Hi, Folks! Here's the article in today's (6/3) Philadelphia Inquirer. In the Chester County edition, we've got a mention on the front page and then we've above the fold (1st story) in the Local News section. There's also the labyrinth drawing from our brochure and two pictures of me at the labyrinth, one with Pepper!
Don't forget the labyrinth will be dedicated tomorrow (6/4) at 1 pm at the garden site (412 Fairview Street, Phoenixville, PA) with live music by Mib Campbell (keyboard) and her colleagues (flute and trumpet), presentations by State Representative Carole Rubley and Chester County Commissioner Dinniman's office and a formal thank-you to everyone who labored for the last year to create this gift to the community. Come join us and consider using the labyrinth as part of your daily routine for stress management and problem solving! Dorene Pasekoff, Coordinator St. John's United Church of Christ Organic Community Garden and Labyrinth A mission of St. John's United Church of Christ, 315 Gay Street, Phoenixville, PA 19460 **************************************************************************** http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsylvania/counties/c hester_county/11803086.htm Ancient tradition comes full circle in an urban field Behind a public housing project, a group has built a labyrinth, and hopes walkers can find peace there. By Reid Kanaley Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer A field behind a public housing project in Phoenixville seems an unlikely spot for reviving an ancient tradition. But it is just such a place at the north end of Fairview Street where volunteers, and dozens of teenage offenders doing community service, have been digging and planting for a year to create a labyrinth - a circuitous walking path that enthusiasts see as an age-old aid to meditation, prayer and self-reflection. "A labyrinth is a place of peace. We wanted to offer one in Phoenixville, because the world gets so frantic," Dorene Pasekoff, 43, the borough resident heading the project, said yesterday. For many people, the word labyrinth evokes tortuous mazes, dark passages and blind alleys. However, the Phoenixville labyrinth, like some in and around European cathedrals that date to Gothic times, is merely a path that winds around and around inside a circle that measures about 50 feet in diameter. The one in Phoenixville will be dedicated in a public ceremony at 1 p.m. tomorrow. Proponents say that, for the religious-minded, a labyrinth is a conduit of prayer. For others, a 15-minute walk around it, while concentrating on the path, clears the mind to meditate, solve problems, or deal with grief. "It's a journey, not a game," said Ed O'Neill, 49, Pasekoff's cousin, who said he had devoted much of the last year to the labyrinth project. He and Pasekoff are members of the church sponsoring the labyrinth and an adjoining community garden, Phoenixville's St. John's United Church of Christ. Labyrinths are coming back. A growing number of religious and community groups have installed them in the last few years in churchyards and gardens. A Web site, the World Wide Labyrinth Locator, lists about 1,600 labyrinths, including 60 in Pennsylvania and 37 in New Jersey. Veriditas, the San Francisco group that runs the Web site, calls itself "the voice of the labyrinth movement," and sells 36-foot-wide portable painted-canvas labyrinths for $3,300. Roberta Sautter, a spokeswoman for the group, said some hospitals and prisons had set up labyrinths. "A labyrinth gives you all the benefits of yoga, except you don't have to sit still," said Pasekoff. She conceded that the Phoenixville labyrinth was not pretty - yet. It amounts to a ditch with berms piled with wood shavings, newspaper and soil. Grass and perennial seedlings planted on the berms will take at least another year to cover the labyrinth in a carpet of green, she said. "It doesn't look like much now," said O'Neill. "But when it gets done, it'll last hundreds of years." Much of the work - laborious shoveling through shale to form the shallow walking path - has been done by about 60 teenagers from a program for first-time offenders run by the Christian Brothers' St. Gabriel's Hall in Audubon. "They've been working on this labyrinth for a year now," said Robyn Buseman, a program director at St. Gabriel's. "They get a sense of accomplishment, of pride that they're doing something positive for the community." The Phoenixville Community Health Foundation donated $3,000 for materials to build the labyrinth. "In Phoenixville, they really pulled that together very nicely, using different groups," said Lynne Texter of LabyrinthJourney, a six-year-old Glenside group that holds "labyrinth workshops" for a variety of organizations, churches, and retreat centers. The handful of labyrinths in Southeastern Pennsylvania include a brick path installed in 2003 at St. Asaphs Church on Conshohocken State Road in Bala Cynwyd, and a gravel walk at the Church of the Loving Shepherd on South New Street in West Chester. Loving Shepherd's pastor, D. John Woodcock, said yesterday that strangers showed up at the church every day at the church to walk the labyrinth, which opened just days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "It was a wonderful gift of healing for folks, and it was healing for us as we worked," Woodcock said. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact staff writer Reid Kanaley at 610-701-7637 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden
