Rare Bird Sightings: Observational Navigation from Lake Erie

Labyrinth navigation does not always serve as its own end. In his Framework, Gollesten indeed describes congression as the most authentic mode of navigation, but he also acknowledges a host of other meaningful navigational modes. In an oft overlooked passage in his more meditative, pastoral, and colloquial Book 12, "Earth, Sky, Creature, Weather: Restructuring Natural Boundaries in the Built World," Gollesten, in a moment of uncanny prescience, muses:

The authentic [author's emphasis] labyrinth is not inimical to the natural landscapes and organisms in which the boundaries and corridors are structured. In fact, we see in the Classical epoch of labyrinths, which, we may firmly assert, is a veritable Golden Age, that the architects commissioned were those men who dwelled closest to the habitats of labyrinth sites. Urban architects were deemed ill-equipped to establish edifices who could merge man's structures with sky, earth, creature, and weather. Thus, we witness a staunch effort in Classical Labyrinthology to fuse artifice with nature. The authentic labyrinth, then, preserves the natural order while altering Nature's physiognomy.

It is well known, and well mourned, that Modern Labyrinths did not value the fusion of artificial and organical. Rather, incepting in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, we behold the birth of new paradigm, the paradigm that man's structures do not merely rival nature's complexity, but in fact best nature's 'legerdemain.' Indubitably, this paradigm is predicated in the Cartesian project of the domination of Nature, as nefariously delineated by and fallaciously quantified by Aaldi.

Displacement was the modus operandi; some even argue it was the modus vivendi in this Dark Age of labyrinthology. Yet, inevitably, flora and fauna developed ways to thrive within and among the boundaries of the labyrinth, perhaps in that Darwinian fashion which is causing so much contention still in this day. It is reported by a British navigator in the early 1800s that the English Claret-Bellied Pheasant, purported to be hunted to its extirpation, was healthily living and propagating in the Derbyshire Amber Labyrinth. This was the first of a genus of reports documenting the conservative properties of labyrinths.

As man sullies the soil and burdens the beast, perhaps the labyrinth stands as a refuge. I speculate that we will grudgingly testify to man's destruction in the age to come, an age in which technology removes man further from his authentic being, and in which Nature becomes enemy. May a time come when the naturalist must navigate the labyrinth to observe the remaining survivors of a species?

And here we arrive at another mode of being the in the labyrinth: observational navigation [...] (Black Thicket, 501-503).

Gollesten's musings on labyrinth as refuge, as conservation sui generis, prove eerily correct. Today, many scientists have joined forces with labyrinthians to identify rare, endangered, and reputedly extinct species of flora and fauna within the boundaries of labyrinths. Their efforts, moreover, have engendered preservation campaigns that have successfully rendered a number of labyrinths as wildlife reserves.

Gollesten's musing, directly and indirectly, have also created a class of labyrinthians known, fittingly, as "Observational Navigators." Observational Navigators primarily walk labyrinths to study, explore, and wonder at the interface between the natural and the artificial in labyrinths.

While I am mainly a Metaphysical Navigator, I frequently enjoy Observational Navigation. In fact, one of my favorite holiday traditions involves birdwatching and bird counting in labyrinths across the country. As I mentioned in a comment to Alex's last thread, during this season, after visiting family in Cleveland, Ohio, I stole some time for myself to visit the Lake Erie Labyrinth northeast of the city.

My labyrinth birdwatching began casually, but, after descrying a number of rare birds, I chose to join the Audubon Society's annual Christmas Bird Count. This year marked the 109th Christmas Bird Count, in which thousands of citizen scientists count birds from December 14 to January 5.

The Lake Erie Labyrinth is considered a Class 2 labyrinth, or, more vernacularly, "of medium navigational difficulty." On this visit, my first in over 5 years, I came equipped with my binoculars. Natives, in recent years, have reported hearing the distinct mating call of the rare Gray Whooping Crane. However, no natives have yet observed the exquisite bird.

Before dawn, on a lightly pluvial day, which, I believe, is ideal navigation weather, I embarked in my waterproof brogans to trek the 6 miles of marshy grounds to reach the entrance of the Lake Erie Labyrinth. The labyrinth is situated in a lake basin and is built of softer rock compacted from glaciation tens of thousands of years ago. Given that the labyrinth was erected on wetlands, the boundaries have wide, thick bases that gradually taper to their crests. During two hours into my navigation, the sun rising just above the boundary ramparts, I espied a twiggy structure at a juncture, formed at the corner of the bases of two walls. On closer inspection, I beheld two blotchy eggs, at which time I realized I was observing a nest. Then, startled, I craned my neck at the sudden eruption of a stentorian "whoop" overhead.

It was the endangered Gray Whooping Crane.

I fumbled for my camera to capture this majestic creature, over 5 feet long and with a wingspan of nearly 8 feet. I was not quick enough, and, chagrinned, I continued my navigation.

After another two hours of navigation elapsed, I was approaching the center, which opens into a wet, grassy meadow of sorts about a mile from the Lake. Just when I thought my patient vigilance fruitless, I saw two cranes descending from the sky nearly a half-mile away. This time, my camera readied, I zoomed in and captured these tallest of North American birds right as they were alighting:

While the photograph does not make its namesake apparent, the Gray Whooping Crane is thusly christened for a narrow band of dark gray feathers that vertically line the anterior of its neck, which biologists believe is a either a geographical or sexual selection adaptation.

North American Whooping Crane populations number only in the hundreds, and the birds have only recently begun to breed naturally after man reduced them to near vanishing point. I was privileged, or should I say blessed, to have witnessed and photographed this exceedingly elusive bird.

I encourage all of you labyrinth enthusiasts out there to undertake Observational Navigation. What you see may help preserve some of this planet's most threatened beings. And ecolabyrinthians, continue your noble project.

And, we here at the CLP wish all of you a very Happy New Year. Bon chance as you begin to fulfill your Labyrinthian Resolutions in 2009!

Season's Greetings from CLP

Happy Holidays from all of us at the Cincinnati Labyrinth Project!

I thought some readers might enjoy this festive, rather poetic excerpt from Douglas Myerston's 1978 Nipigon Labyrinth navigation journal.

25/12/1978

The sun rose early, rousing us from our slumber in the Great Room. It was Christmas Day. As I surveyed the corridor around me, there was no doubt in my mind that this was truly one of Mezin Kobrin's finest labyrinthectural designs. For weeks on end now, the convoluted halls had driven several of our men very nearly to the brink - one man, Howells, bore deep bruising on his palms and knuckles, the product of the previous day's heedless search for third doors. The domed rock above us, a radiant combination of heliodor and blue basalt, was illumined as though afire by the myriad moss agate and malachite deposits which adorned the canopy. On all sides of us, geometrically arranged recesses and slits in the boundary walls allowed light, both natural and tourmaline filtered, to fill the room. Our own frozen breath appeared to us as the stuff of ephemeral, drifting vespers. We rose slowly one by one. Michaelson, the adolescent in my charge, was last to rise, him unaware of our proximity at last to the center. The light shifted around the room in kaleidscopic forms, all floating blocks of color and dazzling pulses of refraction. Looking reverently amongst ourselves, we walked forward towards the center - silent, and filled with that wonderful electricity that comes only in the final throes of ethical navigation.


Beautiful, inspiring stuff indeed. I urge all readers to search out Myerston's late 70's navjournals. They're presently out of print, but may be ascertained via certain rare book dealers for relatively modest sums.


We'll be taking the next few days off to spend time with family and friends. Look for more activity at the end of the week, plenty of exciting labyrinthological happenings to discuss.

