Making Ripples at FGC Gathering!

Photo from Flickr user gettheshot75

Hello, folks!

I wanted to let you know that I'm helping with the group creation of what looks to be a fabulous, experiential plenary at FGC Gathering this year, "Making Ripples," under the fabulous creative direction of Vonn New.

Currently I'm up to my eyebrows in collaborative labyrinth design.  *happy creative hum*

If you're in reach of Niagara University in NY state on Wednesday, 5 July, from 7:00-8:45 pm, you are invited!

Making Ripples:

Come listen, play, sing, move, dance, and make a joyful noise as we lift up the creative spirit of Friends young and old to perform an original spontaeous composition that reminds us that beauty, joy, peace, and love are the true antidotes to our turbulent times. Join us as we move into an evening of collaborative improvisation for all ages led by Vonn New and her team and, as we're led, by all of us!

https://www.fgcquaker.org/events/making-ripples

 Call for volunteers:

Call for Volunteer Helpers & Collaborators

Contact: Vonn New, select "Making Ripples Wednesday Plenary" on the Gathering Contact Form.

Making Ripples, the program for the Wednesday evening plenary is a fully participatory evening of music, dance, reflection and community.  As Friends, we did away with the laity to lift up the ministry of all, during this program, we will eliminate the audience.

Folks who are into visual art, labyrinths, musical improvisation, herding cats, eldering, singing, dancing, helping make experiences accessible to all, and generally being helpful are all needed to pull this off. Please contact Vonn New if you want to help. (Select "Making Ripples Wednesday Plenary" on the Gathering Contact Form.)

Bellwethers - lead by example, assist in directing participants, deploying instruments and props during the event and attend a practice session beforehand, engage in fun artsy exercises in the weeks leading up to Gathering.

Manager - help coordinate the other teams, assist with problem-solving before, during, and after the event, stomp out procrastination.

Accessibility Team - advise me on how to best make the event accessible to everyone, help make that happen.

Set Up/Tear Down Team - set up chairs, props, and more before and after the event

Instrumental Musicians - participate in musical improvisation during the event and attend a practice session beforehand

Singers - participate in improvisation during the event and attend a practice session beforehand.

Dancers & Creative Movement Team - perform improvised dance as led, assist in creating and leading participant movement, attend a practice session beforehand

Visual Artists - assist in making performance space beautiful, help create beautiful instruction cards, assist in hosting participatory public art to make cards and props beforehand, help with costuming and other aesthetic ideas

Textile Artists - assist in making performance space beautiful, help create dance props, costuming ideas

Elders - provide spiritual grounding during the event, hold our preparations in the Light, provide accompaniment to this ministry

https://www.fgcquaker.org/connect/gathering/programs-and-events/evening-programs/making-ripples-volunteering

The contact form is here:
https://www.fgcquaker.org/connect/gathering/gatheringcontact

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p.s  How could I leave these bits out???

Come join our Facebook group!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/644929179037375/

See the master plan here, with everything there is to know so far about what will happen Wednesday night:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RkkdqZdCywjiGKlut1q1LjICSXzX9mzYnSsralHDLF4/edit

Labyrinth pictures!

I realized I hadn't posted pictures of any of the labyrinths I'd built!

Enjoy!

2013 Gathering labyrinth

Click here for more pictures from the first labyrinth, at FGC Gathering 2013 in Colorado.

2104 Gathering labyrinth

Click here for more pictures from the labyrinth this last summer at FGC Gathering 2014 in Pennsylvania.

2014 Fall Equinox labyrinth

Click here for more pictures from the labyrinth we built for the Roses, Too! Tradition Fall Equinox ritual here in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Please see my past posts about labyrinths for the back story of how I came to build these labyrinths, and also for how-to help if you'd like to build a temporary labyrinth yourself:
http://aquakerwitch.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/labyrinths

Building the labyrinth, part II: Making the full-size labyrinth

In my last two labyrinth posts, I talked about the process of realizing we could build a labyrinth in the workshop at Gathering (here), and how to draw the labyrinth I decided we would build (here).

In this post, I'm going to talk about how we actually built the labyrinth on campus, in the workshop.  Hopefully this will be useful for anyone else who wants to do this, too! 


