“The Labyrinth is a chalice of stillness - a sacred pause in the rush of life.” ~ Lauren Artress |
Step by Step: Support Veriditas this Giving Tuesday, December 2ndJenny Slama This Giving Tuesday, we invite you to walk the path of generosity in support of Veriditas. We’re striving to raise $10,000+ on that day to move us toward our overall $110,000 year-end goal. Your gift ensures that Veriditas can continue the programming that means so much to so many. Sharing our campaign is one of the most powerful ways you can make a difference—it only takes a few minutes. Look for our messages on December 2nd we’ll be sharing via email, facebook, Instagram and substack… and share the love! Step-by-Step Sharing Guide:
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By sharing our message with your network, you are dramatically expanding our reach and ensuring more people hear about Veriditas. Thank you for helping us broaden our circle of support! |
We are absolutely thrilled to share that our annual online auction, which ran from October 1st to October 15th at www.biddingforgood.com/veriditas was our best yet!Two Gifts in One: Shop the Veriditas Holiday StoreAs the holiday season approaches, we invite you to make your gift-giving meaningful this year by choosing items from the Veriditas Labyrinth Store at www.veriditas.org/shop. When you shop with us, you give two gifts: a wonderful, unique item to someone special, and the vital gift of support to the Veriditas mission! Our online store is filled with mindful treasures perfect for every person on your list. In addition to our regularly stocked items, we’ve welcomed a wonderful assortment of gifts just for the season. Check out our new intention jewelry – handcrafted by a female jewelry maker out of Oregon, featuring delicate and dainty jewelry that is stunning when worn solo, or beautifully stacked with your own favorite pieces. We also think shoppers will love our collection of “Wishing Papers” – a perfect tool to use individually or in groups for meditation, focus and reflection. Our online store is open now through December 19th and we invite you to browse at your leisure. Store orders generally ship once per week (though please note that no orders will ship the week of November 24th). Make your holiday shopping count this year! Find meaningful gifts and support Veriditas today at: www.veriditas.org/shop. |
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In her own words, Susan Page Tillet wrote “the labyrinth claimed me as its own when I walked one by chance in Hawaii in 1997.” After that first encounter, Susan’s life took many winding turns, and she found herself making a pilgrimage to Chartres where she met Lauren and experienced “the deep feminine power of the cathedral.” She continues, “I built a simple 7-circuit labyrinth in my side yard and walked it daily…I had removed the chairs from my own life and was beginning to uncover my own feminine gifts.” Susan's path led her to a career as Executive Director for the Mesa Refuge, an artist residency program near Veriditas. Today, she is engaged in an incredible campaign to raise needed funding (putting the fun in fundraising) to further the mission of Veriditas. 
Beth Mace shares, “I am a full-throttled labyrinth enthusiast and have been since my first labyrinth experience in 1999.” Beth’s experience altered her life path, and she recalls, “I remember telling my husband after that Veriditas walk that I didn’t know what the people walking the labyrinth “had”, but that I wanted it.” Beth further tells us, “I now know what those folks “had”-a deep sense of peace, openness, willingness, curiosity and courage to explore new paths.” As the newly elected Veriditas treasurer, Beth has joined Veriditas with “humility and honor.” She brings a keen sense of understanding for the financial aspects of Veriditas, and she challenges readers to “consider ways they, too, can contribute to Veriditas.” 
Maggie Oman Shannon moved to San Francisco in 1995 and was introduced to the labyrinth then. In her words, “whether at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, where I was working at the time or at Grace Cathedral, where I attended services, I can’t remember…but I do remember being captivated by it.” Maggie and her husband incorporated the labyrinth into their wedding ceremony in 1999 and wrote about it in her 2001 book, The Way We Pray: Prayer Practices from Around the World.” After a 2024 retreat with Catherine Anderson and Lauren, Maggie recalls “getting a clearer understanding of how my passion for and work about creativity as a spiritual practice could be amplified by pairing it with the labyrinth experience.” As a retired Unity minister, spiritual director and retreat leader, Maggie shares gratitude for “such a wonderful organization and community.”A Change in our Articles of IncorporationIn 1995 Veriditas was incorporated as a religious organization. For many, religious meant Christian, which limited Veriditas and its reach. As years passed, it became evident that the purpose and offerings of Veriditas went beyond any religion but remained a spiritual organization. Today we are still a spiritual organization but our Articles of Incorporation have been changed from a religious to an educational organization. Facilitators all over the world are trained to offer the labyrinth to people of all religions or no religion. The labyrinth offers all people a place to ease their tensions, heal, and transform their lives. We can all become part of Veriditas. |
“As you walk, you remember what your soul has always known: you are rooted in nature--you belong, you are guided. You are whole.” ~ Lauren Artress |
Judith TrippJudith Tripp, Psychotherapist, Pilgrimage leader and Musician, can trace her connection to Veriditas prior to its inception. She met Lauren Artress as part of her first Women’s Dream Quest at Grace Episcopal Cathedral in 1987. Beginning as a Group Leader, Judith soon led the Dream Quest, which has continued annually in Grace Cathedral until this year. Judith was part of a group that helped Lauren Artress bring the labyrinth to Grace Cathedral. Judith became involved with labyrinth work soon after. She has been a Veriditas council, board and faculty member. She continues to lead Friday walks once per month. As part of the Veriditas trips to Chartres each year, Judith offers a class titled, “Meeting Mary”. She also leads yearly pilgrimages to Avalon in England as well as the Isle of Iona in Scotland. She and Laura Esculcas lead a pilgrimage in Portugal each year. In 2015 and 2017, she took the Women’s Dream Quest to Australia. |  The Women’s Dream Quest has been a calling for Judith where the elements of music, ritual, circle work and labyrinth walking take women to the land of their souls. At present the Dream Quest is looking for a new home in California at a retreat center where it can evolve into a weekend offering. The Quest continues in Charlottesville, VA each February. Judith has published several CD’s of her own music, she has written a book titled, Circle Way: Story of the Women’s Quest, and she has recently published a fantasy novel, Hamah’s Quest. You can explore Judith’s offerings on Circleway.com. |
“The labyrinth is an ancient blueprint for transformation, a living archetype that awakens the soul's unfolding.” ~ Lauren Artress |
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Leading in Love and Hope: Notes from the Veriditas Inclusion Initiative.Respectfully submitted by Vicky Furlow.
