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WitchCrafting: Crafts for Witches

Finger Labyrinths

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Merry meet.

A labyrinth offers a sacred space for introspection. Shaped as a circle, it holds magic. It is a tool to facilitate healing, self-knowledge and creativity by inviting you to reflect, release, receive, return and respond.

Labyrinths date back 4,000 years, are found in most major faiths and exist around the world. Unlike a maze, a labyrinth has only one path in and one path out. No dead ends. No wandering, lost. Walking the path, you head one way and then the other, turning right, turning left. As you do, your awareness shifts from one side of your brain to the other and back again. This makes it suitable for meditation.

Because it is not always possible to walk a labyrinth, making a small one you can navigate with your finger means you can use it almost anywhere anytime.

Making one can be as simple as printing one found online. You can get more crafty and use the template along with wood, clay, fabric or plaster to define the design. Other options include gluing flat-backed glass mounds, beads, small stones, shells or other natural objects on either side of the path your finger will follow.

A multitude of printable patterns and tutorials to make them are easily found by searching “making finger labyrinths.”

As with a life-size labyrinth, begin by reflecting on what you would like to resolve. Is there a situation – spiritual or physical – you would like to better understand, something for which you’d like a solution?

Slowly, deliberately, trace your way to the center and pause there long enough to receive a bit of wisdom, an answer, a clue. Let all your senses gently explore the situation: when and how did it begin, how does it make you feel, what are the effects? Hold no attachments and no emotions, remain open and allow space for insights to come to you – if not consciously, on another level. Accept answers without judgment or analyzing – even if they don’t make sense. Let it settle.

As you trace your way back out, ask for the help you need and remain open to ways to make this happen, carrying that resolution you felt in the center back out of the labyrinth with your finger. Bring any deities, tools or answers you were given, leaving behind that which no longer serves you.

When you reach the end, which is also the beginning, offer gratitude for the awareness and the strength to make changes.

Merry part.

And merry meet again.

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About the Author:

Lynn Woike was 50 – divorced and living on her own for the first time – before she consciously began practicing as a self taught solitary witch. She draws on an eclectic mix of old ways she has studied – from her Sicilian and Germanic heritage to Zen and astrology, the fae, Buddhism, Celtic, the Kabbalah, Norse and Native American – pulling from each as she is guided. She practices yoga, reads Tarot and uses Reiki. From the time she was little, she has loved stories, making her job as the editor of two monthly newspapers seem less than the work it is because of the stories she gets to tell. She lives with her large white cat, Pyewacket, in central Connecticut. You can follow her boards on Pinterest, and write to her at woikelynn at gmail dot com.