker 1: typically something that is uh cut into the earth or
Speaker 1: made with stones or made out of stones, and so
Speaker 1: you can still see the vista around you. You're not
Speaker 1: your vision isn't impaired in anyway. In other words, there's
Speaker 1: not something on your right or left, and uh, you
Speaker 1: can see and hear everything right. In fact, some would
Speaker 1: say that you're able to pay attention more to these
Speaker 1: aspects of being. You're able to really tune into the
Speaker 1: sounds around you, the smells, the sites. So it really
Speaker 1: is the polar opposite of a maze. Yeah. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: no walls rising up around you. It's a winding course,
Speaker 1: but there are no choices to be made, and you
Speaker 1: generally find these your You often find them rather uh
Speaker 1: in churches, either in or in the serene garden environments.
Speaker 1: I encountered one at the Desert Museum in Arizona where
Speaker 1: they had and out amid the cacti in this one
Speaker 1: little cactus garden, and it was just really serene. You
Speaker 1: start at the beginning of the labyrinth and it just
Speaker 1: curls you around and you're just walking following the path,
Speaker 1: noticing all these beautiful succulent plants growing all around you.
Speaker 1: And then eventually you wind your way back out and
Speaker 1: you just yesterday sought out a labyrinth within the maze
Speaker 1: that is Atlanta. So, especially since there aren't really I mean,
Speaker 1: labyrinths don't really make for great movie and fictional storytelling,
Speaker 1: you know, because movies and in fiction, and I mean,
Speaker 1: it's all about putting you in a situation of drama.
Speaker 1: So of course fictional characters wind up in mazes. They rarely,
Speaker 1: it seems, wind up in labyrinth. So describe your experience
Speaker 1: with the labyrinth. UM. I walked it at St. Barthl
Speaker 1: Bartholow mules Uh Episcopal Church, I believe, and it was
Speaker 1: an outdoor one and it was really lovely, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure I have a psychologically primed for the event, but UM,
Speaker 1: I spent minutes walking in a couple of times, and
Speaker 1: what I noticed about it is that it does draw
Speaker 1: you out of yourself again. The landscape is open, you
Speaker 1: can see the sky, you begin to notice things, and
Speaker 1: this is really important. I think we'll talk about this
Speaker 1: um a little bit later. But it takes you out
Speaker 1: of that chattering part of your brain a bit um
Speaker 1: and it puts you It gives you a little bit
Speaker 1: more stillness. And that's what I noticed. And here's how
Speaker 1: I actually tested the level of meditative UH quality to
Speaker 1: this experience. I went to the Whole Foods after this.
Speaker 1: Now it's a it's late December now and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of bustling action at Whole Foods. I despise going
Speaker 1: to Whole Foods, even when it's a calm period, because
Speaker 1: people seem to me to act very aggressively in Whole Foods,
Speaker 1: whether or not just trying to get a parking space
Speaker 1: or they're just taking their shopping carts around and jamming
Speaker 1: into the aisles. For some reason, I find it to
Speaker 1: be a disturbing place to be, even though it has
Speaker 1: a sort of holistic vibe about it of health and
Speaker 1: wellness and all that stuff. Afterwards, after walking this labyrinth,
Speaker 1: I was like I was floating on air. I did
Speaker 1: not care. I parked really far away. Who could care
Speaker 1: about getting a parking space up close? I didn't um.
Speaker 1: But of course all of this again could be psychological priming.
