Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey wasn't to stuff the bow of
Speaker 1: your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas.
Speaker 1: We have just escaped from the world of the maze
Speaker 1: and now we're entering into the peaceful world of the labyrinth.
Speaker 1: And before we dive into this old episode, let's dive
Speaker 1: into this very cool thing that is happening at the
Speaker 1: Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, which is installing a triangular
Speaker 1: walk in glass labyrinth that's scheduled to open to the
Speaker 1: public in May. Yeah. This is designed by Kansas City
Speaker 1: native Robert Morris. Weighs more than four tons, made up
Speaker 1: of dozens of seven foot high, one interestant glass panels,
Speaker 1: and it's ultimately going to form a fifty by fifty
Speaker 1: by fifty ft glass triangle with a labyrinth in the middle.
Speaker 1: And it's a true labyrinth. By the way, there's one
Speaker 1: way in, there's one way out. And in this episode
Speaker 1: you're gonna hear us discuss why this is important and
Speaker 1: what I love about it is it has a maze
Speaker 1: quality in that it has those walls, but their glass walls,
Speaker 1: so it's still a labyrinth, and it still has that
Speaker 1: peaceful sort of meandering feel to it. Morris says, within
Speaker 1: the Labyrinth of Paradox is allowed we lose ourselves to
Speaker 1: find ourselves. You know. It's interesting. This reminds me of
Speaker 1: an old short story uh titled In the Walls of
Speaker 1: Erics by HP Lovecraft with Kenneth J. Sterling, in which
Speaker 1: and this is, you know, like NT nine. I believe
Speaker 1: this is published as an old pulp sci fi story
Speaker 1: space Explorers landed on Venus finds himself inside of a
Speaker 1: glass maze and it's it's it's very terrifying for this
Speaker 1: individual because he cannot find a way out. It's a
Speaker 1: true maze. It's confusing, it's it's disorienting, and the walls
Speaker 1: are glass so you can see the outside of the
Speaker 1: maze so clearly, but there's no way to get to it. Ah,
Speaker 1: But this is not terrifying. This is supposed to be
Speaker 1: a very soothing construct here at the museum. Yes, So
Speaker 1: without further ado, let us enter the labyrinth. Certainly, for
Speaker 1: for modern users, there is a distinction between labyrinth and maze.
Speaker 1: Is the maze it's just the space of walls that
Speaker 1: are confining you in and you're trying to find your
Speaker 1: way out. There dead ends, there are corners, there may
Speaker 1: or may not be a minotaur wandering around after you. Uh.
Speaker 1: It is the stuff of the hedge maze and the shining.
Speaker 1: It is the stuff of everything you see in the
Speaker 1: movie Labyrinth. Despite the name Labyrinth, that is uh, it
Speaker 1: is a movie in which the individual roams through mazes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a spatial puzzle. And I really think about Labyrinth
Speaker 1: as more of the antidote to amaze. Yes, because you're
Speaker 1: not engaging the hippocampus as you would in a maze.
Speaker 1: Because in a labyrinth, you don't have to 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 at circles around. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You there's one entrance, there's one exit, and there are
Speaker 1: no choices to make you simply follow the path. And
Speaker 1: the path is winding, and the path is slow going
Speaker 1: because you're having to take all these turns in these
Speaker 1: in these twists, but never do you have to actually
Speaker 1: think do I go this way or that way because
Speaker 1: there are no choices. It is. It is one curving
Speaker 1: line from one end to the other. It's like a
Speaker 1: ball of string, you know, if you were to travel
Speaker 1: through that string on the outside, and it looks intricate
Speaker 1: and complicated, but but really it is one path. And
Speaker 1: I really think about it as an act of submission
Speaker 1: when you enter into this labyrinth, because you are following
Speaker 1: a preordained path, right, and you are submitting yourself to
Speaker 1: this path, and in doing so, um, it is a
Speaker 1: sort of meditative practice because you are now UM, I
Speaker 1: guess you could say you were busying your mind just
Speaker 1: with the act of walking. And that's what we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about today. We talked about the stress response
Speaker 1: with m mazes, but now we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: this more meditative quality of the labyrinth and what it
Speaker 1: means to us on a psychological and physical level. But
Speaker 1: first I want to mention that labyrinths are all over
Speaker 1: the world, um, and have been for for many thousands
Speaker 1: of years. You can find them in the United States,
Speaker 1: in Europe and India, Afghanistan, Java, Sumatra, and various sites
Speaker 1: in the US left by Pueblo Indians, the Hopi and
Speaker 1: Zuni and others. Yeah, you see the design of a labyrinth.
