Labyrinth

IN OUR FAST-PACED world, time is a precious commodity that we never seem to have enough of to accomplish everything on our long "to do" lists. Jobs, spouses, kids, bills, laundry, groceries - rarely do we take the time to "smell the roses," to experience the calmer, spiritual side of our daily lives. On Sunday, Magothy United Methodist Church, at 3703 Mountain Road, will have an afternoon of relaxation, meditation, and spiritual enlightenment, playing host to a traveling labyrinth and a concert featuring harpist Christina Tourin.

When the Su family chose a burial plot two years ago, it had all the traditional elements valued in their native Taiwan. The site, protected by a hill, faced the sun in the south and overlooked a scenic lake at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens in Timonium. Family members, who visit the site weekly, are delighted that there are so many more of the Asian designs and symbols that for centuries have honored the dead and comforted the living. The Sus now walk through a polished granite pagoda to the cemetery's Garden of Tranquility, which will be formally dedicated Wednesday.

In the middle of an East Baltimore neighborhood torn by drugs and violence and persistent poverty, there stood yesterday an unlikely new center of peace. A garden labyrinth, with its curving prayer path echoing those found in French cathedrals, stretched across a city lot once pocked by abandoned rowhouses and trash-filled alleys. Begonias spilled out of nearby flower beds and from a newly built community nursery. At a dedication ceremony, area leaders called the quiet oasis a hopeful sign of revival.

Mexican-born filmmaker Guillermo del Toro plants kernels of truth within cornucopias of inspired grotesquerie. In his own words, he makes "eye protein, not eye candy. " His chef d'oeuvre — to date — is "Pan's Labyrinth" (2006), the rare fairy tale to win three Academy Awards. Equally provocative and cathartic, it's an inspired choice for viewing and discussion at the splendid FilmTalk series at the Central Library on Saturday. Set in 1944 Spain, the story tests the mettle of its 12-year-old heroine, Ofelia, when she travels with her mother to a remote military outpost.

An outdoor labyrinth surrounded by gardens and an interfaith pavilion will greet visitors and residents at Stadium Place, the senior housing and recreation project just getting under way on the 30 acres where Memorial Stadium once stood on East 33rd Street. "It will be a peaceful kind of entrance," said the Rev. John R. Sharp, president of Govans Ecumenical Development Corp., a church-based nonprofit redeveloping the site. "It makes a statement about Stadium Place growing out of the faith community.

NEW YORK - The New York office of Corbis at Broadway and 20th Street, where the Bettmann and UPI archives are now stored, is a researcher's candy store and a conservator's nightmare. The place has an Old World scruffiness. It is full of old movie stills and yellowing logbooks. There are Otto Bettmann's thumbnail sketches of the items in his collection, little-known photographs of Diego Rivera with Frida Kahlo, never-seen pictures taken by Weegee at Coney Island and glass-plate negatives.

In the labyrinth at Bon Secours Spiritual Center, life slows and becomes still. One is on the ultimate journey - a journey of healing, a journey of prayer and meditation, a journey to meet God. Since its opening in 1999, the labyrinth at the Marriottsville center has remained a popular destination for people of all faiths in Howard County and beyond. "That labyrinth has had someone on it since a half-hour after it was finished," says Sister Carol Marozzi, director of the spiritual center.

Students at Rolling Knolls Elementary have designed a spot to seek inner peace. Or at least a spot to get away from it all. A group of 16 fifth-graders in the Gifted and Talented Program at the Annapolis-area school have built a 20-foot-by-20-foot labyrinth on one side of the property. Students had to learn about the history of labyrinths, surveying and grading land, drawing to scale, and creating a site plan. A labyrinth is not a maze, said Moira Plantier, a member of the labyrinth club.

Pan's Labyrinth trips the dark fantastic. It marks Guillermo del Toro as a moviemaking fabulist with imagination, emotion and the ability to reflect life in a haunted-funhouse mirror. Set in 1944, five years after Generalissimo Francisco Franco won the Spanish Civil War, it tells two simple, parallel stories.

