Some art works as a chapel in which to reflect. We enter, lose ourself in listening or viewing or reading, and then leave by way of the door through which we entered.

The labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral.  Image via www.math.nus.edu.sg. — The labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral. Image via www.math.nus.edu.sg.

It is not a puzzle to be solved, like a maze. It is more like a labyrinth, a vehicle for meditation. It differs from a maze in that a labyrinth walker doesn’t need to decide whether to turn left or right. She simply follows a carefully marked path that winds around to the innermost point, at which point she turns and retraces her steps. The point is not finding the destination—she'll end where she started—but the walking.

“The Blue Bird,” (music by Charles Villiers Stanford and text by Mary Coleridge) rendered here to stunning effect by the San Francisco vocal group Chanticleer and soprano Randall Wong, might be heard this way. In the final notes, one recognizes the beginning, and that recognition sharpens our sense of the space contained between the beginning and the end.

Thank you for reading.