Speaker 1: But I think that does speak to this act, that
Speaker 1: when you go through this physical act, that there can
Speaker 1: be some sort of transformation mentally. And was it circular
Speaker 1: basically informed, because it seems like that that is sort
Speaker 1: of the standard for the labyrinth, is that looking at
Speaker 1: it from above, it's the circular zone of in which
Speaker 1: this path twists and turns. Yeah, it was circular, and
Speaker 1: at the very center it had symbols had three things
Speaker 1: that were a symbol of something. Now, I think you
Speaker 1: guys will probably been hipped to the fact that I'm
Speaker 1: not a religious person, so I don't know what the
Speaker 1: significance of that is. I guess I'm going to make
Speaker 1: a guess that it was like the what is it,
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit? The three things, Larry Curly, yes, y, yeah,
Speaker 1: those those were the faces. I thought it was just
Speaker 1: pattern recognition, but now that you say that, I think
Speaker 1: it was Larry feeling it was the holy trend. But
Speaker 1: it's interesting that you mentioned how it is this. There's
Speaker 1: this feeling of guidance in the labyrinth, so it makes
Speaker 1: perfect sense that they would be in holy spaces because
Speaker 1: certainly within a church environment is the idea that God
Speaker 1: is my co pilot, or you know, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna trust in something greater than myself to guide me
Speaker 1: through this life life. And therefore, what is the labyrinth?
Speaker 1: But it is allowing the path to guide you and
Speaker 1: in freeing yourself of the worries about which way did
Speaker 1: you go this, this way or that way. One of
Speaker 1: the most famous labyrinths that is this in a church
Speaker 1: setting is Chartress and Um, an archaeological excavation has shown
Speaker 1: that the cathedral this is in France overlies the alignment
Speaker 1: and foundations of earlier Roman buildings. And this is built
Speaker 1: in twelve sixty and around today. This is really cool.
Speaker 1: If you visit the labyrinth on the summer solstice, you'll
Speaker 1: see that at exact actually at noon, a sunbeam falls
Speaker 1: directly on a nail that was placed in the floor,
Speaker 1: you know, And there's something beautiful about the I mean,
Speaker 1: it's still there because there are no there are no
Speaker 1: walls to fall down inside a labyrinth. You construct a maze.
Speaker 1: We mentioned the Maze of Minos in the podcast about mazes.
Speaker 1: You know, whether that actually existed in any way, shape
Speaker 1: or form, you know, that's that's an area of discussion
Speaker 1: among historians. Most seem to think it did not. We
Speaker 1: certainly cannot find evidence of a vast subterranean maze in
Speaker 1: which a monster lived. Uh. There's some speculation that the
Speaker 1: palace itself there on crete, was kind of like a maze.
Speaker 1: It had big, thick walls, and it was very intimidating
Speaker 1: and a little confusing. But a lot of that has
Speaker 1: fallen down and we've had to, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: to to piece things back together. So a maze not
Speaker 1: only the confusing, but it can fall and change due
Speaker 1: to the weathering of the world. Whereas, uh, it's kind
Speaker 1: of beautiful to think of a labyrinth that's something that
Speaker 1: that is persistent because there's nothing that can be eroded.
Speaker 1: It can be covered up, but it's still there underneath
Speaker 1: the turf if you know to look for it. You
Speaker 1: know what's interesting about that too, I was I was
Speaker 1: thinking about the Nazca lines, and these were lines drawn
Speaker 1: by the Nasca people. And this is a civilization living
Speaker 1: in modern Peru. Yeah, we're talking four between four hundred
Speaker 1: and six d Yeah, and uh, this civilization actually disappeared
Speaker 1: about hundred years ago, but you can still see the
Speaker 1: traces of these lines, these labyrinths that were designed by
Speaker 1: scraping away red dust and rock and revealing the white
Speaker 1: ground underneath it. And um, and they're in the shape
Speaker 1: of of of animals. Yeah, it's so cool, like animals,
Speaker 1: the monkeys, monkeys, some humans. Birds and fish are represented
Speaker 1: humming birds, sharks, lizards. Yeah, and and these are huge.
Speaker 1: We're talking about six hundred and sixty feet across and
Speaker 1: so ancient aliens people love these. They the idea it's
Speaker 1: like they would tell on aliens about monkeys, that's what
Speaker 1: this was about. Well, actually, what they think is that
Speaker 1: the was a rite of passage in that it was
Speaker 1: a contemplative act done by small groups of the civilization
Speaker 1: that they walked these labyrinths in order to get to
Speaker 1: the end of Um. What was largely this metaphorical ritual.
