As part of April’s Healing Ways Week, students built a stone-lined labyrinth at the Organic Farm to be used in walking meditations. “We wanted to involve our community in making a public art installation that can be used for ongoing contemplaton, practice, and study,” explains Associate Professor of English and Africana Studies Valorie Thomas, one of the orgqanizers of the weeklong event.
Titled “Healing Ways: Decolonizing Our Minds, Our Bodies, Ourselves,” the series of healing-related events also included workshops, lectures, practitioner presentations, art, and performance focused on healing and social justice.“We particularly intended to offer support to students who have been feeling traumatized and stressed by current social events and who are shouldering the work of doing critical thinking and activism,” says Thomas.
In an informal ceremony following the completion of the first stage of labyrinth construction, Thomas (above) stepped to the center of the labyrinth to read a passage from Jorge Luis Borges’ short story, “The Garden of Forking Paths,” which she describes as “a meditation on labyrinths and the benefits of occasionally losing your way.”