Beforehand:

There was a bunch of preparation work that had to be done beforehand.

The first was deciding which labyrinth to build.  I drew lots, and lots, and lots of labyrinths in my Book of Shadows.  I wanted one that was long enough to be an interesting walk (and for people to be able to go into trance / have a worshipful experience while walking), but not too long.

Most of the labyrinth designs I saw were either too long and too big, or too short and too small.

I played with a bunch of different seed patterns, and eventually came up with a slightly non-standard seed pattern, which resulted in this six-circuit Cretan-style labyrinth:

6-circuit Cretan-style labyrinth

(Note: click on any picture for a larger version.)

Next, using guidance from this page -- http://www.labyrinthos.net/layout.html -- I had to determine how wide I wanted the paths to be, and how much total space we would need.

With this labyrinth, by counting the paths across the labyrinth, I could see that the space we would need would be 11 times the width of the paths / aisles. 

I wanted our paths to be three feet wide, so that people who use wheelchairs would be able to use the labyrinth, if their wheelchairs could accommodate whatever surface we'd be on and whatever slope it might have.

Therefore, we needed 33 feet of space.

Now to figure out how much rope or ribbon we needed as the guide for where the lines would go.  The ribbon would need to be as long as the radius of the circle, or half the diameter of the circle.  We've already established that the diameter would be 11 path widths, or 33 feet (see above).  Half the diameter, or the radius, would be 5.5 path widths, or 16.5 feet.  I decided I wanted an extra path width, so the person holding that end of the ribbon had some space.  So:

6.5 paths x 3 ft / path = 19.5 ft of ribbon

Because I live in the UK and was buying ribbon in advance, I needed to know how many cm or m:

3 feet / path x 12 in / ft x 2.54 cm / in x 6.5 paths = 594 cm.  I decided to buy 6 m. 

(Kudos to unit analysis learned in chemistry!)

Supplies needed:

• tent stakes / tent pegs, to mark the points in the seed pattern
• a ribbon that is at about 6x the width of the aisles
• a marker to mark the ribbon
• a tape measure
• boundary marker  

There are many materials you can use to mark the boundaries of your paths.  The University where we were doing this wanted us to use field paint, so we did.  (And it was a lot of fun!) 

At this point, before I went any further, I wanted to make sure I really understood this process, and I want to make sure it worked.

I wrote myself a detailed, step-by-step instruction list.  

Then Beloved Wife and I made scale models on paper in our living room.  We took a piece of ribbon, marked it off in 3-inch intervals (1 inch for each foot), took a couple of magic markers, and laid out this labyrinth about three times on big paper on our living room floor.  This was very helpful.

Those two activities together meant I had a very solid understanding of the process, and had the resources to repeat it in large scale and under pressure. 


Beforehand, on-site:

Beloved Wife and I went to the site the Gathering Coordinator had picked, and did the following:

Marked off the ribbon.  First we tied loops on either end of the ribbon, to go around a tent peg on one side, and for a ribbon-minder to hold on the other.  Our paths were going to be three feet.  So our first mark was 1.5 feet from the far end of loop (which I'll call Loop A); the second, 3 feet from the first; and all the rest, 3 feet from the one before it, until we had 7 marks on the ribbon. 

Determined the center of the space so that we would know where the center tent peg was going to go.  Luckily the four trees were nearly equally spaced around the circle, 90 degrees off from each other.  We laid the ribbon down to give us roughly a straight line to follow, and we walked from one tree, heel to toe, across the circle to the one opposite, counting our steps.  Then we walked back half the number of total steps and put a tent stake there.  We did the same with the other two trees -- then had to jiggle a bit to get those two points to agree. 

Put tent pegs in the ground to anchor the seed pattern.   We used 17; we could have used 15, but marking all 17 points gave me additional confidence.

