Labyrinth Hooping: How to Hoop Your Way to a Solution

Labyrinth Hooping:
How to Hoop Your Way to A Solution

Appearing throughout time and across disparate cultures, Labyrinths have long been thought to have been used
for meditation and prayer. In its more recent resurgence in our culture, modern labyrinth makers have put a great
deal of focus on labyrinth walking as an effective tool for intuitive problem-solving. My own intense interest in
these ancient patterns has brought me to think about how we might borrow this idea and turn our hoops into
powerful problem-solving tools.

Though methods vary widely, the general structure of walking a labyrinth to find solutions to problems you are
experiencing can be divided into three steps.

Carefully word your problem in the form of a question. Ideally, you will want to formulate your question as
positively as possible. Instead of "Why don't I ever have enough time to do everything?," for example, you
might ask yourself, "How can I better organize my time to get more done?"
Begin walking the labyrinth with your question in mind. Focus on how you feel about the difficulty you are
experiencing and how it has come to be at the forefront of your worries.
When you reach the center of the labyrinth and begin the return path, shift your focus to solutions to your
question. These may come in the form of images or impressions. By the time you exit the labyrinth, you
should have a better understanding of your question and how to best address it.

Labyrinth Hooping. To get the benefits of labyrinth walking from your hoop, you won't need to create an external
labyrinth. In a quiet space, sit across from your hoop and formulate a meaningful question for yourself. Begin
hooping with your question in mind. When you feel yourself naturally beginning to shift your focus to solutions,
switch directions (or currents) and be attentive to the things that come to mind, letting them wash over you until
you sense that it is time to put your hoop down. When you have completed your "hoop labyrinth," you may like to
sit quietly inside your hoop for a few moments, or you may feel like rocking it out for a while!

Why change currents? It is thought that the constant turning of the body while following the meandering path of a
labyrinth aids in summoning both your left and right brains. As you switch directions, it is believed you create a
state which draws from both your unconscious and conscious, striking a balance between your logical and
intuitive minds. If you are not comfortable hooping in your non-dominant direction for more than a few seconds at
a time, feel free to adapt this formula to include short spurts of direction changes. Alternately, you may try
experimenting with switching back and forth throughout your labyrinth hooping session.

More Variations. So far, I've found that hooping with a larger, slower hoop is most effective for me. I hoop as
slowly and simply as possible (waist hooping only and some turning with my hoop in both hands - both
overhead and around my body). Laying out candles in a large circle around my hooping space heightens my
experience, as well as playing soft/ambient music.

But there is no right or wrong way to play with the idea of labyrinth hooping, of course. I'll be continuing my own
experiments all week and sharing them on the Hooposophy Facebook page. If you try it out, or already practice
something similar, please share your experience there or in the comments below- I'd love to hear it.

I've also got plans to hoop-walk an actual labyrinth! Check out the sidebar on the right to find one near you.