My Spiritual Journey: Circling the Spiral

Abstract

This article discusses the significance of the dreams and synchronicities that led to an exploration of labyrinths and mandalas and to my being called to participate in pilgrimage. My call has led me to explore the deeper psychological motivations and symbolism involved in the pilgrim experience from antiquity through modernity in the Western tradition. Turner (1982), a cultural anthropologist who formulated many influential theories related to Western Christian pilgrimage, postulated that comparative symbology, “both in regards to the subject,” e.g., her/his dreams, and to the persons “s/he is leaving and joining”, e.g. their myths, could be a fruitful avenue for further study (p. 26). The first section of this article shares how my unconscious self guided me to the medieval labyrinth of Chartres Cathedral in France and discusses labyrinths as an ancient form of mandala connected with Greek mythology and the Minoan civilization. The second section delves into Jung's discernment of the mandala as an archetypal symbol representing wholeness, divinity, and the Self for individuation, and elaborates on the metaphor that associates the mandala form with nature as an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.