Speaker 1: For not only the idea here is not only is
Speaker 1: this uh a line that creates the shape of a
Speaker 1: monkey as visible from a spaceship, this is also this
Speaker 1: is a line that you traverse. You're traversing the shape
Speaker 1: of the monkey or the lizard or what have you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So again, you know, this is probably more meditative practice
Speaker 1: that was done by the civilization UM, and not communication
Speaker 1: to ancient aliens. UM. But I think that it points
Speaker 1: to this idea that throughout history there has been this
Speaker 1: sort of walking meditation done in different ways. Yes, and
Speaker 1: we'll get more into the idea of walking meditation shortly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: particularly when you consider it being used as a healing
Speaker 1: practice and and actually in medical well um centers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you set around the world, you see them pop up
Speaker 1: again and again, and as we mentioned in the last podcast,
Speaker 1: a great source for these two episodes was a book
Speaker 1: by esther In Steinberg titled The Science of Healing Places.
Speaker 1: She devotes one chapter to labyrinth and mazes, but the
Speaker 1: whole book is about how physical environments affect us both
Speaker 1: in body and mind effectively, how they affect the mind
Speaker 1: body through our you know, and this can be negative,
Speaker 1: this can be positive. And and how if you're building
Speaker 1: something like a hospital, you want to take that into account.
Speaker 1: You don't want to build a hospital it feels like
Speaker 1: a maze, if anything. You want to build a hospital
Speaker 1: that feels like a labyrinth, that it's open, right, And
Speaker 1: failing that, you just build a labyrinth in the courtyard,
Speaker 1: which many places do, right, because you have this idea
Speaker 1: of opening space metaphorically and physically so that your brain
Speaker 1: can sort of acclimate itself to that space. Um. As
Speaker 1: you had mentioned the book Healing Spaces, there is a
Speaker 1: Harvard cardiologist that Sternberg author talks about. His name is
Speaker 1: Harvey Goldberg, and he says that a lot of the
Speaker 1: meditative practices meditative walking, our yoga, or tai chi um
Speaker 1: is really about gaming the relaxation response through breathing. And
Speaker 1: he says, quote, I think of it as an unclenching.
Speaker 1: When the system gets overly tense, it's like a tight fist.
Speaker 1: It's locked somehow. By focusing your attention elsewhere, there is
Speaker 1: an unlocking and unclenching of the fist. Now this is
Speaker 1: really important when you think about an act of walking meditation,
Speaker 1: but as in a labyrinth, when you're walking around like that,
Speaker 1: because you are focusing on something other than yourself and
Speaker 1: yet you're allowing your thoughts to unfold naturally, and this
Speaker 1: is that contemplative act that labyrinth's encourage. Yeah, so think
Speaker 1: of this when you're actually walking on the path of
Speaker 1: the labyrinth. What are you doing? Why are you feeling relaxed?
Speaker 1: First of all, you're focusing on the path you're having.
Speaker 1: You're looking down. Maybe you're looking up a little bit too,
Speaker 1: but then you're you're kind of looking down and watching
Speaker 1: the path that you're walking. There are no walls to
Speaker 1: head you in. It's about following this path on the ground. Secondly,
Speaker 1: because of this, you're moving slower, and because you're moving slower,
Speaker 1: you're breathing slower. Also, unlike a maze, your vision is
Speaker 1: not obstructed. You're able to hear and see the world
Speaker 1: around you like you mentioned, and you're you're not having
Speaker 1: to depend on you know, landmarks or what have you,
Speaker 1: just kind of on autopilot, Yeah, which allows you to
Speaker 1: get into that mental space that is healing. As Sternberg
Speaker 1: and Goldberg and Herbert Benson, who is very much an
Speaker 1: authority of meditative thoughts and actually meditation itself. We will
Speaker 1: talk more about this. We're gonna take a quick break.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about why labyrinths were built and how
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Speaker 1: All right, we're back and we're continuing to explore the
Speaker 1: idea of labyrinth, which again is the calm, singular path
Speaker 1: that winds you through a space and uh and takes
Speaker 1: you to the other side, as opposed to a maze,
Speaker 1: which is chaotic and confusing and full of stress and
Speaker 1: anxiety because you don't know if you're going this way
Speaker 1: or that way, and then you run into dead ends.
