Finding inner calm

Mind Moves:The first time Ariadne saw Theseus, that hero-slayer of the Minotaur, she fell instantly in love. She watched him disembark from the boat that had brought him and other youths from Athens, as food for the Minotaur. He was about to enter the treacherous labyrinthine structure where the creature was hidden and risk his life to free his peers from the threat of death.

Ariadne vowed in that moment to help him, to provide him with a skein of linen thread to map his path safely into and out from the labyrinth's core. But first she would extract a pledge from Theseus that he would take her away from Crete and make her his wife.

The mythical tale of Theseus's heroism in the labyrinth seems to work for humans, across time and across cultures. We resonate with its symbolism; we find it easy to see parallels between his courage to step into dangerous territory and the challenges we face as we step into spaces in our own lives that we might rather avoid.

Although we may be encouraged and supported by another, ultimately, we too must make the journey alone. And afterwards, when we make it safely back to the everyday world in which we live, there is often a pledge to be honoured; someone to be thanked, some promise to be fulfilled, a new course in our lives to be embraced.

Civilisations with radically different creeds and colour have retained the labyrinth, although its physical appearance is very different from the underground layer of the Minotaur.

The labyrinth that remains popular today is mostly a seven-circuit concentric circle (although in Chartres Cathedral it comprises 11 circuits) that is used for a variety of purposes.

It offers many people a way of gradually moving their consciousness from the external world to their inner world, as they walk the path from the outer edge to the inner centre of the labyrinth.

This process echoes the journey of the mythological hero which, as Joseph Campbell tells us, "is inward - into depths where obscure resistances are overcome, and long lost, forgotten powers are revivified".

People enter the outer circuit of the labyrinth, generally with some explicit intention, ie to be more open, to put down a burden they have carried for too long, to find clarity of mind, etc. Walking a labyrinth people describe how they find solutions to problems in their lives arise as their minds are calmed down by the pattern of turning left and turning right into each new circuit.

The journey to the labyrinth's centre becomes for many people an outer expression of a more personal journey to their own centre.

On a recent visit to South Africa, I stayed for the second time in a hermitage atop Hogsback Mountain. Each morning I walked a labyrinth - built by my host from stones and modelled on the labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral - which was within feet of the cabin where I stayed. I used this ritual to slow my mind down and bring my awareness back to fundamentals.

I learned to walk each circuit calmly, to drop expectations of dramatic revelations and simply be open to my life however it was in that moment. I discovered a new appreciation of simple activities, and how they can open our minds to important truths, when they are executed with care and attention.

There wasn't a Minotaur in sight, but each walk was an adventure in its own way as the cries and whispers of my own being came into focus.

The words of Joseph Campbell - an anthropologist who has documented the archetypal hero's journey more than any other - carried me forward: "Furthermore," Campbell wrote, "we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path.

"And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the centre of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world."

Tony Bates is founder director of Headstrong - The National Centre for Youth Mental Health.