Constructivism and Recursivism

It may interest our readers to know that after years without communication, I’ve recently been in dialogue once again with my dear friend Jules Poulsen, labyrinthian in residence at Bursa University. Poulsen is perhaps the preeminent Reede scholar in contemporary labyrinthology, and despite his constructivist leanings, I find the majority of his scholarship to be well considered and quite important within the realm of our current epoch’s labyrintholgical studies. His is a constructivism which eschews Aaldian reductivism in favor of a more disclosive, quasi-ontological labyrinthology that still hinges on interiorist principles. Poulsen has been researching the Valdis Reede archives at Bursa for the last five years, and working on what will surely be the definitive edition of Reede’s labyrinthology. Apropos of the heated exchanges we’ve been having at CLP meetings of late about the dialectic that exists between recursivism and constructivism, I decided to consult Poulsen on the notion of such an interconnectedness, one that, if it exits, synthesizes important labyrinthological positions of two schools of thinking which seem, on the surface, to be diametrically opposed. Poulsen’s response corroborated several of my ideas, and proved to be quite elucidating indeed:

"... I think there are elements of Reede's text which, if properly considered, go a long way towards ‘bridging the gap’ between modern constructivism and recursivism. I am sympathetic to your position re: the dialectic(s) that exist between disparate branches of contemporary labyrinthology. As Bruun said, ‘labyrinthology x, even if it posits conflicting views as labyrinthology y, may still be shown to be a subset of labyrinthology y, and vice versa.’ We find evidence of such an interconnectedness to exist between Reede’s middle period quantalogical interiorism and the circumambulatory recursivism of Desmarais and Duverger.

In Reede’s text, though there is an Aaldian skepticism as to the nature/existence of the corporeal, extra-mental labyrinth as such, we find an ontological, almost Gollestenian reverence for the being structure of labyrinth qua labyrinth. Reede’s text prioritizes neither center nor perimeter, progression nor egression. His is a labyrinthology which at once calls for a radical skepticism on the part of the navigator with respect to his sensible faculties, and identifies the pre-predicative elements (corporeal and psychical) which constitute and sustain the navigatory experience.

Recall that Desmarais, in Il y a Seulement le Couloir, posits a very similar system of labyrinthological perception, but for different reasons. For Desmarais, questions about the corporeal nature of the labyrinth are problems which have been created by the constructivists and, in his view, are best left to the New Interiorists. In short, the ‘problem of body in the labyrinth’ is not a problem for Desmarais. This being said, Desmarais is, like Reede, concerned with the fundamental nature of navigation and its relationship to the being structure of the labyrinth at large. Desmarais charts the pre-predicative navigational experience by way of the navigator’s sensible framework, and comes up with a system of labyrinthology which, if idealogy is bracketed, is almost identical to that of Valdis Reede.”

This is precisely the kind of progressive, non-factious labyrinthology that we here at CLP are excited about. Look for Poulsen, along with Philip Cunha, to be a big name in the field in 2009. Anyone else have thoughts about the 'common ground' that may be said to exist between these two disparate systems of labyrinthology?

In Memoriam: Philip Ambrose Walker (Part Two)

The  Years of the Bull: 1942-1945

The first installment of my remembrance of Philip Ambrose Walker left us at his arrival in Florence, Italy.  At his family's grave consternation and against their most lachrymose entreaties, Walker reached Florence in the late fall of 1942, when the nation, under the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini, was over two years into the hellish fires of the Second World War.  With Italian forces waging war in France, North and East Africa, the Balkans, and throughout the Mediterranean, it was a perilous time for a young Briton to study labyrinthology in a country that declared war on his motherland. 

Yet, Florence at the time was home to the premiere university for labyrinthological studies in the Western world: L'istituto Classico del Labirinto. But, for Walker, the greatest lure of the institute was the venerable president Francesco Zappatore, whose groundbreaking interdisciplinary scholarship in both labyrinth mythology and archaeology especially magnetized Walker.  Zappatore vehemently opposed the war, although he had to guard vigilantly his stance in public. However, in his country's fanatical patriotism and fascistic nationalism, Zappatore beheld the opportunity to undertake rare labyrinthological excavations. The preeminent labyrinth scholar, historian, and archaeologist persuaded Mussolini himself to fund excavations at various ancient labyrinth sites in the name of further fortifying Italy's 'position' as the greatest civilization of past and present. Walker refused to miss out on this venture, and thus, equipped with counterfeit citizenship, impeccable Italian, prodigious knowledge of antiquity, and the recommendations of Britain's finest labyrinthologists, Walker was admitted into the institute--and was given Zappatore's blessing to join the excavation team. (His pseudonym was Philip Camminatore.)

In 1943, during the middle of the second year of excavation, the team, under the protection of the Italian navy, sailed to the Greek island of Kefalonia, whose labyrinths were largely unexplored in that day. Excavations were fruitless, and Zappatore was considering abandoning the endeavor, until Philip Ambrose Walker made a discovery that, many argue, revolutionized the historical understanding of labyrinths. As he was digging in what the team identified as the center of the labyrinth, Walker's pick struck a long, thick, osseous remain. Further digging unearthed a bed of the remains. Walker, who was raised near pastures in his hometown of Exeter, knew exactly what he was beholding: the horns of bulls. 

Walker presented his discoveries to Zappatore, who believed the horns were the remains of the ritualistic sacrifices of bulls in pits at the centers of labyrinths. At the time, Zappatore was developing the theory that, before the mysterious extirpation of the ancient Minoan civilization of Crete, a group of seafaring natives emigrated to Kefalonia to form a new society. Zappatore argued that the Cretan emigrants sacrificed the bulls in a reenactment of Theseus' slaying of the Minotaur, an act to propitiate the gods. 

But, in a bold challenge to Zappatore, Walker agreed with his Kefalonian theory, but flatly disagreed with Zappatore's figuration of the sacrifices.  While the horns spanned over three feet in length, Walker knew that bull horns normally grew to even greater lengths. Both mentor and protege observed markings on the butts of the horns. Zappatore claimed that the markings resulted from the removal of the horns from the skull, while, based on his familiarity with bovine morphology, Walker declared that the markings resulted from deliberate truncation. (The team's resident biologist concurred with Walker's hunch, and, on the team's return to the Italian mainland, laboratory work confirmed the hypothesis.)  In a brilliant epiphany, Walker posited that the Cretan transplants affixed the horns to a ceremonial headdress, the truncation necessary to reduce the weight of the onerous horns. 

Despite their contention, Zappatore saw enormous promise in Walker's explanation, and thus chose to focus the remaining time and money for the excavation on the Kefalonian labyrinth, thereafter informally christened The Minotaur Abattoir. The team discovered a veritable graveyard of bull horns, all exhibiting the same markings; the team never discovered any other skeletal bovine remains, which further corroborated Walker's theory. However, the excavators did discover tailored hides and the fossilized remains of the tails of bulls. Walker quickly fired off his explanation, fleshing out his nascent theory: ceremonial garbs. Time and money were exhausted, but the team did not return to the Italian mainland empty-handed. With their discoveries, Walker formed the foundation of his Minotaur Cult.

The ceremonial bull horns Walker discovered, on display at the reconstructed Kefalonian excavation site at the Exeter Museum of Labyrinth Myths and History.

Soon after their return, the escalating hostilities of the War was threatening Walker's family back in England. Walker decamped back to his home, where he relocated with his family to Anapolis, Maryland, whose library housed one of the world's most comprehensive collections on Ancient Greek Island Civilizations. Walker immersed himself in research until 1945, where he celebrated not only the end of the War but the publication of his first (and many argue most important) masterwork: Becoming the Monster: The Cult of the Minotaur. Walker explains his thesis in this passage from the first chapter, entitled "The Androtaur":

For the ancient Minoan, the true threat that the Minotaur posed was not his ravenous demand for human flesh, which the civilization fearfully propitiated by their provision of seven youths and seven virgins. Rather, the true threat the Minotaur posed was his dual nature: a monstrosity formed of the body of the man and of the head and tail of the bull.  In the ancient Greek paradigm, the body of the man housed his heart, which was the seat of man's wisdom, and thus the Minoans could not reconcile how such an ill-begotten being could possess the capacity for virtue but arrantly and basely reject to actualize the virtuous potential that rendered man as man. Hence, Daedalus and his son Icarus were commissioned to fashion the Labyrinth, which not only immured the Minotaur, but which veiled the very existence of the monster that so challenged the Greek notion of humanness. Theseus may have nobly slain the Minotaur, but the physical death of the monster could not extirpate his existence in Greek consciousness. As long as such a being as the Minotaur could haunt the earth, the Greeks feared that man's perfectibility--and the concomitant telos of perfection--was a mere delusion. 