Speaker 1: But there are no dead ends in a true labyrinth.
Speaker 1: It's true. And when you look back at some of
Speaker 1: these more ancient labyrinths, like the Nasaca lines, again it
Speaker 1: comes up why why did people make these? What why
Speaker 1: were they built? Why were they created? And certainly a
Speaker 1: spiritual reason is present. It's um much possibility for some
Speaker 1: of them. Some people think there are astrological reasons behind them.
Speaker 1: And if you look again at Chartreu, which is the
Speaker 1: cathedral in France, again you see evidence that it was
Speaker 1: designed in conjunction with the summer solstice, so that maybe
Speaker 1: it had something to do with that. Um. I tend
Speaker 1: to think that if the sunlight is beaming down in
Speaker 1: the middle of a labyrinth on the summer solstice at noon,
Speaker 1: that that would be very powerful to churchgoers, particularly if
Speaker 1: they're walking the labyrinth, because it's the idea that this
Speaker 1: path is in tune with celestial dynamics, with the mechanics
Speaker 1: of the universe, right, and that you are in unity
Speaker 1: with nature. Yeah. Like it makes me think back to
Speaker 1: Dante's Inferno again, particularly Dante's Paradise. Paradise is a very
Speaker 1: strictly ordered thing, like the cosmos, whereas when Dante's actually
Speaker 1: in Hell, it's an ordered system, but it's it's a
Speaker 1: lot more confusing. Yeah. And then there's this I like
Speaker 1: this one. There's the dancing theory. Oh yes, this is great.
Speaker 1: This takes me back. There was there were like a
Speaker 1: couple of old goofy cartoons. I'm sure Holly would tell
Speaker 1: you could tell me exactly when and where they occur
Speaker 1: in the long list of Disney productions. But there were
Speaker 1: a couple of goofy cry of pop stuff. There are
Speaker 1: a couple of goofy cartoons and one he quit smoking
Speaker 1: and another he was trying to lose weight, I think,
Speaker 1: And they dealt They were really cool. They dealt with
Speaker 1: like an adult goofy like dealing with like the demands
Speaker 1: of being like a bachelor. It was weird stuff. I
Speaker 1: have checked it out again. But but there's one where
Speaker 1: he's like trying to learn how to dance, and there's
Speaker 1: this kid he gets where you listen to a record,
Speaker 1: and you place these cutouts of feet of on the
Speaker 1: on the floor and then you dance by moving and
Speaker 1: he has like a mannequin with him and you move
Speaker 1: from one these steps to this step, and this teaches
Speaker 1: you how to dance by following the patterns on the floor.
Speaker 1: It's this so that he could now in his bachelorhood
Speaker 1: a woman. Yes, okay, so this is helping kids who
Speaker 1: are seeing their their father who's now a new bachelor.
Speaker 1: I think these were and again pop stuff will have
Speaker 1: to clear me up in this. I think these were
Speaker 1: aimed at These were These were kind of like an
Speaker 1: early Simpsons in a way, because they were they were
Speaker 1: kind of aimed at maybe a little bit of kids,
Speaker 1: but more at the adults. But anyway, that the dancing ritual. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the idea so, so the idea here is that
Speaker 1: labyrinths were potentially not merely this thing that you walk
Speaker 1: on and serenely follow, but you dance through. Because think
Speaker 1: about what dances and I'm not talking like you know,
Speaker 1: grinding booty shaking necessarily, but but think of something like
Speaker 1: like square dancing, some sort of ritualized dance. Certainly the
Speaker 1: whirling dervishes where there is a pattern that you're following,
Speaker 1: and you're you're giving yourself up to the pattern of
Speaker 1: the dance, to the rhythm of the beat, to the
Speaker 1: You're giving yourself over body and soul to the music
Speaker 1: and the movement, and and and that is in a
Speaker 1: sense of labyrinth you were becoming. You kind of become
Speaker 1: the labyrinth. You become the dance, to become the music.