Speaker 1: You see it on the classic room and flooring, you
Speaker 1: see in the remains of labyrinth 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 tumbs in Sardinia,
Speaker 1: other carvings dating back to three thousand DC. It's like
Speaker 1: the maze. We discussed how the maze is like this
Speaker 1: pure physical or pattern base, but certainly a physical embodiment
Speaker 1: of either internal confusion or external navigation confusion. It is
Speaker 1: about the state of confusion in the human mind uh
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 spaces, right, because this is typically
Speaker 1: something that is uh cut into the earth or made
Speaker 1: with stones or made out of stones, and so you
Speaker 1: can still see the vista around you. You're not your
Speaker 1: vision isn't impaired in anyway. In other words, there's not
Speaker 1: something on your right or left, and uh, you can
Speaker 1: see and hear everything right. In fact, some would say
Speaker 1: that you're able to pay attention more to these aspects
Speaker 1: of being. You're able to really tune into the sounds
Speaker 1: around you, the smells, the sites. So it really is
Speaker 1: the polar opposite of a maze. Yeah. Yeah, there are
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. Uh.
Speaker 1: I encountered one at the Desert Museum in Arizona where
Speaker 1: they had one out amid the catt 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 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: Barth follow Mules uh Episcopal Church, I believe, And it
Speaker 1: was an outdoor one and it was really like and
Speaker 1: I'm sure I was 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 notice. 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 uh, it's late December now and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of bustling action that 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, did not care.
Speaker 1: I parked really far away. Who could care about getting
Speaker 1: a parking space up close? I didn't um. But of
Speaker 1: course all of this again could be psychological priming. But
Speaker 1: I think that does speak to this act, that when
Speaker 1: you go through this physical act, that there can be
Speaker 1: some sort of transformation mentally. And was it circular basically informed,
Speaker 1: because it seems like that that is sort of the
Speaker 1: standard for the labyrinth, is that looking at it from above,
Speaker 1: it's the circular zone of in which this path twists
Speaker 1: and turns. Yeah, it was circular, and at the very
Speaker 1: center it had symbols have three things that were a
Speaker 1: symbol of something. Now I think you guys, I will
Speaker 1: probably been hit to the fact that I'm not a
Speaker 1: religious person, so I don't know what the significance of
Speaker 1: that is. I guess I'm gonna make a guess that
Speaker 1: it was like the what is it, the Holy Spirit
Speaker 1: of the three things? Yes, yeah, those those were the faces.
Speaker 1: I thought it was just pattern recognition, but now that
Speaker 1: you say that, I think it was Larry feeling it
Speaker 1: was then. But it's interesting that you've mentioned how it
Speaker 1: is this. There's this feeling of guidance in the labyrinth,
Speaker 1: so it makes perfect sense that they would be in
Speaker 1: holy spaces because, certainly within a church environment, this is
Speaker 1: the idea that God is my co pilot, or you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna gonna trust in something greater than myself to
Speaker 1: guide me through this light life. And therefore what is
Speaker 1: the labyrinth? But it is allowing the path to guide
Speaker 1: you and freeing yourself of the worries about which way
Speaker 1: did you go this, this way or that way. One
Speaker 1: of the most famous labyrinths that is this in a
Speaker 1: church setting is Chartress and m an archaeological excavation has
Speaker 1: shown that the cathedral. This is in France, overlies the
Speaker 1: alignment and foundations of earlier Roman buildings, and this is
Speaker 1: building twelve sixty around today. This is really cool. If
Speaker 1: you visit the labyrinth on the summer solstice, you'll see
Speaker 1: that exactly at noon, a sunbeam falls directly on a
Speaker 1: nail that was placed in the floor, you know, And
Speaker 1: there's something beautiful about the I mean, it's still there
Speaker 1: because there are no there are no walls to fall
Speaker 1: down inside a labyrinth. You construct a maze. We mentioned
Speaker 1: the Maze of Minos in the podcast about mazes. You know,
Speaker 1: whether that actually existed in any way, shape or form,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's an area of discussion among historians.