As archaeological and historical evidence now evinces, there dwelled in ancient Crete a group of heretical thinkers who held that man was not only condemned to but also must embrace his imperfectibility. In their paradigm, man's fundamental nature was dual: base and virtuous, bestial and rational, barbarous and civilized. According to this paradigm, man could never aspire to become wholly virtuous, rational, or civilized, but, on the other hand, could never devolve fully into depravity and animality. Some texts liken man's dual constitution to man's inhabitation of earth, lodged between the promise of godliness and the inferno of monstrosity.  This cohort, either by volition or by persecution, abandoned Crete for Kefalonia to establish a new society founded on their notion of duality. In reverence and homage to the unjustly slain Cretan Minotaur, they named themselves the Androtaurs: half man, half beast.

The Androtaurs assembled their new civilization near Kefalonia's modern capital of Argostoli, where they erected a colossal basalt labyrinth, whose center they believed was the real Axis Mundi.  Further, bulls were sacrosanct in Androtaurean culture; they did not feed of the bull's flesh nor drink of the female's milk. The Androtaurs did offer human sacrifices to bulls in return for their horns, their tails, and their hides. Priests conducted the sacrifices in the center of the labyrinth, during which they donned ceremonial headdresses made of the horns, cloaks fashioned from the hides, and tails painfully pierced into the small of their backs. But these sacrifices were of the most unusual character: the priests themselves were the sacrifice.  The priests donned the accouterments rendered from previous ceremonies, and, during the act of sawing off the new horns, skinning the new hides, and excising the new tails, the bulls battled the priests--and the priests only defended themselves until they accomplished the amputations, after which they surrendered their lives to the agonized creatures. Man was transformed into monster, and monster was transformed into man. The Minotaur was birthed anew, and the Androtaurs believed cosmic harmony was restored. And thus we have the ancient Cretan-Kefalonian Cult of the Minotaur (Black Thicket, Fourth Edition, 12-13) 

Upon the publication of this masterwork, the labyrinthological community hailed Walker as a rising giant, and thus Walker secured his position at the forefront of labyrinthological work. In the next installment, we will see Walker's transformation from mythicist, historicist, and archaeologist into labyrinth theorist. 

2008 ISCL Almanac Findings

The ISCL (International Society of Contemporary Labyrinthology) has just released its annual compendium of labyrinthological statistics. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the almanac, it is a chronicle published on December 20th of every year containing myriad facts, observations, and findings which endeavor to provide labyrinthians with something of an unbiased (though, in recent years the partisanship of the ISCL has been increasingly scrutinized by various labyrinthological factions) "state of affairs" with regard to all ISCL registered labyrinths and navigators. We here at CLP, as might be expected from a group of primarily New Exteriorist labyrinthians, tend to be most interested in the stats which pertain to navigational tendencies, rather than quantalogical intelligence. Here are a couple particularly interesting findings, broken down by continent, and some interesting observations that I've been pondering. Thoughts/interpretations are, as always, welcomed and encouraged.

Documented Occurrences of Misnav (misanthropic navigation):
Europe: 43
N. America: 36
Australia: 34
Asia: 31
Antarctica: 28
S. America: 17
Africa: 14

Consider this: Australia has only 5 ISCL accredited labyrinths. That misnav number is very high indeed. This is fairly alarming.

Documented Second Center Fatalities:
Asia: 23
Antarctica: 19
Europe: 15
Australia: 12
Africa: 9
S. America: 7
N. America: 3

Consider this: 1) Antarctica has only 2 registered labyrinths, both constructed by the late Belarusian labyrinth architect Mezin Kobrin. 2) Instances of SN in N. America have nearly tripled since last year.

Stephon Crete's 2004 Vector Theory Study

Allow me to welcome myself back to blog posting after an extended hiatus. For the past month I have been working on the finalization of my upcoming children's fiction novel "Logan Page: Labyrinth Hunter". I would like to take a brief moment to thank my editor, Sue Wells, for all of her incredible work in the past weeks as well as the super crew of associate editors at Oak Press in New York. Also much thanks to Bryan Parsons, an incredible artist, and a genuine pleasure to work with. All contingencies aside, we are looking at an H2 release in 2009 for Logan Page. I will certainly keep everyone apprised on the final publication date. I really believe that this book might inspire an entirely new generation of labyrinth aficionados. Also, no need to worry Mom and Dad, I think you'll find something enjoyable here as well! Many of the themes of contemporary labyrinthology are neatly tucked into Logan's adventure.

With that shameless plug out of the way, let me get into the meat and potatoes of my post this evening -- something I have been wishing to write on for some time. In 2004, Stephon Crete conducted (what became) one of the most controversial studies in modern labyrinthology at the massive Queen Isabella II labyrinth, just outside of Cordoba, Spain. Using a volunteer force of 40 international labyrinth navigators, Crete investigated his theory using the highest technology methods available in modern labyrinth investigation.

In a first for labyrinth studies, Crete employed the high definition Cablecam wire camera system. The camera was suspended over Isabella II, allowing him and his team to monitor (non-obtrusively) the navigators as they progressed and egressed the labyrinth over a 13 hour period. The volunteers, using wireless PDA devices, in fifteen minute intervals, recorded subjective estimations on proximity to center. Each navigator also recorded a contemporaneous measure of confidence in their evaluation. The proximity estimations and confidence measures were recorded in numerical form (0-100, scalar.) Each volunteer also carried an individual GPS tracking monitor, recording and broadcasting its exact position in the labyrinth over the entire study. The positional data was fed real-time into a computer program (designed by Crete, nonetheless.) This program formed the basis for Crete's groundbreaking conclusions.

Crete's objective was to form an empirical foundation for his most recent theory, which he had mentioned briefly in a 2002 roundtable presentation at Emory University: that principles of linear algebra are applicable to labyrinth navigation and that a century old vector formula could form the basis of a mathematical predictor of labnav. Crete's hypothesis is perhaps too complicated to boil down to one sentence. At the most basic, Crete felt that principles of vector and spectral theory, and the attendant formulas for predicting eigenvalues, eigenspace, and eigenvectors, could serve as predictors for the individual navigator's subjective (yes, subjective) sense of center. Crete felt that certain areas of the non-curvular labyrinth, where vectors intersect (think junctures and quadrants), create artificial nonzero vectors, which are subliminally observable to the mind of the navigator. These factors could, in effect, boost the navigator's magnetic determination of proximity to center.

To grasp this concept, imagine a navigator walking a corridor. At this point she is observing two vectors (at the junctures of the labyrinth floor and boundary.) However, as the navigator approaches a juncture, or (even more so) a quadrant, her observable vectors increase. Crete theorized that the observation of multiple vectors could form the basis of an nonzero eigenvector (x). Accordingly, he assigned a value "x" to each juncture or quadrant in Isabella II. This factor x would then be fed into the eigen formula Ax = λx. The result would be to identify an eigenvalue. Crete predicted that the eigenvalue, once identified, effected a linear transformation on both the navigators subjective estimation of proximity to center, as well as confidence. Ostensibly, the transformation would be to increase the linear estimation of distance to center. The eigenvalue could then be compared against the navigators responses.