• We placed the center peg, marked here with arrows, at the center of the space, through Loop A on the ribbon.  
• We put two pegs 1/2 path-width to either side of the center peg.  This is the first marking on our ribbon.
• We put two more pegs to the left of the center peg, at 1-width intervals, using the ribbon to show us where.  
• Turning the right angle counterclockwise, we placed three more pegs at 1-width intervals, using the ribbon to show us where.  
• We went back to the center peg, this time turned the corner clockwise, and placed three more pegs at 1-width intervals after the corner, using the ribbon to show us where.  
• We turned the next corner clockwise -- along the "bottom" of the square now -- and placed two pegs at 1-width intervals, using the ribbon to show us where.
• Next we used the ribbon to measure 1-width intervals to place the pegs in the center of the square. 

Now we got out the field paint and began marking the ground:

-- The ground at the center peg (marked in this diagram with arrows).  This is the peg the ribbon would be anchored to. 

-- The ground at the four corner pegs. 

-- The lines of the seed pattern, as below:

• Using the ribbon as a guide, we painted from the first peg to the left of the center peg to the next peg "below" it, then from that peg out to the next peg on the right, making the right angle in the upper right corner, and also marking the ground at the base of the tent peg in the upper right corner.  
• We did the same thing in the diagonally opposite corner, making the right angle in the lower left corner and marking the ground at base of lower left tent peg.  
• Using the ribbon to guide us to a relatively straight line, we painted the diagonal connecting line between the two middle pegs of the right angles.  
• We took the ribbon and put Loop A around the tent peg at the top left.  Using the 1-width unit as a guide, we painted from the first peg to the right of it, to the first peg below it, making the curve at the upper left corner.  
• Similarly, we took the ribbon and put Loop A around the tent peg at the bottom right.  Using the 1-width unit as a guide, we painted from the first peg "above" it to the peg to its left, making the curve at the bottom right corner.

Now we had the seed pattern set and ready to build the labyrinth in the workshop.

We pulled up all the tent stakes (yes, some of them had field paint on them), and left.


Building the labyrinth as a group:

Now came the time for the group to build the labyrinth.

Volunteers needed:

• 2 volunteers to mind the ribbon, 1 at each end
• 6 volunteers to paint the lines (can be done with as few as 1, but it takes longer!)
• 4 peg minders, one at the center peg, and one at each of the two upper corners and the bottom right corner
• The person with the overall vision, directing things

(In reality, we had 3 painters at a time, because we had 3 cans of paint to work with.)

I put the stakes / pegs back in around the outside of the square, and put Loop A of the ribbon over the center tent peg (marked here with arrows). 

First swath: 

• One peg/ribbon minder at the center tent peg, to keep the peg from being pulled out of the ground and the ribbon from getting tangled.  
• One peg minder at the top left corner.  
• Three painters, one each starting from the bottom three pegs on the left-hand side of the square.
• End ribbon minder. 

We started with the ribbon reaching counterclockwise from the center peg, around the top left peg, and down to the bottom left peg.

The end ribbon minder slowly walked the ribbon clockwise, low to the ground, pulling it taut (but not too tight), from the bottom left corner to the top left corner.  The painters followed their marks on the ribbon, spraying the paint on the ground.  The director called for the ribbon to stop when the ribbon came even with the straight line at the top of the square.  The peg minder at the top left corner was the backup person for recognizing when to call the stop. 

Now it looked like this:

Second swath:

• Ribbon/peg minder at the center tent peg, to keep the peg from being pulled out of the ground and the ribbon from getting tangled.  
• Peg minders at the top left corner and top right corner.  
• Six painters.   
• End ribbon minder.

The ribbon is stretched out to the left of the center peg.

Because we had three cans of paint, we did this stretch in two parts, the three inner, and the three outer.

The first time through, we had three painters at the first three pegs / first three marks on the ribbon from the center peg; the next time through, three painters at the second three marks on the ribbon, which lined up with where the first painting had left off. 

The end ribbon minder slowly walked the ribbon clockwise, low to the ground, pulling it taut (but not too tight), from the top left corner to the top right corner.  The painters followed their marks on the ribbon, spraying the paint on the ground.  The director called for the ribbon to stop when the ribbon came even again with the straight line at the top of the square.  The peg minder at the top right corner was the backup person for recognizing when to call the stop. 
 
Now it looked like this:

Third swath:

• Ribbon/peg minder at the center tent peg, to keep the peg from being pulled out of the ground and the ribbon from getting tangled. 
• Peg minders at the top right corner and bottom right corner.  
• Five painters.   
• End ribbon minder. 

