The opening ceremony for the Centennial Park Labyrinth was held on 15^thSeptember, 2014. It was a spectacular spring day with a fierce blue sky. The field was already a hive of activity when I arrived, with dozens of people setting up the event – tethering a white tent for the dignitaries, placing huge speakers around the labyrinth and lining up chairs for hundreds of guests. I couldn’t quite believe it was happening. My whole body was vibrating like a tuning fork. It felt like a wedding day, the sacred union of the masculine and feminine within. Hovering on the edge of myself, my breath was shallow. I was sipping the air, afraid this glorious threshold might be snatched away at the last moment.

One the parklands team came over with questions about the seating arrangements. She was the only one who’d been kind to me during the whole project. Seeing how wild-eyed and wound up I was, she took my hands and met my gaze. We took a few deep, grounding breaths together then she calmly helped me go through her list.

It was hard to focus on details. I didn’t know if I wanted to weep with joy or howl with triumph. My sanctuary was becoming a public space – the umbilicus about to be cut and this dreamed child would belong to everyone and no one. All births require a letting go – releasing what we’ve carried into a world that needs it. My euphoria needed to be balanced by the solemnity of the ritual to be enacted.

Invited guests were starting to arrive: excited friends, donors, dignitaries, stonemasons, architects, parklands staff and the wisdom keepers decked out in their finery. The Monsignor in a white embroidered chasuble, the Anglican priest in a black cassock, the Imam in an elegant brown suit with a black kufi hat and the Buddhist monk draped in ochre robes. Eleven different faiths, one for each circuit of the labyrinth, to demonstrate the universal nature of the labyrinth.

I’d always wanted this sacred path to be opened by a woman who was in power but without political affiliation and was thrilled when The State Governor, Dame Marie Bashir, agreed to attend in her final week in office. She arrived at a stately pace in the official Rolls Royce and motorcade which drove onto the field and parked near the tent. The warmth of her greeting felt like a benediction – the kind older woman I needed beside me for this crossing into public space. We moved to our seats under the shade of the tent, and it began.

The CEO of the Parklands spoke about the dedication of all involved, then the Governor rose and talked about love being the only thing that mattered. Then it was my turn. Struggling to hold back tears, I stood at the podium, took a shuddering deep breath and looked around at the sea of faces that had come to witness this birth. I began with the story of that fleeting conversation between my friend Lucy and her friend Mary Ellen in the Albuquerque airport five long, winding years before. That brief interaction had led me to visit the labyrinth at the Grace Cathedral. I thanked the government authorities, the donors and those who had donated services and honoured the stonemason’s mastery in creating a work of public art more beautiful than I ever imagined.

“The great Persian poet Rumi, who happened to live at the same time as the labyrinth was being built in Chartres, said this; ‘Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there lies a field. I will meet you there.’ The labyrinth is just such a field. It’s a powerful tool for reconciling differences, reminding us that ultimately, we all walk the same path. It’s a rare and precious thing to find a symbol which is truly universal – which is able to hold and welcome people of all faiths. 

St Augustin said, ‘solvitur ambulando’ – which means ‘it is solved by walking’. We’ve all had moments when we wanted the world to stop, so we could gather ourselves and begin again. The labyrinth is the place for that – a watering hole for the spirit in times of anxiety or sorrow. A place to walk your way into the relative calm and clarity of the bigger picture.

As you’re walking the labyrinth today, be aware that you’re tracing an ancient blueprint, connecting you to all who have walked this pattern and all who ever will. This labyrinth will be a sanctuary for so many, an open invitation for generations to come. Who knows what may one day be solved in this field… 

I’m thrilled to say that the woman whose suggestion started this whole chain of events back in that transit lounge in Albuquerque, has flown from Seattle to be here with us today. Mary Ellen Johnson, welcome to Sydney and thank you for coming all this way. Our words are so powerful. You never know which ones might change someone’s life.” 

She jumped to her feet and took a deep bow. Magic rippled through the crowd – the lovely circle completed itself right before our eyes.

The Governor cut the yellow ribbon draped across the threshold and declared the labyrinth open. The music, written for the occasion by Australian composer Corrina Bonshek, began. ‘Journey to the Centre’, was transcendent – its flowing reverie created an atmosphere filled with hope and heart. It gave me chills.

The wisdom keepers made their way to the threshold and began to slowly walk, weaving their prayers into the path as a unified field, preparing the labyrinth as a receiving vessel for all who would come: the faithful and the faithless, seekers and wanderers, the certain and the lost.

It was important to me that the first footstep on the path that day was made by a First Nations woman. Aunty Ali Golding danced her way along the path, blessing it as she went, her feet remembering what this land has always known about sacred walking. Every step a prayer, every turn a conversation with ancestors who understood that some paths lead us back to who we’ve always been.

It also felt important to have someone representing those with no religious affiliation. So my new friend the author, Ailsa Piper, walked on behalf of agnostic pilgrims. She carried another kind of devotion for those who seek mystery without naming it. I wanted to show that the labyrinth welcomes even those who aren’t sure what they’re walking toward but just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

When the Monsignor, the Rabbi and the Imam arrived in the centre rose, they hugged each other with such warmth that some in the crowd gasped. It was an incredible moment, demonstrating everything I’d come to believe about the labyrinth: that all prayers rise from the same deep well of human longing.

The guests began to flow through the labyrinth, feet finding rhythm, hearts opening like flowers, each walker adding their note to the chorus of arrival.

All the drama fell away. All the sleepless nights, the years of holding this dream like a tiny bird in cupped hands, afraid it might die or fly away – everything dissolved into this swirling, glistening human moment.

The labyrinth was birthed, blessed and ready to receive whatever would come: wedding proposals and grief walks, solstice ceremonies, children racing to the centre with pure delight, elders moving slowly as prayer, teenagers discovering that walking in circles sometimes leads somewhere new. A sandstone poem written for all who would ever need to walk their way back home. When I saw people wiping away their tears, I knew that it was done.