The results were astounding. Volunteers who recorded subjective estimations of center while in the proximity of increased vectors within the labyrinth showed a marked increase in both estimation of center and confidence. Subsequent independent analysis of Crete's data revealed that the eigen formula corresponded to an increase in subjective proximity estimations and confidence at a staggering rate of 83.2%.

As is usual with much of Crete's work, critical response to the study was also staggering. Many pointed to the sheer lack of data produced. Notably, out of the 1,300 or so recorded responses from navigators, only 5.2% were recorded at points in the labyrinth with pre-set eigenfactors. Other critics noted that at least 43% of increases in confidence and proximity, as compared to the eigenvalue predictor, were small enough to be written off as negligible, or at least within the margin of error. Finally, many felt that the underlying assumption of the study was flawed: that the navigators actually observed these vectors. Crete has thus far responded to little of this criticism, apparently dismissing much of it.

Crete has always felt that the human brain corresponds to mathematical stimuli, and his 2004 study went far to promote this new theory. Additionally, Crete's study was later publicized in an hour long documentary on Televisión Española entitled, quite simply, "Laberinto". Although the show focused generally on the field of labyrinth study, the producers utilized Crete's Cablecam footage to explain basic navigational principles to the Spanish audience. However, nearly eight minutes of the documentary was dedicated to a brief explanation of Crete's vector theory.

It has been nearly four and a half years since Crete published his findings and he has never indicated publicly whether he would conduct a follow up study. Indeed, at this point it may be extraordinarily difficult to locate educated labyrinth navigators who are completely unaware of his theory. Certainly, any subsequent study would be subject to criticism on this very point. Regardless, Crete's vector theory remains one of the most challeging and dynamic labnav studies in the past decade. Stephon Crete remains a force in modern labyrinthology and we eagerly await any news of his future projects.

NASCLS 2009: Panel Announcements

Yesterday, I spoke with Dr. Stephen Holdern, organizer of the 2009 NASCLS Conference at the University of Manitoba.  He has solicited the assistance of some of your very own CLP contributors and labyrinthologists in the formation of a number of panels for this year's conference. Given the groundswell of labyrinthological scholarship over this past year, Stephen and I elected to devise a handful of panels which will allow participants to engage in dialogue on some of 2008's most challenging, provocative, and urgent topics. As Stephen was roundly impressed with the activity and community of the CLP, he gave me his consent to break the news and announce the first panels.  If you are thinking of submitting an abstract, you may also want to seriously consider partaking in the following panels:

Kafka's Corridors: The Self as Other in the Symbolic Labyrinth of The Castle

Panelists will discuss recent readings of one of Kafka's most seminal and unyielding works. Within the multifarious valences of the novel's featured structure, a growing body of critics identify an extensive symbolic matrix of a so-called "center-less labyrinth" in which the self undergoes the excruciating self-alienation through the navigational phenomenon of estrangement. 

The Indestructible Ontos

In this panel, labyrinthologists will discuss the controversial new theory of the indestructibility of labyrinth qua labyrinth. Recent research in labyrinth ruins, due either to the deliberate dismemberment of labyrinths in the waging of war or to the natural processes of erosion and weathering, argues that a labyrinth, regardless of decay or disarray, always retains its fundamental being as a labyrinth.

The Labyrinthological Imperative: Towards a Systematic Ethics of Internavigation

Philip Cunha is slated to moderate this roundtable, which will explore the persistent and perennial ethical questions that riddle internavigation.  Among the issues billed for discussion is the problematic of the labyrinthological imperative, a draconian theory which privileges arrival at the center over the welfare of fellow navigators.  

Await the announcement of more panels as soon as Dr. Holdern makes his finalizations.

Call for Papers - NASCLS 2009 Conference

I just got an email containing a call for papers from my colleague Stephen Holdern, CLA coordinator and 2009 organizer of the annual NASCLS conference which is being held next year in Manitoba (another coup for the burgeoning labyrinthology dept. at UMAN). I thought some of our readers might be interested in submitting an abstract.

CALL FOR PAPERS: NASCLS at the CLA Division Meeting
April 17-18, 2009, at the Manitoba Marriott

The North American Society for Contemporary Labyrinthological Studies (NASCLS) invites papers to be presented at its divisional meeting held in conjunction with the Canadian Labyrinthology Association. Papers may address any topic that involves the connection between post-constructivist loco-labyrinthology and ontology or ethics. Presentations should be 20-25 minutes (10-12 pages in length; 2500-3000 words). Participants must be currently paid members of the NASCLS. Submissions should be made by e-mail by February 1st to CLA conference coordinator Stephen Holdern, who may be reached at manitobalabconf_09@yahoo.com.

The French Recursivists

The only known photograph of Matthieu Gramont, taken by Inès Bédard in Vitré, Ille-et-Vilaine in 1940, two years before his untimely death.

Inès Bédard, Paris, 1944 (photographer unknown)

From left to right: Hubert Belanger, Rémy Desmarais, Arnaud Duverger. Photo taken in 1939 by Maurice Fournier near the perimeter of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha Labyrinth, Belarus.

The Second Center: An Introduction

Classical labyrinthology at once shuddered and steeled at the very utterance of one of the most formidable structures of the Labyrinth: the Second Center. Roman historian Livy recorded that the very intonation of the Second Center evokes the wrath of the Minotaur's ghost, while Aristotle averred that within the trial of the Second Center lies the labyrinth's true test of the navigator's ethics.

Medieval labyrinthologists displayed only the most heightened superstition or only the most concentrated sacerdotalism on the subject of the Second Center. Augustin Bayard allegorized the labyrinth structure as a reenactment of Man's Fall. Yet, Padre Fernando García Vargas parabolized the Second Center as God' bestowal of a Second Garden.

Modern labyrinthology either denied the existence of the Second Center or championed it. Aaldi declared the Second Center was illusory, the faulty product of faulty perception. However, Gollsten described immersion in the Second Center as one of the most primordial, authentic experiences in all of navigational phenomena.

Contemporary labyrinthologists reveal the same schizophrenia. Stephon Crete hypothesizes that from the Second Center radiates a bombarding, concentrated stream of labyrinthons that can result in systemic navigational dysfunction, which may be the mother-source of the labyrinth's salvific magnetism. Cunha identifies the Second Center as the Axis Mundi of the labyrinth, in which the navigator can forgo the "ambiguity anxiety" between subject and object.

Historical conflict abounds because of the Second Center, or the Medium Secundum, as its formal appellation goes. But what is this most titillating, tantalizing, torturing, and taboo of labyrinth structures?

The Medium Secundum is a quadrant (or sector, in a unicursal labyrinth) in which the navigator enters a region in which he cannot regress or apparently progress. Thusly, the Second Center has earned the pied names of "The Doldrums," "Limbo," and "The Widow's Walk," all of which convey the ominousness of this ostensible entrapment.

Theorists often forget, in their distance from first-hand navigation, the lethality of the Second Center. In ancient Anglo-Saxon labyrinths, the archaeologist still discovers skeletal remains slunk below cryptic, hysterical inscriptions on slate boundaries. However, historians have documented evidence for navigators who nonetheless congressed at the center of the self-same labyrinth. Many navigators reach the Second Center, believing they have arrived at the true center, and soon perish, while others claimed to intuit the solution, and resume their path through the corridors.

Second Centers exhibit diverse forms. In arboreal labyrinths, Second Centers frequently assume the form of grassy esplanades whose sentinel trees appear to enable no forward permission. In lapidarian labyrinths, Second Centers insult the navigator with steeply sloping embanked boundaries with swathes of open sky above. Aqueous labyrinths feature dense entanglements of coral or seaweed. Earthen labyrinths often direct the navigator into the cavernous bellies where it is easier to plummet than to ascend.

