The Honu and the Labyrinth

The Honu, the Hawaiian green sea turtle, is worshipped as an ancestral spirit guide—the Aumakua—whose wisdom protects and leads through life. It is an embodiment of Mana, the life energy that comes from within.

It represents safety, good luck, and peaceful flow. The protective shell grants stability, strength, and security.

This long-lived creature is a symbol of immortality and of the eternal link between man, the land, and the sea.

Its relentlessness to travel thousands of miles shows endurance and perseverance. The Honu is the navigator that is able to find its way home, time and time again.

“You enter a maze to lose yourself and a labyrinth to find yourself”
– Walking a Sacred Path – Dr. Lauren Artress

Maze

With its many paths, entrances, and exits, dead ends and cul-de-sacs, a maze is a riddle to be solved. Sight and understanding are limited, logic is challenged, there are right and wrong choices. You can lose your way.

Labyrinth

Although tortuous and winding, the labyrinth’s single path will lead from the entrance to the center, and back. There are no right or left choices; you can only move forward or backwards. The path calls for your trust.

A labyrinth is an archetype, an ancient symbol that transcends religion, time, and cultures. It is a timeless metaphor for life: we are on a journey and we don’t know what we will encounter along the way. Although we know there is only one single path, the unexpected twists and turns create the feeling of not knowing where the path goes next. Just as in life.

Walking the labyrinth encapsulates the spiraling journey inside-out: as an evocative tool, it helps people see their lives in the context of a path, teaching valuable lessons about control, and the importance of letting go and being in the moment.

The labyrinth is labor intus: doing the inner work to come back home.