When the new issue of the online magazine ONE : the magazine was published, I felt happy, humbled and honored to be the featured artist.

The text I contributed to accompany a gallery of images of my artwork made reference to what I call the via creativa.  Subsequently, and unexpectedly, I was asked to contribute some further words on this so-called via creativa.  I dug deep in my computer’s archives and found this little essay, written some years ago as a postscript to an unpublished manuscript, intended for inclusion in the eventual publication of an ebook on my blog wonderingmind studio.

Here’s an introductory paragraph or two.  I hope you’ll link through to the magazine to read the full monty – and sample some of the beautiful, wise, contributions from others –  Adyashanti, Unmani, Fred Davis, Eli Jackson-Bear, and more.

The Labyrinth is a familiar symbol.  Its enigmatic presence has left footprints that fade back into the beginning of the human story.  Its origins and its purpose have been rich fodder for research and speculation.

I don’t pretend to know the truth of its tale, but see the archetypal labyrinth as apt visual shorthand for the map of a life, and that’s how its symbolism is used in this little essay.

The many lanes of the Labyrinth are in fact only one long path that winds and twists and turns back on itself as it explores all the territory of a life before arriving at its Heart.

By ‘Heart’ I mean the natural essence of the ‘walker’ of the Labyrinth – beyond both conception and perception – the unknowable and ineffable awareness we nevertheless recognize as our changeless Being.

As an artisan, I call this path the Via Creativa, but please don’t think I refer to any kind of laid-down, mapped-out path.

The path is a process, and the process creates the path.  It is the Via Creativa itself that teaches me how to make art and live Life.

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Continue reading at ONE : the magazine