Whatever the substance and style of the labcraft, labyrinthologists once speculated that Second Centers necessarily have "points of progression," as Philip Ambrose Walker urged. However, many current labyrinthologists are rethinking the labyrinth region, conjecturing instead that Media Secunda do not necessarily have "points of progression." Rather, these labyrinthologists argue that a navigator only arrives at Second Centers upon a tour faux ("wrong turn") as Pierre Coulet more colloquially described it. While much evidence corroborates the theory, some labyrinthologists rightly point out that some Second Centers still have hidden points of progression that only the most perspicacious navigator can find. Yet other labyrinthologists are excited by the younger theory, as it implies yet undiscovered routes to the center.

Perhaps the greatest source of the challenge, mystery, and lethality of the Second Center emanates, as the late Walker observed, on the great and unpredictable variety which these points of progression "evince." No comprehensive or exhaustive system of codification of the Second Center exists, despite numerous attempts. But there is one feature of the Second Center on which all labyrinthologists agree: the Second Center allows no way back.

French Recursivism: A Brief Overview

John’s excellent Pierre Coulet bibliography thread below made me realize that we here at CLP have, heretofore, presented precious too few posts which investigate the fascinating annals of 20th century French labyrinthological thought. The French occupy an important and unique place in the canon of modern labyrinthology. Undoubtedly the most intriguing, not to mention controversial, of French labyrinthological factions were the Recursivists, a group born out of a manifesto written by Matthieu Gramont in 1939.

Gramont was an erstwhile exteriorist who had grown dissatisfied with labyrinthology at large as a result of the widespread influence of New Constructivism in 20th century European intellectual circles. He reacted with ire to the dominance of Aaldian thinking in modern labyrinthology, putting forth theories that rejected both constructivist and exteriorist ideas alike. For Gramont, the walker should fully embrace le chaos de la navigation (“the chaos of navigation”), employing counter-intuitive, willfully anti-logical navigational tendencies in an effort to, at all costs, avoid both the center and the perimeter alike. Gramont’s labyrinthology was, of course, reviled by Aaldians and Gollestenians, though certain of the more idiosyncratic acolytes of the latter contingent did find his ideas invigorating (c.f. Belanger’s Gramont at the Perimeter of Gollesten). For Gramont, what mattered most was existing as “walker qua walker,” and nothing more.

Gramont met with an almost poetic demise at the young age of 27 in the Shiriri Mountain Labyrinth in 1942, apparently resigning himself to wander the awe-inspiring labyrinth for several days until he perished of hunger. The mantle of Recursivism was taken up by Arnaud Duverger, Inès Bédard, and Rémy Desmarais, the former of whom used a highly selective interpretation of Coulet’s First Juncture to provide theoretical underpinnings to Recursivism.

I’ll try to get excerpts from Gramont’s manifesto and Desmarais’ seminal essay Il y a Seulement le Couloir (“There is Only the Corridor”) posted in the next couple days.

Pierre Coulet: Selected Bibliography and Criticism

In response to Alex's introduction of Klemens Logewnik, I referred to the equally obscure and unconscionably neglected French labyrinthologist Pierre Coulet.

While Coulet lived a notoriously hermetic existence, he wrote prodigiously on a wide spectrum of labyrinthological topics. Renewed interest in his far-reaching body of thought has furnished several recent translations that successfully manage to tackle Coulet's infamously yet rewardingly dense language. These texts are veritable sine qua nons to any complete education in 20th century labyrinthology. I am supplying a selected bibliography (chronologically) that I exhort every labyrinth enthusiast to peruse. Brave and noble scholars, let me know if you fancy the titles in French if you wish to wrestle with the original texts.

• Coulet, P. (1927). In the Vestibule: A New Metaphysics of Entry. Paris: Verre de Hibou.

• ---. (1929). The Metamorphosis from Man to Navigator. Paris: Verre de Hibou.

• ---. (1932). Exile in the Labyrinth: Recursive Navigation. Paris: Plein Air.

• ---. (1935). Some Values of Circumambulation. London: Ashgrove.

• ---. (1941). The First Juncture. New York: Black Thicket.

• ---. (1945). The Castaway, Theseus Unbound, and Other Short Stories. Paris: Plein Air.

Criticism on Coulet still remains sparse, although I suspect we will soon witness a cornucopia of new works. (The University of Manitoba's emerging advanced labyrinthology program is reputed to be crafting a Coulet concentration. I, for one, am eager to learn who the resident Coulet scholar will be.)

Below, find a few of the more significant titles (also chronologically) in the nascent field of Coulet criticism.

• Oligreff, J. (1972). A Coulet Primer. Paris: Ardoise.

• Christophe, Z. (1980). Coulet's Stages of Transformation. Paris: Ardoise.

• Vrzala, A. (2003). Navigating Late Coulet's Allegory of the Drifter. New York: Black Thicket.

Interview with Thomas Stalle (Part Two)

If you haven't read the first part of my exclusive interview with noted contemporary labyrinthian and Gollesten scholar Thomas Stalle, you can find it here. In this second segment, Stalle talks more about Gollesten's polarizing tome Science, Poetry, and Labyrinth, and addresses the factious nature of contemporary labyrinthology in the wake of Aaldi. The interview was conducted on 11.29.08 via Skype.

Alex: Why do you think that Gollesten allowed SPL to remain unpublished? Do you feel that it constitutes a finished, fully realized treatise?

Thomas: It's difficult to say for sure. However, Gollesten's letters from the early 1890's do seem to imply that SPL is an unfinished work. Moreover, it seems to have been something of an albatross which he could not complete nor decide to abandon. Take for example, what he says in a letter to Raif Osmanovic from June of 1892. He writes:

"... the ideas explored [in SPL] remain important to me, though I feel that I cannot do justice to them in a hermeneutico-labyrinthological sense. The conflation of poetry, image, science and labyrinthology may strike many as bizarre, even irresponsible. Even still, I feel that such interdisciplinary measures are critical to the exposition of the fundamental being of the labyrinth. Ultimately, perhaps language as such is insufficient, the play of sign and signifier unable to offer us truly primordial access."

I feel that perhaps Gollesten avoided publishing SPL because he did not want the ideas contained therein to be disseminated and codified as "labyrinthology." We note that Gollesten all but stopped publishing treatises in the last thirty years of his life, focusing more and more on lecturing and, later, painting. Ultimately, it is my own contention that the late Gollesten feels that the written word, and thus labyrinthology as such, is unsuitable to the study of labyrinths.

Alex: In this respect, Gollesten reminds me a lot of middle to late period Heidegger, who, as we know, he read extensively towards the end of his life.

Thomas: Absolutely. Gollesten was extremely inspired by Heidegger's tireless search to understand being at its most primordial. In many ways, his labyrinthological project is similarly focused and single-minded in scope.

Alex: Let's change gears a bit and talk about another subject that I know is important to you: the rifts that exist in contemporary labyrinthology in the wake of Kalev Aaldi. Do you feel that Aaldi, Milosovici and the Medial School constructivists are responsible for the almost insidious divergences that exist in labyrinthology?

Thomas: In a word, yes. I feel that the "split" in labyrinthology may be dated back to Aaldi largely because of the type of discourse we find in his writings and lectures. In a sense, Aaldi sought to invalidate the labyrinthologies that he inherited, pre-exteriorism in particular. Accordingly, his writing carries a polemical tone which naturally breeds critical contention. The factions that have emerged in labyrinthology in the last hundred years may all be traced back to Aaldi. We might say, in fact, that contemporary labyrinthology is, in many ways, a footnote to Aaldi, either supporting or rigorously disputing his labyrinthological positions. Gollesten, for example, spent much of his early academic life arguing back the labyrinth from the Medial School (Aaldi, Reede, Milosovici, Ozols, etc.). Subsequent labyrinthians, from circles as diverse as those embodied by the writings of Ambrose Walker and Coulet also have spilled much ink supporting or condemning the Medialists. People talk about various "crises" of contemporary labyrinthology. I think the truest crisis we face is overcoming Aaldi's shadow and mending the fabric of labyrinthological theory.