The ribbon is stretched out to the right of the center peg.

Because we had three cans of paint, we did this stretch in two parts, the three inner, and the two outer. 

The first time through, we had three painters at the second, third, and fourth marks on the ribbon from the center peg, which lined up with where the last painting had left off; the next time through, two painters at the next two marks on the ribbon, which lined up with where the last painting had left off. 

The end ribbon minder slowly walked the ribbon clockwise, low to the ground, pulling it taut (but not too tight), from the top right corner to the bottom right corner.  The painters followed their marks on the ribbon, spraying the paint on the ground.  The director called for the ribbon to stop when the ribbon came even again with the straight line on the side of the square.  The peg minder at the bottom right corner was the backup person for recognizing when to call the stop. 
 
Now it looked like this:

Fourth swath:

• Ribbon/peg minder at the center tent peg, to keep the peg from being pulled out of the ground and the ribbon from getting tangled. 
• Peg minders at the top right corner and bottom right corner.  
• Two painters.   
• End ribbon minder.

The ribbon is stretched out to the right of the center peg, clockwise around the top right corner, and down the side of the square.

The painters start at the last two marks on the ribbon, painting from where the last painting swath left off.  

The end ribbon minder slowly walked the ribbon clockwise, low to the ground, pulling it taut (but not too tight), from the bottom right corner to the bottom left corner.  The painters followed their marks on the ribbon, spraying the paint on the ground.  The director called for the ribbon to stop when the ribbon came even again with the straight line on the side of the square.  The painters were the backup people for recognizing when to call the stop, which was when their lines joined the ones already painted. 
 
Now it looked like this:

Final bits:

We pulled up all the tent pegs and the ribbon and put them away. 

Now our labyrinth was ready for us to walk!

Hopefully, this will be a useful aid for anyone else who wants to use the method of laying out a labyrinth detailed at http://www.labyrinthos.net/layout.html.

Building the labyrinth, part I: Laying it out on paper

I posted recently about the labyrinth my workshop built at FGC Gathering this summer.  I promised I'd post a detailed how-to; here it is!

Part I: Laying it out on paper

First, draw the seed pattern.  I used this seed pattern, but modified:

Original seed pattern

I wanted fewer right angles, but still the suggestion of a heart shape in the middle from having some right angles.  Here is the modification: 

First modification to seed pattern

 However, if you create a labyrinth just from this, you end up with too many choice points, and not a simple, straightforward labyrinth.  (Go ahead and try it without this next step; you'll see.)  So, I added a line: 

Modified seed pattern

First connection:

One connection

Second connection.  Basically, the connections always go from the next unconnected point on one side to the next unconnected point on the other: 

Two connections

Third connection:

Three connections

 Fourth connection:

Four connections

Fifth connection:

Five connections

Sixth and final connection:

Six connections (all connected)

Next post: how we laid this out on the grass!

Labyrinths! Thinking outside the box

At Friends General Conference Gathering this summer, I was scheduled to facilitate an updated version of my workshop "The Goddess Is Alive and Magic Is Afoot."  I was excited, and looking forward to it!

Workshops at FGC Gathering are 13.75 hours, five mornings from 9:00 am to 11:45 pm.  (They used to be 16.5 hours, six mornings.)

My workshop outline called for us to walk a labyrinth on day two.

A number of times over the past ten years or so, someone at Gathering has built a temporary labyrinth on campus.  I was hoping this person, or someone inspired by him, would create a labyrinth this year. But if not, I had a couple of options.  There was supposedly a labyrinth in a church about a mile from this year's campus; I could talk to them and make arrangements for us to go there Tuesday morning.  We could do a spiral walk in our classroom.  We could maybe build a very simple labyrinth in our classroom, with the ever-present blue tape on the carpet.  (I have come to love blue painters' tape.)

I was very sure that building a large outdoor labyrinth was not something we would have time for, and equally sure it was beyond my skill set.

It turns out, I was wrong. Which is a wonderful thing.

About a week and a half before Gathering, I emailed the Gathering Office to find out if anyone was making a labyrinth on campus. No, not this year. 

