Labyrinth at Saint Mark's Episcopal Cathedral (Seattle)
Seattle, Washington, United States
On the hill above Lake Union, St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral keeps a permanent outdoor labyrinth on its Green, walked by the cathedral community and the neighborhood in one of Seattle's most open churchyards.
On the hill above Lake Union, St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral keeps a permanent outdoor labyrinth on its Green, walked by the cathedral community and the neighborhood in one of Seattle's most open churchyards. The building's famous Nave and the labyrinth together made the hill a contemplative landmark. The Labyrinth Locator's record lists it as a Medieval 11-circuit Chartres replica; installed 2018.
Every labyrinth is a walking practice, not a puzzle: a single path winds to a center and back out, and the walk is done slowly, as prayer or meditation. The pattern descends from the medieval pavement labyrinth at Chartres, and the modern urban revival began in the 1990s when Lauren Artress brought replicas of that path to American congregations and public grounds through Veriditas and the Labyrinth Society, whose World-Wide Labyrinth Locator now catalogs thousands. There is no branching and no trick to the path; walkers of every religion and none use it.
Visiting
saintmarks.org carries the site's own information and schedule.
Photo: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seattle-St-Marks-Cathedral-east-3139.JPG), CC BY-SA.
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