Be sure to check out part three of the interview, in which Stalle and I discuss contemporary and postmodern labyrinthians whose progressive writings appear to possess what is necessary to mend the "fabric" of which he speaks.

Saturday Open Thread: SN and Internav

This morning I've been thinking quite a bit about the fundamental interrelatedness of SN (subversive navigation) and internav (intersubjective navigation). Marking, overheading, positioning, and chatter-plotting are all essentially intersubjective activities. With this in mind, I'm given to wonder, does the empathy that we employ to allow us to recognize the labyrinth as mine as well as the Other's ultimately do violence to the fundamental nature of our own subjective experience of the labyrinth as such? Are internav ethics unethical? Does approaching the labyrinth in such a way that it is not "in each case mine" threaten to void or alter the integrity of the being of the labyrinth?

Important questions indeed, and ones about which I would like to hear more discussion. Thoughts?

Klemens Logewnik: A Brief Introduction to an Important Figure

Upon learning the extent to which the thought of Kraków-based labyrinthologist Klemens Logewnik proved to be formative for Philip Cunha’s post-New Constructivist onto-labyrinthology, I resolved to learn more about the rather obscure 20th century thinker. Much to my consternation however, Logewnik’s publications are precious few, limited to several untranslated articles which were published in Polish and Czechoslovakian labyrinthology journals in the 1940's. I asked Cunha if, time allowing, he might be able to provide to me with something of an “essential Logewnik,” and, to my delight, he responded this morning, sending me an email containing a handful of extremely edifying passages from Logewnik’s lectures, articles, and notebooks, two of which I’ve posted below.

From Cunha’s reverent words about the seminars which he remains grateful to have been able to participate in, and the labyrinthological positions articulated in the passages which I’ve been fortunate enough to read, it is clear that Logewnik should be considered a vital figure in neo-exteriorism and recognized as a major catalyst in Western labyrinthology’s turn away from constructivism.

Logewnik was writing at a time when New Constructivism was in full swing, spurred on by the acerbic, polemical writings of Fiser and Anvar. Labyrinthologies which focused on issues of centrality and exteriorism were very unpopular at this time, but despite this virtually hostile critical climate, Logewnik lectured and published articles on such progressive topics as intersubjective navigation (effectively coining the term "internav"), decentralization, egression and bio/eco-labyrinthology. Take for example the following passage, excerpted from an article entitled “Na Ciałach w Labiryncie” (“On Bodies in the Labyrinth”), published in 1946 in the Polish labyrinthology journal Korytarze:

“We cannot, as Fiser maintains, endeavor to separate our corporeal experience of the terrain of the labyrinth from whatever psychical understanding of its structure that we may possess. Our experience of centrality is not a purely cognitive phenomenon. Our body and senses are bound up in the naturally occurring przyciągać centrum ("draw of the center") to the same extent that our minds are. On the subject of decentralization, a notion which proves particularly problematic for the interiorist project, I argue that only in extreme cases of deficient navigation should such drastic measures be taken. It seems to me that it is far better to experience authentically the center’s magnetism; only in the most dire navigatory circumstances should egression be our principal focus.” (trans. Cunha)

In a lecture from the Spring term of 1973, Logewnik addresses the question of intersubjectivity in labyrinth navigation, an important topic on which much ink has been spilled in the last several years. He writes,

"How may we understand the Other as he exists with us within the passageways of the labyrinth? Is it possible to experience proper empathy within the labyrinth? Does our perception of the Other as subject change or remain consistent? To answer such questions, we must determine whether or not the world of the labyrinth, and our subjective experiences of this world as they occur within its walls, are open to the possibility of being shared. I argue that within the labyrinth, the same basic structure of the intersubjective exists, but that it operates in a distinct way. Moreover, I argue that intersubjective navigation is the foundation of labyrinth ethics as such. To understand the labyrinth as an intersubjective domain alters one's subjective experience of its object-ness. The labyrinth is no longer something which is in each case mine, but something which belongs to myself and to the Other with equal priority." (trans. Cunha)

I anticipate critical interest in Logewnik will surge with Cunha's rising popularity in international labyrinth circles. I asked him if he had any plans to edit or translate Logewnik's lectures and notebooks. He responded that while he has not endeavored into such projects, he would not be opposed. I for one will be waiting with bated breath.

In Memoriam: Philip Ambrose Walker (The Early Years)

My fellow labyrinthians, today a sun sets behind the great, slate monolith that erstwhile defined the center of modern labyrinthology. It is my solemn and somber task to inform you that Phillip Ambrose Walker passed away around 3:00AM this Friday, December 12th.

His beloved wife Johanna, eldest daughter Rosemarie, eldest son Gerald, and youngest son Alistair survive him, as does his prized basset hound Winder, who was always seen astride and abreast Mr. Walker late in his life. Only Alistair is taking up his father's mantle. He's currently writing his dissertation in labyrinthology at Oxford University in Oxfordshire, England. Alistair has tentatively titled his dissertation Obstruction and Permission: An Exegesis of Enclosure and Disclosure in the Labyrinth.

Philip Ambrose Walker was born on January 17, 1925 in Exeter, the county town of Devon in England. As a young child, Philip became enamored with Thomas Bulfinch's seminal Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Fable or Stories of Gods and Heroes. His father, Benjamin Walker, a poor, uneducated cobbler, secretly saved a few sixpences every month until he was able to purchase the text, through which Philip learned to read and write, as well as build a foundation in Greco-Roman literature considered essential for a proper education in the times. But one story particularly fascinated the young Walker—the legend of the Minotaur's Labyrinth. As Walker biographer Sheldon Browne explains in Walker as Walker:

"The myth was formative for the young Walker. Not only did it plant the first seed for his lifelong love of labyrinths, but it also laid the philosophical foundation for his labyrinthological framework. While Walker gave much credence to the theories that emerged after World War II, he staunchly believed that the history and mythology were far stronger ports of entry into understanding the labyrinth. Curiously, it was not Daedalus or Theseus with whom he most identified. It was Icarus. The hubris, the overreaching, but also the grand endeavor, was both cautionary and inspiring for Walker throughout his career. The idea of wings—the ultimate boundary circumvention—haunted Walker, but perhaps also represented the notion of liberation from lostness that dominated Walker's investigations" (Paragone Press, 2006, 24).

The next formative moment in the life of Phillip Ambrose Walker occurred on a family vacation—a rare event for the Walker family—to Aberdeen, Scotland. During the holiday, the Walker family visited the Stocket Hedge Labyrinth. To his terror, Walker, a quiet, introverted, and claustrophobic boy of ten years, was separated from his family as they wandered the hedges. Alone, lost, helpless, Walker navigated his way to the center, where he reunited with his distraught mother, father, and siblings. Walker has extensively reflected on this moment, and declares the experience "instilled in me my dual terror of and romance with the center. I think my fixation with man's condition of lostness was cemented in the ordeal. The egress, the return to the perimeter has always represented for me, personally and theoretically, some glimmer of redemption. Even late in my life, I still relive my first confrontation with lostness, and I still relive the great ecstasy on arriving back at the perimeter. It's primordial."

At 17, Walker left his family to begin studies in Florence, Italy, where he would meet some of the great labyrinthologists of mid-century—and where, in his Roman excavations, he would become one of the great labyrinthologists himself.

Philip Ambrose Walker, 17, in Florence, Italy.

It's a sad day for labyrinthians, a passing of an era, but I hope this first installment of Walker's retrospective will inspire all of us to continue navigation and labyrinthology not only as activities and studies, but as ways of life.

Await the next installment, "The Birth of a Monolith."

