Labyrinth at Descanso Gardens
Los Angeles, California, United States
In La Canada Flintridge's Descanso Gardens, a botanical institution grown from newspaper magnate property into public garden, a labyrinth sits among the camellia and oak collections. It is walked at garden hours, an agricultural estate's quiet turned into a public contemplative practice.
In La Canada Flintridge's Descanso Gardens, a botanical institution grown from newspaper magnate property into public garden, a labyrinth sits among the camellia and oak collections. It is walked at garden hours, an agricultural estate's quiet turned into a public contemplative practice. The Labyrinth Locator's record lists it as Medieval; installed 2022.
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
descansogardens.org carries the site's own information and schedule.
Photo: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Descanso_Gardens_(194726707).jpeg), CC BY-SA.
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