MAKING A CLASSIC 7-CIRCUIT LABYRINTH
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The technique for making a classic 7-circuit labyrinth in any material is not difficult. You use a measuring guide to put down bits of tape, or put markings on the snow or sand or grass, later connecting them with to produce the labyrinth.. The pattern shown here has an expanded center. It works well for groups.
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These pictures show groups constructing a seven circuit labyrinth in St Louis
DETERMINING THE DIMENSIONS
Fasten the measuring rope in the center and mark on it with colored tape the width of the paths - eight marks for the eight circles that enclose the seven circuits. In the expanded version, the location of the first mark on the guide depends on the size of the center. The remaining marks determine the width of the paths. If you make the center two path widths wide, that means the radius is one path width. The remaining paths are the same. So you make eight marks, all separated by the same distance. So the first mark is one path width from the center.
.In the actual classic 7-circuit labyrinth pattern that dates back thousands of years, the center is only one path wide. To do that, your first mark on the measuring rope needs to be only one-half of a path width (one-half being the radius of a center that is one unit in diameter).. You can make the center any size you want. You can make it 10 path widths and place chairs around the center, or whatever you wish. Whatever diameter you want for the center, remember that on the measuring rope you are marking out the radius, which will be half the value of the diameter.
.For ease, let's call a path width a PW.
.The following instructions will be for the labyrinth shown above. In the classic Cretan labyrinth you have seven paths on either side. The entire horizontal diameter, therefore, consists of 14 PW plus the center. In this case the center is two PW wide, so the entire horizontal diameter is 16 PW. Thus, if the paths were three feet wide, the labyrinth would be 48 feet across. You will note that the labyrinth is not completely round. In fact, it would be 16 PW wide and 14 PW tall. As before, you can work backwards to determine your path widths. If your space is 24 feet wide, then you divide by 16 and find that the paths should be 18 inches wide.
.DRAWING THE TOP CIRCLES
With the classic labyrinth, we begin by drawing half- circles, which become the top of the labyrinth. Picture a horizontal line that passes through the center of the labyrinth where your measuring guide is attached. Start from a horizontal position and swing the rope across the top of the labyrinth until it again reaches horizontal. Lay out the bits of tape as you swing the guide, marking out the half-circles.
You can wait until the end to connect the dots, or do it with each segment. Let's go ahead and
connect the half circles. Now we have the top part of the labyrinth. .
MAKING THE LOWER QUADRANTS
The remainder of the pattern is made mostly of quarter circles which emanate from four different points. You need to move your center post to each new location in succession. First, go to the left and right of center. The new points are marked in green in the illustration to the right, although they are hard to distinguish. For a left-handed labyrinth (first turn to the left) the upper left point is three PW from the center and the upper right point is two PW from center.
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The handedness of the labyrinth is determined by which side
has the third-circle dot. We are drawing a left-handed
labyrinth. Therefore, the third-circle dot is to the left of
center. Had the spacing been reversed, with the third-circle
dot to the right, then the labyrinth would become a right-handed labyrinth. If you have a large space, you might want
to make both a left-handed and right-handed labyrinth.
Move the guide to the upper quadrant points. The first circle in each case will be a half-circle, joining together the circles on either side of the green dots. The rest of the lines will be quarter-circles, which stop when they reach an invisible line extending directly below the green dots. Lay the pattern out with bits of tape, and then go back and connect the dots.
MAKING STRAIGHT "FILL" LINES
Because we extended the center to the right by one PW, we must now
fill in the corresponding space for the lines in the lower right
quadrant. Each is extended one PW to the left. In so doing, they
arrive at the place they would have reached had the center not been
extended.
.Had we extended the center by five PW, for example, then these straight lines would have been five PW long so that the right-hand lower quadrant reaches back over to be two path widths away from the vertical line.
FINISHING UP
To finish up, you again move the measuring guide to two new centers, shown as orange dots in
the illustration. In the traditional 7-circuit labyrinth, the green dots and orange dots would mark
the corners of a square. That's the "secret." A round labyrinth is based on
a square. Since we extended the center, the upper right green dot is out
of alignment, one path width to the right. Since the quarter-circles in the
lower right-hand quadrant stop below the green dot, they were also one
path width too far to the right. That is why we extended them to the left
with straight lines.
Now we move to the lower quadrants, to the orange dots. As before, you surround each orange dot with a half-circle. Then, in the lower right-hand quadrant, you make a quarter-circle to join the outer circle with the bottom arm of the cross.
Voila, you have finished the classical 7-circuit labyrinth with an expanded center.
USING OTHER MATERIALS
Now that you know how to lay out a classical 7-circuit labyrinth, you can do it using any material, not just tape. Stones, for example. Rather than putting down bits of tape, put down little pebbles. Then fill in with larger stones. Some have used rope, fishing line, bark mulch or trodden the path into sand or snow.
Christ Church Cathedral in Victoria, British Columbia, recently completed a seven circuit labyrinth in stone on their lawns. For more information email: patricia@patriciacrossley.com
(Acknowledgement to Robert Ferre of Saint Louis who provides information on labyrinths.)
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