Speaker 1: In that becoming, you cannot be this bundle of worries
Speaker 1: and and in troubles that you are the rest of
Speaker 1: the time. Yeah, it's the rhythm of the night. You
Speaker 1: leaven all your cares behind right hythm of the night. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I won't do that anymore. So what's interesting about that
Speaker 1: too is that this is uh, not just something that
Speaker 1: is again an act of submission, but perhaps some sort
Speaker 1: of right of passage. This is perhaps something that young
Speaker 1: men who had proved themselves as warriors would go through
Speaker 1: this dance. This is also a fertility right for women
Speaker 1: who would go through these um the labyrinth dancing. And
Speaker 1: again you're talking about syncopated rhythm. We're talking about a
Speaker 1: group activity that would line everybody up. And we talked
Speaker 1: before when people are singing together. It's like their their
Speaker 1: neurons are all firing on the same pattern. And uh,
Speaker 1: some more thing with these movements, right, think about it
Speaker 1: as the first Congo line. Is it cong or congo?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, it's interesting. In the book, Steinberg
Speaker 1: points out that this is possibly why like early in
Speaker 1: church history, like certainly churches came to embrace their labyrinths. St.
Speaker 1: Bart's here in Atlanta is not ashamed of their labyrinth.
Speaker 1: They're rather proud of it. But in the old days
Speaker 1: there's maybe a little suspicion where the older members of
Speaker 1: the church, especially like I don't know about these labyrinths.
Speaker 1: There's something kind of not right about them, fancy about them,
Speaker 1: you know why, because they have found all sorts of evidence.
Speaker 1: In fact, an intrust can vase from six BC depicts
Speaker 1: not just the dance in the labyrinth, but sexual acts
Speaker 1: going on. So the church kind of was like, m
Speaker 1: I'm not sure about showing the positions, the sexual positions, um,
Speaker 1: you know, overlaid on the labyrinth here. Maybe we could
Speaker 1: kind of cover that up a little bit, but there's
Speaker 1: a little bit of that involved with it, and that,
Speaker 1: you know, and that of course hints paganism, right, So
Speaker 1: let's talk about the way that it affects the Okay,
Speaker 1: so you talked about this idea that when you're walking,
Speaker 1: you began to slow down your breath, right, and you
Speaker 1: began to relax. So your breathing slows, your heart rate downshifts,
Speaker 1: and this is when your body gets the queue that
Speaker 1: it's time to slow down and relax. And this is
Speaker 1: the opposite of the stress response. This is the relaxation response. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The slow breathing activates the vegas nerve that counters the
Speaker 1: adrenaline like sympathetic nervous system response of stress. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: what's really cool about this nerve is that we've known
Speaker 1: that it has it's workings with stress and counteracting stress,
Speaker 1: but it also regulates the immune system, in particular in
Speaker 1: fighting inflammation. So when we start to talk about this
Speaker 1: in the stress response, we start to talk more about
Speaker 1: the immune system as a whole, because we know that
Speaker 1: if your body is in a constant state of stress,
Speaker 1: that this can be destructive at a cellular level. So
Speaker 1: this is why it's important to try to uh promote
Speaker 1: as much of this relaxation response that you can. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's really crazy to think about it about the
Speaker 1: mazes and labyrinths in this sense the idea that a
Speaker 1: maze in physical space can physically harm you, like on
Speaker 1: a cellular level, and likewise a labyrinth can heal you.