As I continued finalizing my workshop outline details, I found I wasn't sure I wanted to spend a workshop morning working with an indoor labyrinth in a Christian church.  But I also wasn't really satisfied with any of the alternatives I'd identified, either. 

I posted a query in my social media network for Pagan and Pagan-friendly friends -- here's the situation; here are my options; if you were in this workshop on the Goddess and magic, what would you prefer?  I wasn't looking for anyone to tell me what to do, but I was hoping people's answers would help me sift through all the ideas in my own head and shake something free.

The conversation did way more than that.

A couple people spoke to how walking a labyrinth in a Christian church could be problematic, or work just fine, or both/and.  Someone talked about what a gift it is to the entire Gathering to build a labyrinth.  If my workshop couldn't do it, maybe a Junior Gathering group could.  I started looking at possible labyrinth patterns I could ask someone else to do.  More ideas flowed.  Maybe I and some helpers could do it the day before the workshop started, or the first afternoon of the Gathering.  Maybe we could use a painted dropcloth.  Maybe we could outline it in heavy rope.  Or birdseed.  Or flour or constarch (cornfour) or...  Maybe this.  Maybe that.

Some of the suggestions were completely unrealistic; some were great ideas but not quite "it"... but the whole conversation was super-helpful.  Everybody's contributions got the ideas flowing, and -- most of all -- helped me see I'd been thinking in a box, and that maybe I didn't need to think in that box...

Early in the conversation, one friend shared this video of how to draw a simple Cretan labyrinth, saying (she was right) that she thought I'd be more interested in Cretan ones than Medieval ones:


I suddenly found myself fascinated with drawing labyrinths.  

Later in the conversation, someone shared this page on how to lay out a temporary labyrinth quickly, easily, and with a small group of people:

"Laying Out a Labyrinth," http://www.labyrinthos.net/layout.html

I still didn't see how I could do this in the workshop, but I kept drawing labyrinths.

Then Beloved Wife got home from a professional conference and asked me how my prep was going.  I explained.  She asked more questions.  I showed her my drawings, the video, and the web page.  She studied the how-to.  "Oh, you could totally do this in your workshop, and have plenty of time the same morning to walk it!"  I was dubious at first, but as we talked about it more, I came to the conclusion she was right. 

We played with several different seed patterns.  I wanted something long enough to be interesting, but short enough that we could all walk it in the time needed.  We decided on a seed pattern, and modified it slightly so it would have fewer right angles, and still have the suggestion of a heart-shape in the heart of the labyrinth.

We even laid it out on our living room floor, using ribbon, markers, and really big paper.  It worked!!

I emailed the Gathering Office, apologizing profusely, and said I'd be happy to get in touch with Facilities / Grounds Crew / whoever was appropriate at the University, to find out what it would be all right to use for boundaries -- bird seed, flour, etc.

When I got email back from the Gathering Coordinator, the answer was: I found The Perfect Spot on campus; also, the answer is field paint, and they sold us three cans.  (!!!!!)

(Yes, it's true.  I absolutely had to play with spray paint to build this labyrinth.  Heh heh heh heh.)  (It was wicked fun.)

The afternoon before Gathering started, Beloved Wife and I laid out the seed pattern using tent stakes, a ribbon marked at the appropriate intervals with magic marker, and the field paint.  (This was also a test to make sure I could tolerate the field paint.  It was fine.)

Day two of Gathering, we built the labyrinth in my workshop.  We had a couple of small hitches, but it worked!  Everyone got to participate, either by painting, walking the marker ribbon, making sure the ribbon came around the right pegs without the pegs coming out of the ground, holding space while we did this in a spirit of worship and magic, etc. 

We had just enough space to make aisles that were three feet wide, so people who use wheelchairs or scooters had enough space (and if their chairs or scooters could cope with the grass and the slight slope).  Two of the four trees were outside the labyrinth, two were incorporated; when she had scoped out the space, the Gathering Coordinator was charmed by the idea of including some of the trees, and hoped we would.  Also, and best of all, the space was in shade both morning and afternoon.

Details of how we built it in the next post. 

Now I want to build a labyrinth in our communal back garden at home for Fall Equinox!