From the floor of the cathedral in Chartres, France, comes an ancient mystical exercise that is nourishing a growing number of modern spiritual seekers.More and more people are walking labyrinths, in search of inner peace, healing or deeper spiritual awareness. Not to be confused with a maze, which is intended to confuse and amuse those who enter, a labyrinth is an intricate geometric pattern laid out on the floor or ground that provides an elaborate but unbroken path for contemplation. There is one way in and one way out.In the Baltimore area, two labyrinths have opened in time for this Lenten season of spiritual preparation -- one at Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church and the other outdoors, on the grounds of the Bon Secours Spiritual Center in Marriottsville -- bringing the total in this region to at least a half-dozen.

ARTS 'Labyrinth of Peace' Living Labyrinth for Peace by visionary artist and labyrinth builder Sandra Wasko-Flood runs through Jan. 10 at the Sub-Basement Artists Studios, 118 N. Howard St. Unlike mazes, labyrinths have one path that leads to the center and back. Wasko-Flood's Rainbow Labyrinth of Peace is an interactive installation of computer-programmed lights, designed to be walked. The exhibit also includes a labyrinth workshop Saturday, a peace workshop Dec. 20, a poetry reading Dec. 27 and a "peace panel" Jan. 3. Go to sbastudios.

Students at Rolling Knolls Elementary have designed a spot to seek inner peace. Or at least a spot to get away from it all. A group of 16 fifth-graders in the Gifted and Talented Program at the Annapolis-area school have built a 20-foot-by-20-foot labyrinth on one side of the property. Students had to learn about the history of labyrinths, surveying and grading land, drawing to scale, and creating a site plan. A labyrinth is not a maze, said Moira Plantier, a member of the labyrinth club.

Spirituality, arts retreat planned As part of a community arts project sponsored by the Columbia Orchestra, Thomas Kight, founder of the Zen Community of Columbia, will present "Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives: A Spirituality & Arts Retreat" from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow at the Bon Secours Spiritual Center in Marriottsville. The retreat, which will focus on the vision of universal brotherhood expressed in Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 (Choral), will include meditation and a chance to participate in making and responding to photographs, poetry and music, and singing a choral piece in harmony.

First Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ellicott City will present a performance by The Predestined, a Ugandan song and dance troupe focused on raising awareness and support for the victims of AIDS. The performance, which emphasizes endurance and faith, is scheduled from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 26 at the church, 3604 Chatham Road. An offering will be taken, and child sponsorships will be available. Proceeds will benefit the AIDS Orphan Education Trust, a nongovernmental organization in Uganda providing homes and education to orphans and widows whose parents or spouses have died of AIDS.

WASHINGTON -- Wounded soldiers and veterans poured out their frustrations with the military health care system yesterday, telling a presidential commission that they had often had difficulty getting care because military doctors were overwhelmed by the needs of service members injured in Iraq. Speaking from experience, the soldiers and veterans described the military health care system as a labyrinth, said their families had been swamped with paperwork and complained that some care providers lacked compassion.

Teens discover new paths Two pyramidal heaps of stone at the entrance mark the start of the winding pathway. They also mark fresh beginnings for the students who have toiled for weeks in the dirt and mulch. The students at the Gateway School in Westminster - an alternative school for middle- and high-school students serving extended suspensions or struggling with learning disabilities or behavioral and emotional problems - acknowledge that at first they whined about having to get their hands and shoes dirty.

A little way down a wooded trail on the grounds of the Phillips School in North Laurel, a plain, white clay face stands out starkly against the trunk of a tree. Farther along, there is another face, and then another, leading visitors to a clearing where thousands of the white masks hang from tree trunks and lie on the dark earth. The small sculptures form the borders of a spiral labyrinth about 60 feet across and outline a second, smaller path nearby. The project, which will be officially dedicated by students and staff today, incorporates 3,000 face masks and is an artistic remembrance of the 9/11 terror attacks two years ago. It is also a peaceful place for staff and students to walk and think.