Speaker 1: Most seem to think it did not. We certainly cannot
Speaker 1: find evidence of a vast subterranean maze in which a
Speaker 1: monster lived. Uh. There's some speculation that the palace itself
Speaker 1: there in crete, was kind of like a maze. It
Speaker 1: had big, thick walls, and it was very intimidating and
Speaker 1: a little confusing. But a lot of that has fallen
Speaker 1: down and we've had to, you know, sort of to
Speaker 1: to piece things back together. So a maze not only
Speaker 1: a confusing but it can fall and change due to
Speaker 1: the weathering of the world. Whereas, uh, it's kind of
Speaker 1: beautiful to think of a labyrinth that's something that that
Speaker 1: is persistent because there's no thing 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. Yeah, and uh, this civilization actually disappeared about
Speaker 1: fidred years ago, but you can still see the traces
Speaker 1: of these lines, these labyrinths that were designed by scraping
Speaker 1: away red dust and rock and revealing the white ground
Speaker 1: underneath it. And um, and they're in the shape of
Speaker 1: of of animals. Yeah, it's so cool, like animals, the monkeys, monkeys,
Speaker 1: some humans, birds and fish are represented coming birds, sharks, lizards. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and these are huge, We're talking about six hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty feet across and so ancient aliens people love these.
Speaker 1: The idea it's like they would tell on aliens about
Speaker 1: monkeys that's what this was about. Well, actually, what they
Speaker 1: think is that this was a rite of passage in
Speaker 1: that it was a contemplative act done by small groups
Speaker 1: of the civilization that they walked these labyrinths in order
Speaker 1: to get to the end of UM. What was largely
Speaker 1: this metaphorical ritual. For not only the idea here is
Speaker 1: not only is this a line that creates the shape
Speaker 1: of a monkey as visible from a station, uh, this
Speaker 1: is also this is a line that you traverse. You're
Speaker 1: traversing the shape of the monkey or the lizard or
Speaker 1: what have you. Yeah. So again, you know, this is
Speaker 1: probably more meditative practice that was done by the civilization
Speaker 1: UM and not communication to ancient aliens. UM. But I
Speaker 1: think that it points to this idea that throughout history
Speaker 1: there has been this sort of walking meditation done in
Speaker 1: different ways. Yes, and we'll get more into the idea
Speaker 1: of walking meditation shortly. Yeah, particularly when you consider it
Speaker 1: use as a healing practice and and actually in medical
Speaker 1: UM centers. Yeah, you around the world, you see them
Speaker 1: pop up again and again. And as we mentioned in
Speaker 1: the last podcast, a great source for these two episodes
Speaker 1: was a book by esther In Steinberg titled The Science
Speaker 1: of Healing Places. She devotes one chapter to labyrinth and mazes,
Speaker 1: but the whole book is about how physical environments affect
Speaker 1: us both in body and mind effectively, how they affect
Speaker 1: the mind body through our you know, and this can
Speaker 1: be negative, this can be positive, and and how if
Speaker 1: you're building something like a hospital, you want to take
Speaker 1: that into account. You don't want to build a hospital
Speaker 1: it feels like a maze, if anything. You want to
Speaker 1: build a hospital that feels like a labyrinth that's open, right,
Speaker 1: And 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 acclaimate itself to that space. Um. As
Speaker 1: you had mentioned the book Healing Spaces, there is a
Speaker 1: Harvard cardiologist that Sternberg, the author talks about. His name
Speaker 1: is Harvey Goldberg, and he says that a lot of
Speaker 1: these meditative practices, meditative walking, our yoga, or tai chi
Speaker 1: um is really about gaming the relaxation response through breathing.
