by JEN BIUNDO

With one path in to the center and one path out, labyrinths have been used for millennia as a tool for meditation or prayer. Cara Matisko built a labyrinth last month in the backyard of her old town Buda home. (Photos by Jen Biundo)

The path through the labyrinth is simple – one way in and one way out; one foot in front of the other through the curves laid out in stones on the grassy ground. But for labyrinth aficionados, the arcing path can offer a powerful tool for prayer or meditation.

That’s what inspired local resident and Reiki practitioner Cara Matisko to construct a labyrinth last month in the backyard of her old town Buda home. Matisko was first introduced to labyrinths at a retreat in Sedona, Arizona.

“I had such profound experiences that I felt called to recreate a little bit of it in my own space and to share it with people who felt drawn here for healing,” Matisko said.

Modifying the design from a medieval pattern, Matisko spent about four days laying out the pathway in rocks. Her seven-circuit labyrinth is 55 feet in diameter and takes about five to 10 minutes to walk.
Unlike mazes, with branching paths and dead ends designed as a mental challenge, labyrinths such as Matisko’s have just one path in and one path out. That journey inward to the center and outward again can be symbolically profound, Matisko said.

Cara Matisko says she felt called to build her own labyrinth in Buda after having a profound experience with labyrinths in Sedona, AZ.

“You release what you’re concerned about as you’re walking in,” Matisko said. “The center is symbolic of illumination, and you’re integrating that wisdom into your life as you’re walking out.”

Labyrinths have a long history stretching back to the ancient world, and they saw a resurgence during the medieval era. Roman Catholic orders used labyrinths as a tool for prayer, such as the famous labyrinth built around 1200 in the Chartres Cathedral near Paris. Monks used the labyrinth design to adorn bibles and religious manuscripts. In recent years, labyrinths have been built as a spiritual tool in parks, hospitals, chapels and retreats.

For Matisko, a practicing Catholic who is also steeped in new age spirituality, the link between prayer and meditation is simple.

“For me, most simply, prayer is when we talk to God, and meditation is when we quiet ourselves and try to be still enough to hear him talk to us,” Matisko said. “For a long time, still meditation was too abstract for me. For a lot of people, moving meditation is easier.”

For the last six years, Matisko has been a practitioner and teacher of Reiki, an alternative healing technique that she discovered after her mother was recuperating from a painful accident.

“After experiencing it, I was hooked,” Matisko said. “It just transformed my life and really opened me up to my spirituality.”

About five years ago, Matisko and her now-husband Eugene, looking for a new beginning, drove across country and fell in love with the Austin area. Searching through the small communities around Austin, they stumbled onto their home.

“We were driving down the interstate and I said, ‘Boodah, let’s get out here,’” Matisko recalled.

The couple found a small home on West Goforth, just off historic Cedar Street, with a shed that could serve as Eugene’s professional guitar-building workshop and a guesthouse for Cara’s Reiki clinic.
They settled into Buda at the start of 2006, when Matisko was pregnant with her daughter Cheyanne; a son Angelo followed two years later.  As her children get older, Matisko is expanding her Reiki practice and hopes to create a retreat center in the guest house overlooking the labyrinth.

Matisko and her family held a blessing and dedication ceremony for the labyrinth on March 28, and will open it up to the public again on May 1, the official “World Labyrinth Day,” when people across the globe will walk a labyrinth at 1 p.m. in their time zone “to create a rolling wave of peace on the planet,” Matisko said.