Labyrinth Designer
By Shera Dalin
Photograph by Dilip Vishwanat
In his hippie days, Robert Ferré made jewelry and sold it at craft shows. Then he built harpsichords and sold real estate and ran a travel agency, taking people on pilgrimages. His favorite destination was the gothic Chartres Cathedral in France—its purity took his breath away. So in 1995, when he heard about a priest who was using a replica of the Chartres labyrinth to teach meditation, he couldn’t resist making one himself.
Today Ferré is one of the world’s premier designers of spiritual labyrinths. He runs Labyrinth Enterprises, an 8,000-square-foot studio in Benton Park that he believes is the largest—perhaps the only—handmade-labyrinth studio anywhere. Over the past 11 years he has produced more than 900 labyrinths for churches, retreat centers, hospitals, schools and individuals in eight countries and all but three states.
More than a pretty design, the labyrinth is a contemplative tool that dates to 3000 or 4000 B.C. Ferré discusses its strange magnetic pull and recent surge in popularity.
What makes people want to walk a labyrinth? Modern life gets us out of balance—everything is too masculine, aggressive and yang. Labyrinths are much more feminine, yin, welcoming and embracing. People don’t get embraced a lot in their work. There is a great imbalance, in that life exists mostly on the surface. It’s about ego, accomplishments, what we’ve learned and where we’re going—and for some people that’s their entire life. But labyrinths get past the intellectual mind and take people deeper within themselves. People experience some deep, ancient part of themselves which is universal but which they have never experienced before.
What do you feel when you walk a labyrinth? Calm. It’s a chance to relax, spend a little time with yourself and stop checking things off your to-do list—although we do have pictures of people walking the labyrinth while on their cell phone! We don’t recommend that.
What’s so special about a labyrinth? It opens up creativity, and a lot of emotional and physical healing goes on. The geometry of its turns and patterns organizes our experience in a way that is different from walking in a straight line. There’s some mystery to it. It can take you beyond intellect, and your intellect is the big barrier—all religions have some practice to try to get you past you.
So why do some people walk away unimpressed? You can’t expect that you’ll automatically get healed and see visions. It’s not a drive-through—or walk-through!—enlightenment tool. A woman who’s in Mankato, Minn., taught a class for a whole semester on labyrinths, and at the end, when the students walked the labyrinths, about 95 percent of them were disappointed.
What types of healing have you seen? We did a labyrinth at First Night St. Louis from 1995 through 1998. A woman was grieving because a family member had died—a woman in her 30s with kids and a promising career. She walked the labyrinth and noticed that walking out seemed a lot quicker than going in. She realized that time is relative, and she got a lot of insight and relief from her grief.
How do schools use labyrinths? Often for attention-deficit disorder. One teacher has students walk a labyrinth at the back of her class. Another takes a portable canvas labyrinth to one of her classes and reports a noticeable difference in her students. One teacher here had students trace labyrinth designs on paper with their fingers, and it helped calm and center them. She believed it helped them do better on tests.
Have you seen other types of healing with labyrinths? We know people who use labyrinths with abused women, cancer, 12-step programs and AIDS victims and their caretakers. I was told about a young autistic boy who was 11 or 12 but didn’t really speak; he usually said only about two words. His parents took him to a labyrinth, and he walked it. When it was time to go, he said to his parents, “When can I come back and walk the labyrinth again?”
You never intended for this hobby to turn into a business. What happened? We have grown in order to meet a need, but the need has grown faster than we have. I just wanted to make portable canvas labyrinths, not travel and not work too hard. But this is a common story with labyrinths: The labyrinth grabs you. It inspires you and won’t let you get away.
Area Labyrinths
Zion United Church of Christ
5710 N. Hwy. 67, Florissant
Centenary United Methodist Church
16th and Olive, downtown
Mercy Center
2039 N. Geyer, Frontenac (Call for permission: 314-966-4686)
Evangelical United Church of Christ
204 E. Lockwood, Webster Groves
First Presbyterian Church
7200 Delmar
Congregation Shaare-Emeth
11645 Ladue Road, Ladue
Toddhall Retreat Center
320 Todd Center Drive, Columbia, Ill.
(Call for permission: 618-281-8180)