Speaker 1: Because when we talk about healing spaces, it's easily to
Speaker 1: think of it in terms of some hippie dippy nonsense,
Speaker 1: has some some spiritual talk. And maybe I'm not that
Speaker 1: into the idea that a space has all these magical
Speaker 1: properties about it, But as we've discussed, a space does
Speaker 1: have an effect on the body and mind, and and
Speaker 1: we see that in a way in their purest forms
Speaker 1: in the maze and the labyrinth. Yeah, because again I
Speaker 1: will bring up the default mode network. This is that
Speaker 1: part of the brain, the medial prefrontal cortex and medial
Speaker 1: parialtial cortex in the metal medial temporal lobe. This is
Speaker 1: that part that is the mid line chatter, the me,
Speaker 1: me me, the fear response. This is all this is
Speaker 1: concerned with the ego and the seat of consciousness that
Speaker 1: really helps to inform. This is supposed to balance our
Speaker 1: sense of self. But when we have too much of
Speaker 1: the chatter, there's hyperactivity. That's when to russion sets in
Speaker 1: that is stressful, right, And as we discovered in our
Speaker 1: podcast The Shaman and the Scientist, it is meditation that
Speaker 1: is one of the things that can quiet this part
Speaker 1: of the mind. And this was really important in helping
Speaker 1: to relieve depression. And I wanted to just bring up
Speaker 1: once more that Dr Judson Brewer used f m R
Speaker 1: I to scan experienced meditators and he found this decreased
Speaker 1: activity in the default mode network. Now, meditation really is
Speaker 1: just about again gaining your breath and because if you
Speaker 1: do that, obviously that your body is going to get
Speaker 1: these cues that it needs to relax. So this walking
Speaker 1: meditation through a labyrinth is very much a type of meditation.
Speaker 1: So when you think about that, then then as you say,
Speaker 1: it's no longer just like this hippie dippie, like hey,
Speaker 1: meditate and you will fill one with the world. It's
Speaker 1: that it is changing you at a cellular level. And
Speaker 1: we talked about this too, with meditation changing you um
Speaker 1: your genes as well your stressed genes, being able to
Speaker 1: actually turn those off through stress responses. Steinberg pointed out too,
Speaker 1: with resuscitation, when you're resuscitating an individual, you're you're talking
Speaker 1: about one breath every six to seven seconds once the
Speaker 1: hardest started back up again, and that is the optimal
Speaker 1: breathing pattern to get the optimal amount of oxygen and
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide into the body to nourish tissue and keep
Speaker 1: the brain working. So it makes sense to me that
Speaker 1: you would begin to see some of these labyrinths popping
Speaker 1: up in medical centers because no doubt, those are some
Speaker 1: of the most stressful places to be in because either
Speaker 1: you or a loved one um is in this medical
Speaker 1: center of being treated, or you're someone who works there.
Speaker 1: It's a high stress job, right um to be in
Speaker 1: the medical professions. So if you had this labyrinth there
Speaker 1: and you had patients walking it, that could or you
Speaker 1: had family members or friends who are walking in these
Speaker 1: times of despair and stress, then it could help you.
Speaker 1: That relaxation wants to open you up a little bit
Speaker 1: more in your mind and to sort of tamp that
Speaker 1: down again at the mental level, at the cellular level. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it has a lot in common with walking meditation, which
Speaker 1: is a form of meditation you do walking being and
Speaker 1: remaining conscious of your steps and your breathing. But it
Speaker 1: is also as Steinbroup points out it has a lot
Speaker 1: in common with tai chi as a gentle exercise. You
Speaker 1: might not think of walking a labyrinth as exercise, but
Speaker 1: essentially it is. It's a gentle exercise. But even this
Speaker 1: has a positive effect on the body. Yet does There
Speaker 1: is a small study that finds that mindfulness meditation and
Speaker 1: moderate exercise have protective effects against cold and flu, with
Speaker 1: people who engage in the practices having less severe, shorter,
Speaker 1: and fewer symptoms of acute respiratory infection. So what we're
Speaker 1: talking about is a study that was published in the
Speaker 1: Annals of Family Medicine, and it included a hundred and
Speaker 1: forty nine people and average age of fifty nine. Fifty
Speaker 1: one of them were a signed to have mindfulness meditation
Speaker 1: training for eight weeks, forty seven did moderate exercise for
Speaker 1: eight weeks, and fifty one they didn't have to do anything.
Speaker 1: And what they found is that those who went through
Speaker 1: the mindfulness training were linked with a forty decrease in
Speaker 1: symptoms fluid symptoms, while exercise was linked to a thirty
Speaker 1: decrease in symptoms. So, in other words, again what you're
Speaker 1: seeing here is that this act NTI achieving a moderate
Speaker 1: exercise in walking being a moderate exercise does have real
Speaker 1: ramifications on your health. All right, I'm going to close
Speaker 1: out here with just a brief little bit of quotation
Speaker 1: from Kick not Hahn, who is of course a zen
Speaker 1: master in the Vietnamese tradition, and he wrote a book
Speaker 1: called Walking Meditation that came with like a DVD in
Speaker 1: a c D. It's still out there if you want
Speaker 1: to learn more about walking meditation. It's a good source.