Thursday Evening Open Thread

I've been thinking quite a bit about egression (the act of leaving a labyrinth after reaching the center) in the wake of much serious conversation with fellow CLP member John K. I'm curious to know if anyone has any thoughts on the ethics of egression. The principal issue that I've been grappling with concerns whether it is more or less ethical to return to the perimeter via the same route that one initially navigated on his way to the center. After hours of reflection, I'm still unsure about which method (taking a decidedly new route or tracing one's steps back to the perimeter) is the more ethical and the better suited to a properly primordial navigatory experience.


I'd love to hear any thoughts people might have on this issue.

Interview with Philip Cunha

As John K. noted in his post below, according to many conference goers, a young labyrinthian named Philip Cunha made quite a first impression at this year’s Contemporary Labyrinth Association (CLA) summit in the city of Głogów in his native Poland this past weekend. I caught up with Cunha via Google video chat on Monday. We discussed what he views as the most urgent crisis in post-constructivist labyrinth criticism: technology and subversive navigation (SN), and discussed briefly his upcoming Black Thicket publication: On the Question of Techné and Subversive Navigation.

Alex: Hey there Philip, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Thanks so much for talking with me. How are you?

Philip: Greetings Alex, thanks for getting in touch. I'm doing well. I’m back in Vila Real now, just getting settled in after a great weekend in Głogów.

Alex: It certainly does sound like it was a productive conference, I know all of us at CLP really regret not being able to make it out this year. You’re something of a newcomer to the international labyrinthology community. I wonder, could we perhaps start by having you tell our readers a bit about yourself, your critical interests, and how you came to study labyrinths?

Philip: Surely. I suppose my “introduction” to labyrinths occurred when I was five years old. I went to visit my aunt in Warsaw and my cousin took me to a hedge maze on the outskirts of the city. I wandered for hours in between the boundaries, mesmerized by the draw of the center, but even at that young age I was rigorously committed to the sanctity of what I would later understand is true ethical navigation. I see from your smile that you know something of what I’m speaking about.

Alex: Indeed I do, Philip. I had a similar experience myself as a child in Vermont. Wonderful, enchanting, seminal.

Philip: Very much so. Anyway, as I grew older my focus never waned from labyrinths. I'm still to this day grateful that my parents recognized my aptitude and passion for labyrinthology and permitted me to travel to Kraków to study with the estimable Klemens Logewnik.

Alex: Now tell me, how did you come to be interested in the rather new field of subversive navigation?

Philip: Interestingly enough, I suppose I can attribute my rather specialized interest in SN to the fact that from early adolescence on, I was always very intrigued by and conflicted about ARDF (editors note: Amateur Radio Direction Finding). As you may or may not know, ARDF is something of a popular sport in Poland, akin I think to your lacrosse in terms of its appeal. Anyway, in ARDF competition, competitors make use of magnets, compasses, and radios, Morse code and different types of attenuators. In short, many of the same gadgets that have come to serve as tools to subversive labyrinth navigators in recent times. Competitors make their way through dense wooded areas with the aid of this equipment. I was always awed by the competitors’ trek through the convoluted forests, but I could never quite condone their use of technology to facilitate their successes. I suppose I’m galvanized by this same Heideggerian attitude toward technology as it applies to labyrinth navigation. Just as Aaldi and the Medial School sought to explain away the mysteries of the labyrinth, I view SN devices and, to an extent, the labyrinthological project of Stephon Crete, as endeavors which aim to demystify and expose the fundamental absences that are innate to the essential being of labyrinths.

Alex: This puts you in definite agreement with many of the anti-New Constructivist arguments put forth by Bernhard Smallencroft.

Philip: Absolutely. Smallencroft’s work on eco-labyrinthology, contemporary labyrinth ethics, and boundary circumvention have had a formative influence on me, to be sure.

Alex: Could you tell me a bit about your treatise On the Question of Techné and Subversive Navigation that has, as I understand it, been picked up for publication by Black Thicket?

Philip: I'd be happy to. The manuscript was finished last fall, during a sabbatical from teaching at Tras-os-Montes. The text is broken into two divisions. In the first, I address my fundamental problems with SN. Many contemporary labyrinthians, as you well know, argue that SN is not necessarily a bad thing. They view the use of technology within the labyrinth progressionistically, as a natural development of properly futural navigation. In opposition to this view, I argue that this use of technology does violence to the essential being of labyrinths as such, and therefore constitutes an urgent crisis which we labyrinthians must address.

In the second half of the text, I voice my call for a re-enchantment of labyrinths and labyrinthology. I posit decentralization as a potential vehicle for such a quantum gestalt shift. By decentralization I do not mean engaging in what Smallencroft refers to as an inauthentic navigation of the labyrinth, in which we willfully disregard the beck and call of the center. Rather, my project endeavors to reverse the fundamental, longstanding binarism that plagues labyrinth navigation: the privileging of the arrival and the disregarding of the departure. I argue that by assigning equal priority to our experience of departing the labyrinth/returning to the perimeter, we make significant steps towards the recovery of a suitably authentic (in Smallencroft’s sense of the word) navigational sensibility.

Alex: I must say Philip, that is a very interesting and bold thesis indeed. Thank you very much for elucidating it for us. I know all of us here at CLP look forward to hearing more from you in the future. Thanks again for your time, it’s been a true pleasure.

Philip: Thank you so much, Alex. Keep up the good, inspired work at CLP. I hope to hear from you all soon.

Keep it up!

As many readers may have noticed earlier today, it turns out that there is a labyrinth in the works for the Cincinnati Riverfront Park. This is wonderful news for the CLP, right? Wrong, dreadfully wrong. When Alex and I got together this morning to discuss the matter we were initially left with a sense of listlessness. "Where do we go from here?" we asked ourselves. For all intents and purposes we should view this as a victory, he claimed. I must respectfully disagree. We have only made it halfway across the bridge, dear labyrinth enthusiasts. We began this organization to do these two things:

1. Sell the Bengals

2. Build a labyrinth in Paul Brown Stadium

Checking one of those off the list is not a victory. We must soldier forth, never allowing ourselves to be distracted from our TWO main objectives. There is enough room in this city for two labyrinths, and the one we are proposing will be one built on a much greater scale and with greater meaning contained in its twisting stone caverns. If you think that this is some sort of win for the CLP, I urge you to refer back to our original mission statement. I, and the rest of the CLP, stand by those words unwaveringly. The CRP can have their labyrinth. In fact, it will be a welcome little sister to the one contained within Paul Brown Stadium. Never let up Cincinnati labyrinth enthusiasts! If anything, this proves that there is a market for our cause!

Subversive Navigation: Open Thread

After the 2008 CLC in Poland, Alex and I have been communicating with Philip Cunha, whose superb lectures on the crisis of subversive navigation (SN) are galvanizing all schools of contemporary labyrinthology--and are positioning him as one of the next major voices in the field.

Before discussing Cunha's groundbreaking work in subversive navigation, we wanted to afford our valued CLP readers, visitors, and commentators the chance to share their opinions on the crisis of SN.

For those of you unfamiliar with the topic, SN (as opposed to BC, or boundary circumvention) comprises a family of navigational practices including, but not limited to:

• Marking; also known as "dropping bread crumbs," this practice involves leaving signs, posts, or objects to guide walkers on the navigation back to the perimeter and for future navigations
  
• Overheading; this practice involves flying over labyrinths in order to identify the center and thereafter mapping out routes
  
• Positioning; a recent phenomenon, this practice determines positional coordinates, and employs GPS technologies to "clue" a walker to the center
• Chatter-plotting; a practice utilized by teams, this form of subversive navigation involves walkers pursuing different routes ("flanking") and communicating via cell phones or two-way radios to work towards the center

What are your thoughts on SN? Are these practices ethical? Or do they fundamentally question labyrinth integrity?

