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."