Speaker 1: And he says, quote, I think of it as an
Speaker 1: unclenching when the system gets overly tense. It's like a
Speaker 1: tight fist is locked somehow, By focusing your attention elsewhere,
Speaker 1: there is an unlocking and unclenching of the fist. Now,
Speaker 1: this is really important when you think about an act
Speaker 1: of walking meditation, but as in an elabyrinth, when you're
Speaker 1: walking around like that, because you are focusing on something
Speaker 1: other than yourself and yet you're allowing your thoughts to
Speaker 1: unfold naturally, and this is that contemplative act that labyrinth's encourage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so think of this when you're actually walking on the
Speaker 1: path of the labyrinth. What are you doing? Why are
Speaker 1: you feeling relaxed? First of all, you're focusing on the
Speaker 1: path you're having. You're looking down, and you're looking up
Speaker 1: a little bit too, but kind of looking down and
Speaker 1: watching the path that you're walking. There are no walls
Speaker 1: to to head you in. It's about following this path
Speaker 1: on the ground. Secondly, because of this, you're moving slower,
Speaker 1: and because you're moving slower, you're breathing slower. Also, unlike
Speaker 1: a maze, your vision is not obstructed. You're able to
Speaker 1: hear and see the world around you like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: and you're you're not having to depend on, you know,
Speaker 1: landmarks or what have you just kind of on autopilot, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which allows you to get into that mental space that
Speaker 1: is healing as Sternberg and Goldberg and Herbert Benson, who
Speaker 1: is very much an authority of meditative thoughts and actually
Speaker 1: meditation itself. We will talk more about this. We're gonna
Speaker 1: take a quick break. We're gonna talk about why labyrinths
Speaker 1: were built and how it affects us at the physiological level.
Speaker 1: When you look back at some of these more ancient labyrinths,
Speaker 1: like the Nasca lines, again it comes up why why
Speaker 1: did people make these? What? Why were they built? Why
Speaker 1: were they created? And certainly a spiritual reason is present.
Speaker 1: It's very much possibility for some of them. Some people
Speaker 1: think there are astrological reasons behind them. And if you
Speaker 1: look again at Chartreu, which is the cathedral in France,
Speaker 1: again you see evidence that it was designed in conjunction
Speaker 1: with the summer solstice, so that maybe it had something
Speaker 1: to do with that. Um. I tend to think that
Speaker 1: if the sunlight is beaming down in the middle of
Speaker 1: a labyrinth on the summer solstice at noon, that that
Speaker 1: would be very powerful to churchgoers, particularly if they're walking
Speaker 1: the labyrinth, because it's the idea that this path is
Speaker 1: in tune with celestial dynamics, with the mechanics of the universe, right,
Speaker 1: and that you are in unity with nature. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: it makes me think that to do Dante's Inferno again,
Speaker 1: particularly Dante's Paradise. Paradise is a very strictly ordered thing,
Speaker 1: like the cosmos, whereas when Dante's actually in Hell, it's
Speaker 1: an ordered system. But it's it's a lot more confusing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then there's this I like this one. There's the
Speaker 1: dancing theory. Oh yes, this is great. This takes me back.
Speaker 1: There was there were like a couple of old goofy cartoons.
Speaker 1: I'm sure Holly would tell you could tell me exactly
Speaker 1: when and where they occur in the long list of
Speaker 1: Disney productions. But there were a couple of goofy carloro stuff.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of goofy cartoons and one he
Speaker 1: quit smoking and another he was trying to lose weight,
Speaker 1: I think. And they dealt They were really cool. They
Speaker 1: dealt with like an adult goofy like dealing with like
Speaker 1: the demands of being like a bachelor. It was weird stuff.
Speaker 1: I check 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 so that he could now, in his bachelorhood, a woman.
Speaker 1: So this is helping kids who are seeing their their
Speaker 1: father who's now a new bachelor. Well, I think these
Speaker 1: were and again pop stuff will have to clear me
Speaker 1: up in this. I think people were aimed at these
Speaker 1: were These were kind of like an early Simpsons in
Speaker 1: a way because they were they were kind of aimed
Speaker 1: at maybe a little bit at kids, but more at
Speaker 1: the adults. But anyway, that the dancing ritual. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the idea, So the idea here is that Labyrinth's were
Speaker 1: potentially not nearly this thing that you walk on and
Speaker 1: serenely follow but you dance through because think about what
Speaker 1: dances and I'm not talking like you know, grinding booty
Speaker 1: shaking necessarily, but but think of something like like square dancing,
Speaker 1: some sort of ritualized dance, certainly the Whirling Dervishes, where
Speaker 1: there is a pattern that you're following, and you're you're
Speaker 1: giving yourself up to the pattern of the dance, to
Speaker 1: the rhythm of the beat, to the You're giving yourself
Speaker 1: over body and soul to the music and the movement.