Bengals Tender Funds for Labyrinth

Irony is a dish best served by the Bengals. The Business Courier reports that the troubled franchise recently presented the Cincinnati Park Board with a corporate check for $250,000 in support of an upcoming project on the riverfront. Here's the rub, the Courier reports that the project, among other things, will include a labyrinth.

The CLP was never contacted about a proposed labyrinth, nor have we heard from our colleagues in the industry regarding a labyrinth project on the riverfront. Having said that, we are somewhat dubious that the Park Board intends to build a real labyrinth. Nonetheless, the CLP will withhold official judgment on this development while we do some digging on the proposed project. Certainly readers, more to come.

Read link

More Highlights from CLC, Poland 2008

As Alex's post illuminated, Bernhard Smallencroft's keynote address, "Navigational Discipline: The Ethics of 2D Labyrinths," voiced many of the dominant notes from this year's annual Contemporary Labyrinthology Conference in Poland. But our colleague Czeslaw Gorski shared a number of other fascinating—nay, alarming—presentations and panels that attending labyrinthologists are still buzzing about. A new addition to the CLC, Labyrinth Conservation, trumpeted a poignant call to arms.

Paddock Lawley (England), Bao Rong (China), and Christa Ayodele (Mauritania): "Endangered Labyrinths"

In this presentation, rising biolabyrinthologist Lawley teamed up with ecolabyrinthologist Bao and cultural labyrinth historian Ayodele to report on the distressing ramifications of deforestation: the endangerment of tropical labyrinths. Lawley and Bao explained that these rarest of labyrinths, which emerged over thousands of years of co-evolution, serve a critical symbiosis among flora, fauna, and the remote tribes that dwell within the jungles. Deforestation is threatening the future of these labyrinth ecosystems, and Ayodele passionately warned that the destruction of these labyrinths will result in the loss not only of tropical plants and animals, but also the tribes that depend on the labyrinth ecosystem.

The images below tell the disturbing tale:















A passageway way in a Bolivian tropical labyrinth in 1999.
















The same passageway, from the reverse port of entry, today.

We at the CLP can help to end this dreadful loss of labyrinth ecosystems: the construction of the Paul Brown Labyrinth can raise the direly needed awareness for this disturbing trend.

Smallencroft Keynote Speech, Głogów Contemporary Labyrinthology Conference 12/6/08

This year's annual Contemporary Labyrinthology Association (CLA) summit took place in Głogów, Poland this past weekend. Unfortunately, no CLP members were able to make the trip. Lucky for us though, my collegue Czeslaw Gorski was able to record Bernhard Smallencroft's excellent keynote speech, an excerpt of which I've posted below. As usual, Smallencroft is clear and too the point, largely eschewing the jargon-laden discourse of his peers. His accessible style is most welcome in the world of labcrit. This year's conference focused on Dimensionality and Labyrinth Ethics. Smallencroft's address tackles the issue of the ethical demands of the two-dimensional labyrinth.

“The importance of dimensionality in both labyrinth construction and navigation cannot be overstated. Aside from obvious visual and aesthetic distinctions that exist between the two dimensional labyrinth and its more elaborate and interactive three dimensional counterpart, the essential nature of the 2D labyrinth provides us with a important opportunity to once again place labyrinth ethics under the microscope.

Let us examine first the being of the classical, 3D labyrinth. Its foreboding, monolithic structure and mathematical purity call out to us, entreating us to explore its manifold corridors. As I’ve argued elsewhere, the labyrinthian’s focused predilection to centrality is part and participle of human nature, and not the result of any discursive binarism. Simply put, while it is true that the navigation of the labyrinth is an essential part of its structure and must be treated as such, the allure of the center is not a phenomenon that need be avoided nor decried. From the perimeter of the 3D labyrinth, our experience of the center is, of course, mediated by boundaries innumerable. In short, it is a relationship marked by a rather extreme degree of occlusion.

What then is the essential nature of centrality and navigation in the case of the 2D labyrinth? You might be given to wonder - is our experience of centrality in these labyrinths so different? While it is true that our attitude towards the center is consistent in the case of both types of labyrinths, the 2D labyrinth brings with it a unique test of the labyrinthian’s ethics. Here, we are able, at all times, to see the center and our path to reach it without obstruction. Moreover, we are always able to immediately access the center. Boundary circumvention is as simple as walking easily over top of a painted border or small pile of gravel. As such, our proximity to the center is altered in manifold ways.

How different it is to stoically walk between the painted or stone laid boundaries of a 2D labyrinth, seeing both the labyrinth in its totality and, with complete transparency, our path to the center. The 2D labyrinth forces us to reevaluate our morality by way of the personal decision we must make which determines whether we will navigate said labyrinth in the same manner as we would a more complex, 3D labyrinth, or succumb to the alluring temptation of taking the quickest, easiest course to the center.”

The Medial School

This rare daguerreotype photograph captures the principal five labyrinthians of the Medial School - Aaldi, of course, on the far right.

Left to right: Bohumir Šťastný, Pēteris Ozols, Valdis Reede, Achrif Laarbi, Kalev Aaldi

Crete Sneak Peak

John K. and I have both been in talks with a book rep at Paragone Press, and it looks like the publication of Stephon Crete's highly anticipated new text Procodic Boundaries: On the Ballast of the Perimeter is closer than we initially thought. Apparently Crete finished the manuscript this past autumn and there is now a tentative publication date of June 16, 2009. Good news for labyrinthians! Scott, the rep at Paragone, was good enough to send over a .tiff of the jacket for our perusal.



We hope to be able to post an exclusive excerpt from the text in the near future.

Open Thread

What kind of stone(s) should the CLP recommend for the Paul Brown Labyrinth?

As a locolabyrinthian, I suggest we look to Cincinnati's endemic geology. Also, we need to keep in mind Cincinnati's seasonality, i.e. weathering and erosion. Please share your personal recommendations.

Labyrinths and Theism

Recently, the CLP office has been abuzz with a host of concerned e-mails and phone calls regarding the incorporation of the labyrinth in "occult" rituals. I have personally contacted many of you who have written in with questions such as "Are labyrinths Satanic?" or "Why do wiccans love labyrinths?" or "Is a massive stone labyrinth in Paul Brown Staidum offensive to my Christian/Moslem belief structure?"

This is a subject on which much has been written, but for purposes of brevity, I will attempt to answer these questions as succinctly as possible.

The labyrinth as an archetype has been accepted and celebrated by nearly every major theology, including those that have since ceased to exist. This is only logical. Labyrinths largely predate every major religion. In the modern era, early labyrinths have been discovered in all the popular "cradles" of civilization, whether Mesopotamia (labyrinth GS918 located near the Iraq/Iran border), North Africa (labyrinth HU292, popularly referred to as the King's Eye labyrinth, located in Morocco), and the Asiatic regions (labyrinth GT221, in Bhutan). Accordingly, labyrinths, in both a physical and psychical sense, have firmly established roots in all major and minor human theisms.

In terms of Christianity, the labyrinth is an accepted and celebrated archetype. Early cathedrals often employed some form of labyrinthine structure. The labyrinth motif was brilliantly espoused in Bunyan's allegory The Pilgrim's Progress. More recently, the prayer journey, where the individual paces the pathways of the labyrinth in a meditative prayer state, has enjoyed a resurgence in Christian use.

It is true that neopagans, at least in modern times, have most visibly embraced the labyrinth as a psychical doorway to exploration of their belief structure. However, to say that the labyrinth is unique to Wicca, or any other religion, would be a gross mis-step.

Ultimately, the labyrinth is offensive to no religion, and inclusive of all. You may rest assured that a massive stone labyrinth in Paul Brown Stadium would pose no threat to an individual's religious identity. The labyrinth, by its nature, represents the human struggle, the unaswered questions. It encourages and envigorates theistic exploration.

Further reading: Dedal, Charles, Labyrintheism: Pathways to God, Oak Press, 8th ed. 2002, NY.