This poster describes research findings, using grounded theory methodology, of a study with students at the community college level walking the labyrinth as a contemplative ritual in discovery of the Self. While crossing the threshold into the labyrinth, students enter a state of liminality, a space-time of creative potentiality in individual and communal human behavior in which they experience the concept of spirit—a developing consciousness towards self-knowledge. Although the labyrinth has three circular stages, walking it has no fixed meaning; rather, meaning is generated by the interplay of the walker with the labyrinth. Labyrinth walkers experience binaries, such as darkness & light, that generate a dialectic. This dialectical movement, whereby one’s initial state-of-being while walking to the center (thesis) gives way to an opposite state (anti-thesis). As a result of experiencing this spectrum, a creative reality (synthesis) to inwardly and outwardly realize an unknown Self-truth occurs.