Speaker 1: So this is the Welcoming Path by Ticknahan. The empty
Speaker 1: path welcomes you, fragrant with grass and flowers, the path
Speaker 1: paved with paddy fields, still bearing the marks of your
Speaker 1: childhood and the fragrance of mother's hand. Walk leisurely, peacefully,
Speaker 1: your feet touch the earth deeply. Don't let your thoughts
Speaker 1: carry you away. Come back to the path every moment.
Speaker 1: The path is your dear friend. She will transmit to
Speaker 1: you her solidity and her peace. And I think that
Speaker 1: applies beautifully to the idea of labyrinth. I think so too,
Speaker 1: And it's very nice. If you're interested in finding a
Speaker 1: labyrinth in your city, you can actually go online and
Speaker 1: there is a database of them. I believe it's called
Speaker 1: Worldwibeh or hold wide Web LABYRINTHUM or something along those lines.
Speaker 1: Just google it and you'll find it UM and it
Speaker 1: will actually give you all the locations. That's how I
Speaker 1: found the one near our work here in Atlanta. All right, well,
Speaker 1: let's call over the robit here. You couldn't find us
Speaker 1: in the maze, but the labyrinth it's pretty easy for
Speaker 1: him to get here. All right. Just one comes to
Speaker 1: us from Jerick Jareck its and it says, Hi, Robert
Speaker 1: and Julie. I just finished listening to the Tongue Parasite podcast,
Speaker 1: truly the stuff of nightmares. I had a question that
Speaker 1: I can't seem to find an answer to. If the
Speaker 1: parasite is still eating blood and available food, then it
Speaker 1: has to be producing waste too. I didn't think having
Speaker 1: something eat your tongue could get any worse, but then
Speaker 1: it uses your face as a bathroom crazy stuff. Thanks
Speaker 1: again for the great podcast, Jerry, and thank you Jarek
Speaker 1: for taking an already disturbing concept and making it just
Speaker 1: a little more disturbing by bringing up this biologic for reality. Now,
Speaker 1: if the parasite had sexy time in your mouth, you
Speaker 1: can then rename your mouth or not your mouth but
Speaker 1: the fish's mouth a cloaca, right, I mean really, because
Speaker 1: it's got to be able to function in those three
Speaker 1: different ways. I guess, so cloake a mouth for fish.
Speaker 1: We also heard from a listener by the name of
Speaker 1: John John Writeston and says, at the end of your
Speaker 1: Dark Side of Creativity show, Robert puts mathematical thought and
Speaker 1: creativity into distinct back baskets. Roughly, if you're not really creative,
Speaker 1: if you are more the logical mathematical type. Unquote, he continues,
Speaker 1: I believe you drastically missed the point. You can find
Speaker 1: the following in various places. Quote. One of hilbert students
Speaker 1: stopped showing up to classes. On inquiring the reason, Hilbert
Speaker 1: was told that the student had left the university to
Speaker 1: become a poet. Hibbert said, I can't say I'm surprised.
Speaker 1: I never thought he had enough imagination to be a mathematician.
Speaker 1: Um and uh. And then John suggested that we explore
Speaker 1: the connection between mathematics and creativity. As it turns out,
Speaker 1: we have explored mathematics and to a certain extent, of
Speaker 1: link with creativity in some past episodes. So I apologize
Speaker 1: if I came off like I was dismissing mathematic or
Speaker 1: certainly science as a whole, as anything less than creative,
Speaker 1: because certainly you don't have to be dealing with art
Speaker 1: or fiction to use creativity, to to make any of
Speaker 1: the great leaps and science that humanity has benefited from
Speaker 1: these have It has come down to creativity, to finding
Speaker 1: the creative answer to a perplexing problem, and that, of
Speaker 1: course is the same way with mathematics. We did a
Speaker 1: podcast about the nature of mathematics is mathematics human creation
Speaker 1: or human discovery? And so that one was really good.
