FINDING CENTER: One Woman’s Successful Quest to Create a Labyrinth in Phoenix Park
now in its 20th summer, the labyrinth has brought benefits – expected and unexpected
Twenty years ago, as the City of Eau Claire pondered what to put in the still-nascent Phoenix Park, numerous ideas were suggested for the new public space: A boat landing. Softball fields. Walking trails. A farmers market.
One idea, advocated by a small but dedicated group of spiritually focused locals, was to create a labyrinth on the former industrial site at the confluence of the Eau Claire and Chippewa rivers.
From ancient Greece (where the term “labyrinth” originates) to medieval cathedrals to contemporary times, humans have sought spiritual renewal and healing through labyrinths for millennia. And it was around the turn of the millennium that JoAnn Klink of Eau Claire learned about labyrinths, and decided to help create one in Eau Claire.
“If they place their hopes and desires there,” she says of those who walk a labyrinth, “they may bring about new possibilities in their lives that they haven’t thought about before.”
During a recent conversation in her Eau Claire home, Klink recalled the long, circuitous journey that led to the creation of the Phoenix Park labyrinth. She first learned about labyrinths as a tool for prayer while a member of a small group at her church, First Congregational United Church of Christ in Eau Claire. The group sought out labyrinths at churches in the Twin Cities, and Klink later frequently walked a canvas labyrinth at the now defunct Saint Bede Center in Eau Claire, a retreat operated by Catholic nuns.
“If they place their hopes and desires there, they may bring about new possibilities in their lives that they haven’t thought about before.”
STEADFAST ADVOCACY
Klink dreamed – literally and figuratively – about creating a public labyrinth in Eau Claire. Its physical and psychological benefits would be available to everyone, not just spiritual seekers in churches. She formed a committee, the Labyrinth Advocacy Group, to promote the idea. At the same time, the city was getting serious about developing what would become Phoenix Park, the former site of Phoenix Steel, which had been purchased in 1981.
Over the course of three years, Klink and the committee – which included Dennis Eikenberry, a volunteer and member of the city’s Waterways and Parks Commission – promoted, pushed, and planned for a labyrinth in the new park. They discussed it at public forums and even drew a chalk labyrinth on the ground during the International Fall Festival downtown so curious visitors could experience walking one – a meditative process in which a person follows the narrow, sinuous path to the middle of the labyrinth, then traces the same steps outward.
Ultimately, the labyrinth, coupled with a natural amphitheater and adjacent plantings, was added to the Phoenix Park plans. While it was on public property, the committee raised $50,600 from private donors to build the labyrinth. Among the largest donors was local philanthropist Mark Phillips, who passed away in 2017. His father, Louis L. Phillips, owned Phoenix Steel, which was once located on the park site.
“The city officials really went along with this whole idea,” Klink says appreciatively.
The effort came to fruition when the labyrinth’s stones were laid in June 2005, making this the 20th summer that the Chippewa Valley has enjoyed the beautiful space.
The Phoenix Park Labyrinth’s shape is based upon a traditional seven-circuit labyrinth with slight modifications. It was designed by local artist Amberlee Capra, and the shaded concrete paving stones were cut by hand by Marty Kermeen, an Illinois-based labyrinth builder. Lisa Gidlow Moriarty, a nationally recognized labyrinth creator from Stillwater, Minnesota, served as a consultant.
LISTENING TO YOUR HEART
So what, exactly, is a labyrinth for?
While the words “maze” and “labyrinth” may be used as synonyms, in actuality they are quite different, Klink explains. Mazes are meant to confuse: They contain multiple paths, only one of which will lead to the destination. In a labyrinth, by contrast, there is just a single path. While it may twist and turn, sometimes bringing you closer to your destination, sometimes farther away, eventually it will bring you to the center you seek.
“I like for people to realize that it’s not a maze,” she says. “You don’t go in and run into a roadblock.”
It’s an important symbolic difference: “If you follow that path, you will walk to the center. And when you get to the center, I visualize this then as a resting place. It’s a place that calls for your being quiet, listening to your heart and paying attention to your mind. … One can reside there as long as they’re comfortable in doing so. And then, simply walk the path back out, being energized for whatever it is that their continued path in life is to take.”
Naturally, not every walk through a labyrinth brings a spiritual epiphany. Klink’s first labyrinth walk brought no dramatic revelations. “It took many more times of walking it to begin getting that absorbed into my being,” she says. Like meditation or prayer, walking a labyrinth is meant to be a repeated practice.
“But you will, if you practice it over time, have more and more of those epiphanies, when you just know in your heart – to me it’s listening to your heart when you’re in there,” she says.
Klink continues: “That’s what I think is missing in society, is listening to one’s heart. There’s so many voices out there to listen to, that I think we miss listening to our own hearts about what we really have learned ourselves from our experiences in life.”
Taking time to listen in such quiet stillness is an increasing rarity in a smartphone-addled world, where the next stimulus or distraction is just a click away.
But if someone is looking to unwind, why not just take a walk?
“Well you could,” Klink acknowledges. “But is your attention focused on what we’ve been talking about here? What the labyrinth does is help to focus that attention on there being a higher power – however you’d like to name it – or a community of persons. But it helps you know that you’re not alone in this path in life. If you’re out on your individual walk, some of that is missing.”
BRINGING COMMUNITY TOGETHER
Nearly 20 years on, people still walk the labyrinth. But a lot else happens there, too: Among other things, the stone-ringed amphitheater has hosted Volume One’s own Sounds Like Summer Concert Series annually since 2006. Sometimes it’s a playground for little ones. Other times it hosts weddings, or provides seating for patrons of the nearby farmers and artists markets. It’s undeniably the centerpiece of a vibrant public space, and it’s hard to imagine Phoenix Park without it.
“I would have to say it’s different from what I had anticipated, but I’m not disappointed, because it’s brought the community together,” Klink says of the labyrinth’s current role. “I feel such great happiness when I go to a Thursday night concert, for example, and I see the children with their parents, and the children playing on the rocks, and everybody enjoying music. It’s a way of families of the community healing themselves.”
Klink herself still walks the labyrinth sometimes, though not as often as in the past because she doesn’t drive anymore. “My family has learned by now that when they come that’s one of the things I like to do,” she says of getting a ride downtown to the labyrinth.
Two decades later, the Phoenix Park Labyrinth is still a catalyst of inspiration for Klink – and, she hopes, for current and future generations as well.
“If one pays attention to their body,” she says, “as you walk out the idea is that you have left behind your anxieties and fears that were with you as you walked in.”