- Excerpt from Spirit Wheel: Meditations from an Indigenous Elder by Steven Charleston Veriditas has from its beginning been characterized by a spirit of inclusivity. This spirit becomes known through the labyrinth. Accordingly, the Inclusion Initiative serves as an arm of Veriditas as we seek to manifest these intentions:
This work is ongoing and our commitment to inclusiveness, aspirational. As we learn and grow through our initiatives, goals are regularly reviewed and refined to better reflect the diverse community we serve. In 2025, the Initiative has actively addressed three stated goals for the year. Two of them have been at the forefront of our efforts, with visible progress, yet still in process. These are detailed below: Promote Diverse Participation – Ensure that our community reflects diverse backgrounds by actively inviting participants from underrepresented groups. This past year Veriditas introduced the Emerging Leaders Scholarship through the generosity of a supporter and donor. Designed to engage more people in their 20s, 30s and 40s in the work of the labyrinth, this fund was created to cover program fees for In-Person and Virtual Qualifying Workshops and Facilitator Trainings. Some special offerings of Veriditas also fall under this umbrella. In its initial year, this scholarship has benefitted 18 individuals. | Continue Education and Awareness Initiatives: Enhance education and awareness around diversity and inclusion:
The Inclusion Initiative is highlighted on the Veriditas website with a page containing the full range of our intentions and mission: https://www.veriditas.org/Inclusion-Initiative Our task brings joy and hope as we move into the future with our eyes on the myriad possibilities to enlarge the opportunities Veriditas brings to our worldwide community! |
My Grandfather's Perspectiveby Lars Howlett I was at Harvard Divinity School (photo below) this week for a conference organized by the Program for the Evolution of Spirituality. My grandfather graduated from there in 1938, so I thought to look him up in the library and found many of his old sermons including one that particularly caught my eye. It is entitled 'The Myth of the Cosmos' and was part of a Unitarian radio series that aired in Boston in 1941. It's amazing to me that he explores cosmology and speaks of the need for a story of the universe! It's interesting he posits we can discard the Genesis story because of scientific reasoning, but that scientific reasoning is also a mythology. I admire that he believes that the story continually needs to be re-written and is evolving with our understanding. If you're interested I've attached a PDF of his sermon which surprisingly speaks to some of what we've been considering with Cosmogenesis.
The librarians pulled six 'minister's boxes' of his files from their archive and I was able to read through them and photograph a bunch of his sermons. He also published some books which I found on the shelves, including 'The Fatal Flaw at the Heart of Religious Liberalism' in which he states that "True Liberalism means a continuing quest for ever broader and deeper concepts of truth." |
Here's a paragraph from the end of his book: "The answer to life's final question does not reside in a structure we humans have pieced together, whether scientific or philosophical or theological. It is found in the structuring. It will not be found in an edifice of thought we have built, but in the building of it. We shall never arrive at the final thought structure so many seek. We shall always be building, always inventing new and better ones. Therein lies the joy, the exultation, the worth of living. It is not in the being, but in the doing; not in a cathedral of thought so perfect we fall upon our knees before it, but in the ongoing process of discovery, overwhelming because of the new knowledge and understanding it continually pours upon us. In the new paradigm for religion life's meaning and purpose are found where religion has always found it, in ourselves. Knowledge may seem to come from the skies as we gaze into the firmament and thrill at what we see. Yes, that is what we see. But it is we who do the seeing. It is we who find meaning in what we see. It is we, you and I, who are filled with awe and wonder at it all. It is we who find a sense of the spiritual rising within us as we contemplate the immensity of what we behold." I think he would be amazed to see how the labyrinth supports this 'new paradigm' and that we are endeavoring to write a new cosmology for our times. |
New Facilitator Community HubVeriditas is continuing to upgrade and evolve our modes of communication to support your labyrinth work in the world. We are retiring the email List Serve due to cost, labor, and lack of use. In its place we hope you will use our Community Hub on our private social platform called the Veriditas Circle to ask questions of the Veriditas Labyrinth Community and share your labyrinth creations, walks, and workshop experiences. Over 300 people have already signed up and if you have an account for our Online Learning Platform on Teachable, you can use the same login and password for both. The Veriditas Circle has public forums to ask for advice, share labyrinth love, and connect with fellow labyrinth facilitators, makers, and keepers. If you do not have a Teachable account with us and would like to sign up for Circle directly, use this invite link to create your account. | Other ways to stay connected with our community include our Free Friday Online Handheld Finger Walks and the Free Meetups organized by the Veriditas Council. Veriditas Trained Facilitators can also join VIA which includes bimonthly ‘Conversations with Lauren’ (or Veriditas Faculty) to ask questions and share experiences. VIA Members also get access to a private Facebook Group just for VIA members on that platform. For more information about joining VIA, click here. |
Did You Know?
| Little Miracles on the Path"Little Miracles" is produced by Linda Mikell. Each month she shares an inspirational story from a labyrinth experience that is sent to her by a facilitator. She welcomes YOUR story. I'm sure you're got one, and we all benefit from this sharing. Thank you, Linda!Please send your story to Linda Mikell at [email protected] |
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