Speaker 1: And and that is in a sense of labyrinth you
Speaker 1: were becoming. You kind of become the labyrinth, You become
Speaker 1: the dance, you become the music. In that becoming, you
Speaker 1: cannot be this bundle of worries and and and troubles
Speaker 1: that you are the rest of the time. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: the rhythm of the night. You leaven all your cares
Speaker 1: behind right the night. Yeah, I won't do that anymore.
Speaker 1: So what's interesting about that too is that this is uh,
Speaker 1: not just something that is again an act of submission,
Speaker 1: but perhaps some sort of right of passage. This is
Speaker 1: perhaps something that young men who had proved themselves as
Speaker 1: warriors would go through this dance. This is also a
Speaker 1: fertility right for women who would go through these um
Speaker 1: the labyrinth dancing. And again you're talking about syncopated rhythm.
Speaker 1: You're talking about a group activity that would line everybody up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we talked before. When people are singing together, it's like
Speaker 1: their neurons are all firing on this in battern and
Speaker 1: some more thing with these movements, right, think about it
Speaker 1: as the first Congo line. Is it congo 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.
Speaker 1: Sat 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 entrustan vase from six BC depicts not
Speaker 1: just the dance in the labyrinth, but sexual acts going on.
Speaker 1: So the church kind of like, m I'm not sure
Speaker 1: about showing the positions, the sexual positions, um, you know,
Speaker 1: overlaid on the labyrinth here. Maybe we could kind of
Speaker 1: cover that up a little bit. But there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of that involved with it and that you know,
Speaker 1: and that of course hints at paganism, right, So let's
Speaker 1: talk about the way that it affects the body. 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 just 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 meadle medial temporal lobe. This is
Speaker 1: that part that is the midline chatter that me, me, me,
Speaker 1: the fear of response. This is all this is concerned
Speaker 1: with the ego and the seat of consciousness that really
Speaker 1: helps to inform is this used to balance our sense
Speaker 1: of self? But when we have too much of the chatter,
Speaker 1: there's hyperactivity. That's when depression sets in. That is stressful, right,
Speaker 1: And as we discovered in our podcast The Shaman and
Speaker 1: the Scientist, it is meditation that is one of the
Speaker 1: things that can quiet this part of the mind. And
Speaker 1: this was really important in helping to relieve depression. And
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring up once more that Dr Judson
Speaker 1: Brewer used fm R I to scan experienced meditators and
Speaker 1: he found this decreased activity in the default mode network. Now,
Speaker 1: meditation really is just about again gaining your breath and
Speaker 1: because if you do that, obviously that your body is
Speaker 1: going to get these cues that it needs to relax.
Speaker 1: So this walking meditation through a labyrinth is very much
Speaker 1: a type of meditation. So when you think about that,
Speaker 1: then then as you say, it's no longer just like
Speaker 1: this hippie dippie, like, hey, meditate and you will fill
Speaker 1: one with the world. It's that it is changing you
Speaker 1: at a cellular level. And we talked about this too,
Speaker 1: with meditation changing you um your genes as well your
Speaker 1: stressed genes, being able to actually turn those off their
Speaker 1: stress responses. Steinberg pointed out too, with resuscitation. When you're
Speaker 1: resuscitating an individual, you're you're talking about one breath every
Speaker 1: six to seven seconds once the heart is started back
Speaker 1: up again, and that is the optimal breathing pattern to
Speaker 1: get the optimal amount of oxygen carbon dioxide into the
Speaker 1: body to nourish tissue and keep the brain working. So
Speaker 1: it makes sense to me that you would begin to
Speaker 1: see some of these labyrinths popping up in medical centers
Speaker 1: because no doubt, those are some of the most stressful
Speaker 1: places to be in because either you or a loved
Speaker 1: one um is in this medical center of being treated,
Speaker 1: or you're someone who works there. It's a high stress job,
Speaker 1: right um to be in the medical professions. So if
Speaker 1: you have this labyrinth there and you had patients walking it,
Speaker 1: that could or you have family members or friends who
Speaker 1: are walking in these times of despair and stress, then
Speaker 1: it could help you that relaxation response to open you
Speaker 1: up a little bit more in your mind and to
Speaker 1: sort of tamp that down again at a mental level.
