Labyrinth

Labyrinth walk scheduled Aug. 19 Journeys Community, a nontraditional spiritual-seekers group, will meet at Bon Secours Spiritual Center, 1525 Marriottsville Road, Marriottsville to walk the labyrinth on the center's grounds. The labyrinth, an archetypal image in many cultures, is a symbol of journeying toward the divine. The group will meet at 10 a.m. Aug. 19. Light refreshments will be available after the walk. Journey Community meets during the fall, winter and spring at 10 a.m. Sundays in the second-floor auditorium of Vantage House retirement community, 5400 Vantage Point Road in Town Center, Columbia.

The 2007 Oscar ballot has been rightly hailed for its diversity. So it might seem like a paradox that the closest thing to a sure shot is about as white Anglo-Saxon Protestant as you can get: Dame Helen Mirren, the prohibitive favorite to win best actress for playing Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen. Even the other dame in the running, Judi Dench for Notes of a Scandal, has conceded the position. This year's entries generally remind us that the Academy Awards, at their best, have saluted an aristocracy of merit.

Hadassah to hold pool party Aug. 26 Howard County Hadassah will hold an end-of-summer pool party 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Aug. 26 in Clarksville. Reservations are requested by Aug. 15. The cost is $10 a family. Checks should be sent to Hadassah of Howard County, P.O. Box 238, Simpsonville, 21150-0238. The nonprofit organization is open to women of all ages. The organization promotes health awareness programs and community-based educational, Zionist and youth programs. Information: 410-531-6476 or www.hocohadassah.

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.

The voice on the voice mail was a familiar one, my husband's, and the message was the one he always leaves: Call me when you get a chance. Not: "Have you heard the news, call me!" -- the life-shortening message he left the day the Yankees traded David Wells for Roger Clemens. Just: "Call me when you get a chance."I got a chance."I broke your labyrinth," he said, without preamble. "I'm sorry. I was dusting, and I knocked it over. I don't think it can be fixed.""Oh," I said. And then I didn't say anything for a very long time.

Gardenville is so named because it actually was once Baltimore's garden. It was the premier truck farming region where the city got most of its fruits and vegetables.Houses now stand where tomatoes and beans once grew at Belair and Moravia roads. But this coming spring the community will be getting a new and very unique kind of garden. A labyrinth walk and meditation garden will be built in front of St. Anthony of Padua's Roman Catholic Convent on Frankford Avenue."It's part of a program called `Sacred Places -- Open Spaces' which attempts to put places of peace and beauty in urban areas," said Gloria Carpeneto, a pastoral associate.

Two Nancy Romita and the Moving Company performances Saturday at the Baltimore Museum of Art will keep you on your toes. See Romita and company perform new works, one of which incorporates last season's humorous and touching "Go." And catch a preview of "Pathways," a work featuring a uniquely designed labyrinth. Take part in post-performance workshops and walk through the amazing labyrinth.Nancy Romita and the Moving Company perform at 3 p.m. and at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Drive.

Camille Solis said she felt the presence of God when she first saw a narrow footbridge gently arching across a placid fish pond behind the Bon Secours Spiritual Center in Marriottsville."

It was almost too easy for Officers Gary Manuel and Anthony Barkas to catch a suspect in a Northwest Baltimore break-in in which an elderly couple were robbed and tied to chairs inside their Cross Country home, after which their car was stolen.A week after the home invasion, the officers said, they saw a man break into another house in Park Heights and load a pilfered television into the couple's stolen car. Manuel and Barkas quickly moved in and made an arrest."While we tried to catch the guy in one crime, he was doing another one," said Sgt. Jim Rood, who heads the Northwestern District's major-crime unit.

Police Blotter is a sampling of crimes in Baltimore City and Baltimore County.Northwestern DistrictRobbery/arrests: A Baltimore man and a Howard County woman were arrested Tuesday and charged with robbing a woman, 71, at knifepoint in the 3600 block of Labyrinth Road on Monday and then using her credit cards to purchase items at a Target store in Ellicott City. Althea Hawkins, 26, of the 5800 block of Stevens Forest Road in Columbia, and Andre Lance, 27, of the 4400 block of Groveland Ave. in Forest Park were charged with armed robbery and assault with intent to murder.

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.

Ellicott City native Beck to perform Ellicott City native Sara Beck will perform at Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbia's One World Coffeehouse at 7 p.m. Aug. 25. Beck, who lives and works in Nashville, Tenn., is a graduate of Centennial High School. Her husband, Park Chisolm, will join her in the show, as will Dan Buchner of the Kactus Boys. The concert will be held at Owen Brown Interfaith Center, 7246 Cradlerock Way, Columbia. Admission is $12. Information: 410-381-2000.

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.

Hadassah to hold pool party Aug. 26 Howard County Hadassah will hold an end-of-summer pool party 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Aug. 26 in Clarksville. Reservations are requested by Aug. 15. The cost is $10 a family. Checks should be sent to Hadassah of Howard County, P.O. Box 238, Simpsonville, 21150-0238. The nonprofit organization is open to women of all ages. The organization promotes health awareness programs and community-based educational, Zionist and youth programs. Information: 410-531-6476 or www.hocohadassah.

Labyrinth walk scheduled Aug. 19 Journeys Community, a nontraditional spiritual-seekers group, will meet at Bon Secours Spiritual Center, 1525 Marriottsville Road, Marriottsville to walk the labyrinth on the center's grounds. The labyrinth, an archetypal image in many cultures, is a symbol of journeying toward the divine. The group will meet at 10 a.m. Aug. 19. Light refreshments will be available after the walk. Journey Community meets during the fall, winter and spring at 10 a.m. Sundays in the second-floor auditorium of Vantage House retirement community, 5400 Vantage Point Road in Town Center, Columbia.

The life of the theater gives The Lives of Others its spark, verve and profundity. Even fans of Pan's Labyrinth (like me) may leave thinking this movie deserved its best foreign-language film Oscar. This excitingly thoughtful suspense film takes place in 1984, in an East Germany that plagiarizes Orwell's 1984. The secret police, or Stasi, rule a network of agents and informers that puts the whole state on the wire. It's difficult even for the country's leading playwright, Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch)

The 2007 Oscar ballot has been rightly hailed for its diversity. So it might seem like a paradox that the closest thing to a sure shot is about as white Anglo-Saxon Protestant as you can get: Dame Helen Mirren, the prohibitive favorite to win best actress for playing Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen. Even the other dame in the running, Judi Dench for Notes of a Scandal, has conceded the position. This year's entries generally remind us that the Academy Awards, at their best, have saluted an aristocracy of merit.

This year's Oscar season is hard upon us, and once again, Baltimore cinephiles are being left in the dark. Of the five movies nominated for best foreign language film, only two - Mexico's Pan's Labyrinth (the favorite) and Canada's Water - have opened in Baltimore. Denmark's After the Wedding, Algeria's Days of Glory and Germany's The Lives of Others all have received rave reviews. But for now, none seem destined for Charm City screens. That's a shame, because interest in all three films will never be higher.