Meeting the Minotaur

Who do we meet at the labyrinth's centre?

Image by Greg Montani from Pixabay

Deep beneath the Palace of Minos in Knossos, Crete, the ground roars. Trapped in a labyrinth, a voracious beast, half-man and half-bull, demands a sacrifice of human flesh. In steps Theseus. Guided by Ariadne’s thread, he enters the underground maze, slays the Minotaur, and returns a hero.

That, at least, is the story we’ve been told about the labyrinth. In its time, the myth of Theseus bolstered Athenian dominance among ancient Greece’s warring city-states, casting its citizens as virtuous monster-slayers and victors over the darkness. In popular culture today, the Minotaur remains a symbol of the inhuman, a shadowy figure in our psyche that we should fight to overcome.

To enter the labyrinth is to meet the unknown. But at its heart, we find not a monster but the most fragile and vulnerable parts of ourselves that long to be brought into the light.

Encountering the labyrinth

I first encountered labyrinths almost twenty years ago. In a now familiar pattern, unprocessed trauma and crumbling resilience had sent me crashing out of a promising new job, and I needed a fresh perspective. Somehow, Lauren Artress’ book Walking A Sacred Path fell into my hands, and I started reading about her work at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral. A few months later, I boarded a plane to the West Coast.

Out of time and possibly out of my mind, I walked up the steps towards the cathedral, only to find it locked. But behind me, I spotted a sinuous stream of stones secured by a circle.

The labyrinth whispered to me. I stepped in. And I’ve never looked back.

Unlike a maze, which requires thinking to untangle, a labyrinth offers a single path that winds from the edge to the centre. With no decisions to make, I can trust my feet to carry me. Pausing at the centre, I turn and retrace my steps.

Walking the labyrinth is simple, yet my experience of it is profound. The medieval labyrinth is rooted in the history of pilgrimage. The modern revival grew initially as a response to the AIDS pandemic, creating space for communal grief and healing. The stages of walking the labyrinth—releasing, receiving, and returning—echo the patterns of ritual transformation. This singular path traverses so many aspects of my life.

Whether I enter a labyrinth with a question or an open mind, it has something to offer me. Sometimes, a walk is just a walk. But often, it is much more.

Finding my way

Since my first encounter in San Francisco, I’ve walked many labyrinths over the past two decades. Some are especially meaningful to me, like the ones at Willen Lake and Schumacher College, which I have walked on several occasions. I’ve sought outdoor labyrinths, finding them laid out in public parks and university campuses. Indoors at St David’s Cathedral in Wales, I walked in socks on a canvas labyrinth as the choir sang James McMillan’s O Radiant Dawn. Every step resonated in my body.

I love the labyrinth’s accessibility. Pilgrimage is a privilege, and I’ve rarely had the time and resources to separate myself from the demands of life and engage in an extended period of wandering. But the labyrinth asks only for little time and offers so much in return for my willingness to walk its path.

For a long time, I knew I wanted to offer this experience to others. So, earlier this year, I trained with Veriditas as a labyrinth facilitator. Lauren Artress led the workshops and shared deep wisdom from holding space for tens of thousands of walkers. Her work centres on the eleven-circuit Chartres labyrinth, a medieval blueprint that has become commonplace in the modern revival. But my mind was drawn to another path.

Long before intricate patterns were laid in the floors of medieval cathedrals, another style of labyrinth was commonplace. The oldest carvings of the classical labyrinth can be found on Galician rocks from around 4,000 years ago. Based on a simple seed pattern that is quickly learned and replicated, this symbol found its way across much of Europe, from mariner’s mazes on Baltic shores to turf structures in English fields. Its appearance on ancient Greek coins cemented its reputation as a Cretan labyrinth, but its origins are much older. The Worldwide Labyrinth Locator identifies over 2,000 ancient and modern classical labyrinths.

The joy of the classical labyrinth is its simplicity. Drawing it requires no experience in geometry. Since my training, I have started recreating it on beaches by dragging a stick through the sand. As I make my mark, I join a tradition that has spanned countless generations. The classical labyrinth offers a gateway to a shared walk through history.

Photo by Karl Barrett

The Minotaur’s sanctuary

With a fresh perspective on the labyrinth, I began to realise that the story of the Minotaur makes little sense. Classical labyrinths were almost always unicursal; branching, multicursal mazes, full of blind alleys and dead ends, emerged much later as intellectual puzzles in the gardens of the Renaissance period. Though we conflate the terms labyrinth and maze now, for much of our history, a labyrinth was a singular path. How could a monster be trapped when he must only follow his feet to freedom?

Whether the Minoan civilisation was lost to volcanic ash, invasion, or economic decline is unclear. But they left boundless evidence that the bull was a powerful symbol of their culture and beliefs. We know, too, that we should never trust history written by the victors. So perhaps there is another story lurking under the oft-told myth.

Imagine. Queen Pasiphaë’s devotion to her husband, King Minos, is only matched by her dedication to the sacred bull. Her yearning for divine inspiration fosters a deep connection with nature. Intimacy with the world brings life to her womb. Magic grows inside her.

As her belly swells, Minos worries—not for his wife or their relationship but for how her mysticism might be seen as madness. He determines to do all he can to keep his wife and her child safe, even if it means hiding them away from the world. So, he instructs the craftsman Daedalus to build the labyrinth as a sanctuary.

Pasiphaë is enamoured with the child she bears. She senses the divine spark in him and, seeing starlight in his eyes names him Asterion. Together, they travel into the heart of Daedalus’ labyrinth, safe in the earth beneath the palace. Shielded from the public gaze, Asterion grows and learns the secrets of his dual nature.

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

But as the years pass in his underground sanctuary, Asterion yearns for company. Bright young people are sent to spend time with him, and their raucous joy echoes from the labyrinth’s walls. The noise shakes the ground. Locals grow afraid, and whispers circulate about a monster beneath the palace hill.

Theseus comes to the labyrinth not as a liberator but as an intruder, breaching the sanctuary Minos had strived to maintain. The thread given to Theseus by Ariadne, Minos’ daughter, is not a heroic gift but a misguided betrayal that unravels her father’s protective scheme. Asterion has never needed to defend himself and falls to the invader’s brutal attack.

The blood-soaked Theseus escapes his crime with Ariadne in tow, but he soon abandons her. He returns home, and Athens greets a hero who slew a monster. Meanwhile, Minos and Pasiphaë mourn a missing daughter and a murdered son, one born of nature both human and divine, who would never see the night sky reflected in his starry eyes.

Meeting myself in the labyrinth

The myth of the Minotaur casts a long shadow, and in the early days, I sometimes felt anxiety before stepping onto the labyrinth's path. I readied myself to confront the difficulties that held me back in life. I entered the realm of my personal fully armed and prepared to fight.

Reimagining Asterion’s story encourages me to leave my sword behind and enter the sanctuary of the labyrinth with an open heart. There is treasure in the darkness if I am willing to look for it. I need only walk. And always, what I discover is not the monstrous Minotaur but some wounded and abandoned part of myself that longs to be made whole.

Sometimes, a walk is just a walk. But often, by stepping into the labyrinth, I cross a threshold into a place of mystery and magic. In the sanctuary, my heart can make room for the lost, the lonely, and the misunderstood. I can rediscover the joy of life and glimpse the starlight in my eyes. I can meet myself with kindness, take myself by the hand, and walk the path towards home.