March 5, 2023: Global Healing Response for victims of the Earthquake in Syria and Turkey
We would like to implement the Global Healing Response for the victims of the magnitude 7.8 earthquake on February 6, 2023, in Syria and Turkey that has claimed over 35,000 lives. The World Health Organizations says that over 26.2 million people need help across both countries.
As you might remember from previous Global Healing Responses (Katrina, Haiti, Japan, Hurricane Sandy, Uvalde), the GHR is an international effort through which countless labyrinths will be made available worldwide for people to walk, with a unified intention to bring healing and coherence to the world.
Thank you to The Legacy Labyrinth Project, The Labyrinth Society, and Veriditas for sharing many of the resources provided on this page. And thank you to Rev. Warren Lynn for writing the lovely meditation we will all share.
Blessings to you as you are a catalyst of peace, healing, and love during this time of suffering for so many.
A PDF version of all these materials can be found here.
Global Labyrinth Walk Date: Sunday March 5, 2023, at noon
At your local time. If that day is not convenient, feel free to choose a time that works for you and your community.
Suggestion for activity:
Gather your community, friends, family or walk alone. Whether you conduct your event in person at a public labyrinth, outdoors or indoors, or even virtually with finger labyrinths, there will be healing energy in the circle you create.
Step 1: Meditation to center and ground us.
We will all use the same meditation that you can read to yourself, prior to saying and walking with your intention. A PDF version of the meditation can be found here.
Even now, so soon following the aftermath of crumbling rock
And cracking earth
The headlines and our attention are beginning to turn away.
Away from pain, suffering, loss.
Away from compassionate care that is refused passage across political borders.
Away from mountainous cairns of stone marking communal death.
Away from newly minted orphans, and newly grieving parents.
Away from rescuers moving one stone at a time,
hands bleeding from a lack of proper equipment.
Away from lack of adequate shelter and food and warmth.
Away from tens of thousands of deaths,
And many more whose lives have been grievously wounded
By the violence and ruin of it all.
May we, then, return our gaze with all mindfulness and care.
Let us refuse to turn away.
Let our witness look directly into the aftermath of ruin.
Let our humanity bring the suffering of humans
undone by the wrenching of this earth
back to the forefront of intimate personal and also global care.
In this time, may we bring ourselves
into the intimate presence of transformative possibility —
Yes, to ask and argue and doubt and cry.
Yes, to confess all exhaustion and the rawness of overwhelming grief…
But only so our honesty moves us past all that is hopeless
to a quiet breathing of calm focus.
May we find peace that doesn’t deny tragedy,
but rather is a way-maker
an empowering guide for our own response to the need of others.
This is what we seek in this time;
Peace, Śānti, Shalom, Salaam.
May such Peace have its way with us.
May such peace guide us to offer something more.
May such peace in us be foundation for a response to others in need.
Indeed, now, claim this peace;
Begin by breathing in deeply;
And breathing out fully.
Let your breathing in feed you,
And your breathing out cleanse you.
Breathing in — breathing out.
In this space, find renewal through your breathing
to abide in each new step;
one after the other.
In this space, in our breathing and in our walking,
May you find strength and nourishment for the way ahead
toward a more-focused compassion.
Begin to ask, “how can I help?”
“What creative solution can come from my gifts?”
“How can I be used for healing, reconciliation, comfort…
…for those in places like Syria and Turkey wherein lives have been
undone by mysteries of earth’s ways.
Let us listen for inspiration in the deepest places of our living.
Let us acquaint ourselves with sacred possibilities within our own lives.
Let us affirm and confirm our ability to bring a new light of relief and recovery
into darkened holes of grief and pain across our world,
and even next door;
May deep peace be ours,
as much as we offer our own gifts to meet the needs in this world.
May it be so.
—February, 2023 by Warren Lynn
Step 2: Global Intention for this walk:
Globally, we will all walk with the same intention.
My intention for this labyrinth walk is to feel the coherent energy of my own heart, then send that coherent energy to the victims, survivors, families, and communities of these earthquakes so they may come together in solidarity to help each other grieve and rebuild, immediately and permanently.
Additional Resources:
Finger Labyrinth: Click here for a PDF printable finger labyrinth.
Find a Labyrinth near you: Click here for the Worldwide Labyrinth Locator.
Covid Considerations: Click here for information about how to conduct a Covid friendly event and create a Covid friendly labyrinth. Of course, it is necessary to adhere to all Covid 19 recommendations that apply to your community. If you are walking in a group, perhaps outdoors would be best. It is also an option to meet with a group virtually and walk finger labyrinths in unison. And please, don’t underestimate the power of each of us walking a labyrinth alone with our unified intention.
Centering Ourselves: To create peace and healing we must commit to centering ourselves before we form a group and enter the labyrinth. I invite you to watch the videos that were created by The Legacy Labyrinth Project about How to Walk a Labyrinth with Intention and How to create Brain Heart Coherence.
Please let us know when you will be having a walk by posting it on the Global Healing Response Facebook page or as a comment below this post.
A PDF version of all these materials can be found here.
I urge you to pass this information on to anyone (or group) who might be interested in participating in the Global Healing Response. We learned during other responses that those outside the labyrinth community wanted to participate. Hopefully, that will be the case this time.
Remember, never underestimate the power of the labyrinth AND unified healing energy!
Peace and Healing,
Ellen Bintz Meuch
Founder, Global Healing Response
Legacy Labyrinth Project, Director, Labyrinth Activism
The Labyrinth Society, World Labyrinth Day Coordinator
Veriditas Certified Facilitator
