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.