Speaker 1: At the cellular level, yeah, it has a lot in
Speaker 1: common with walking meditation, which is a form of meditation
Speaker 1: you do walking being and remaining conscious of your steps
Speaker 1: and your breathing. But it is also, as Cimberg points out,
Speaker 1: it has a lot in common with tai chi as
Speaker 1: a gentle exercise. You might not think of walking a
Speaker 1: labyrinth as exercise, but essentially it is. It's a gentle exercise.
Speaker 1: But even this has a positive effect on the body. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does. There is a small study that finds that
Speaker 1: mindfulness meditation and moderate exercise have protective effects against cold
Speaker 1: and flu, with people who engage in the practices having
Speaker 1: less severe, shorter, and fewer symptoms of acute respiratory infection.
Speaker 1: So what we're talking about is a study that was
Speaker 1: published in the Annals of Family Medicine, and it included
Speaker 1: a hundred and forty nine people and average age of
Speaker 1: fifty nine. Fifty one of them were assigned to have
Speaker 1: mindfulness meditation training for eight weeks, forty seven did moderate
Speaker 1: exercise for eight weeks, and fifty one they didn't have
Speaker 1: to do anything. And what they found is that those
Speaker 1: who went through the mindfulness training were linked with a
Speaker 1: forty to decrease in symptoms fluid symptoms, while exercise was
Speaker 1: linked to a thirty decrease in symptoms. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: again what you're seeing here is that this act in
Speaker 1: hi achieving a moderate exercise, in walking being a moderate
Speaker 1: exercise does have real ramifications on your health. All right,
Speaker 1: I'm going to close out here with just a brief
Speaker 1: little bit of quotation from Kick not Hahn, who is
Speaker 1: of course a zen master in the Vietnamese tradition, and
Speaker 1: he wrote a book called Walking Meditation that came with
Speaker 1: like a DVD in a c D. It's still out
Speaker 1: there if you want to learn more about walking meditation.
Speaker 1: It's a good source. So this is the Welcoming Path
Speaker 1: by Tignahan. The empty path welcomes you, fragrant with grass
Speaker 1: and little flowers, the path paved with paddy fields, still
Speaker 1: bearing the marks of your childhood and the fragrance of
Speaker 1: mother's hand. Walk leisurely, peacefully, your feet touch the earth deeply.
Speaker 1: Don't let your thoughts carry you away. Come back to
Speaker 1: the path every moment. The path is your dear friend.
Speaker 1: She will transmit to you her solidity and her peace.
Speaker 1: And I think that applies beautifully to the idea of labyrinth.
Speaker 1: I think so too, And it's very nice if you're
Speaker 1: interested in finding a labyrinth in your city, you can
Speaker 1: actually go online and there is a database of them.
Speaker 1: I believe it's called WORLDWIBEH or Hold Wide Web Labyrinth
Speaker 1: UM or something along these lines. Just google it and
Speaker 1: you'll find it UM and it will actually give you
Speaker 1: all the locations. That's how I found the one near
Speaker 1: our work here in Atlanta. All right, So there you
Speaker 1: have it. Mazes and labyrinths. Two sides of the same coin,
Speaker 1: one dark, one light, one confusing, one uh inspiring. One
Speaker 1: is intentionally losing yourself. The other is trying really not
Speaker 1: to try to lose yourself exactly. I wanted to call
Speaker 1: the robot over here for just a minute. There we go.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to read this email of its entirety,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to mention that a listener, Dominic from France,
Speaker 1: wrote in and he mentioned that the final episode of
Speaker 1: the first season of HBO's True Detective includes both a
Speaker 1: maze and a labyrinth. Now I'm not gonna get into
Speaker 1: the details here because I don't want to spoil it
Speaker 1: for anybody. It's a fantastic series and I'm a huge fan.
Speaker 1: But if you've seen it, you'll know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: And if you haven't, this won't spoil anything. But just
Speaker 1: know that two characters engage in the same environment, and
Speaker 1: for one of those characters you could argue it is
Speaker 1: a maze and for the other character it is a labyrinth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so think about that when you see it or when
Speaker 1: you see it again. All right, Well, thanks for listening, guys.
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