Speaker 1: And then we did one music Math and Mayhem, where
Speaker 1: we talked about the interconnection between between mathematics and music,
Speaker 1: both of course very creative disciplines with some overlap, but
Speaker 1: maybe not as much as we we think. So certainly,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm glad John raised the point because I don't
Speaker 1: want anyone to get the wrong idea that mathematics is
Speaker 1: not a creative endeavor. And then here's one more from Sean.
Speaker 1: Shawn writes in in response to the same episode, The
Speaker 1: Dark Side of Creativity, says I just finished listening to
Speaker 1: your podcast on the Dark Side of Creativity and listening
Speaker 1: to this podcast I asked myself several questions. As I
Speaker 1: am a blogger who shares book reviews and some of
Speaker 1: my own short stories online, I often find myself writing
Speaker 1: in the horror genre, So at first I was very
Speaker 1: interested in the dark side. As I listened to the
Speaker 1: podcast and heard how some with this mindset are liars
Speaker 1: and thieves, something came to mind. It is the same
Speaker 1: by P. T. Barnum on how quote there is a
Speaker 1: sucker born every minute unquote. It explains to me how
Speaker 1: those with a creative mind can easily take advantage of
Speaker 1: those who do not engage that side of their mind.
Speaker 1: It explains how so few can steal and lie to
Speaker 1: so uh to so many, as some just don't bother
Speaker 1: to use rational thinking. At the same time, I think
Speaker 1: of the thousands of writers out there in the world.
Speaker 1: Those who tell story to entertain and enrich others through
Speaker 1: their words are not lying, but sharing their creative mind.
Speaker 1: They use their talent as a means to entertain and
Speaker 1: not to trick. Then, of course, there are those who
Speaker 1: write songs, movies, et cetera, and use their minds for
Speaker 1: so much more. It's not the creative mind that is dark.
Speaker 1: In my thoughts, but that part of the ego that
Speaker 1: decides how a person uses that creativity and puts it
Speaker 1: to use. So to me, it's up to the individual
Speaker 1: on how they use this gift, much like the force.
Speaker 1: Will they be a Jedi for good or a scythe
Speaker 1: for evil? And that's from Sean a k A. Night
Speaker 1: Missed And if you want to check out his blog,
Speaker 1: it is night miss dot WordPress dot com. Huh So,
Speaker 1: thank you Sean for those thoughts. Certainly worth pondering over
Speaker 1: the idea of the dark side of creativity and to
Speaker 1: what extent creativity is a neutral force that has been
Speaker 1: employed by the ego. Well, I like this idea of
Speaker 1: bringing the ego into it because if you are a
Speaker 1: literal thinker and you're not so into abstract thinking, you
Speaker 1: still have an ego obviously as well that you tap
Speaker 1: into to make decisions about your life, which means that
Speaker 1: you could also go to the dark side. It doesn't
Speaker 1: necessitate that you be creative in order to why I
Speaker 1: love this idea of looking at the ego as being
Speaker 1: the center of this problem. All right, So there you
Speaker 1: have it. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us, we'd love to hear people's thoughts on mazes
Speaker 1: and labyrinths, about the difference between the two, about how
Speaker 1: mazes and labyrinths match up with our experiences of the
Speaker 1: world abroad and our our inner turmoil or at times
Speaker 1: inner peace. Let us know about your experiences with mazes
Speaker 1: and labyrinths, walking a maze, how it made you feel,
Speaker 1: walking elabyrinth, how it made you feel uh In any
Speaker 1: additional listener feedback, we can get on that all the
Speaker 1: better as far as conveying the idea. So you can
Speaker 1: find us on Facebook and you can find us on tumbler.
Speaker 1: On both of those we go by the name stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, and then on Twitter we use
Speaker 1: the handle blow the Mind. And you can also drop
Speaker 1: us a line at blow the Mind at discovery dot com.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, Is
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com