The resonance is deep and ancient: mystery that goes back before Homer, to legends of a Greek hero who threaded his way through the original Labyrinth to slay a mighty monster. Boisterous children become that hero as they romp into a maze and conquer the puzzle.
Children and their grownups will have a chance to embark on that adventure when The Morton Arboretum in Lisle opens the largest public hedge maze in Chicago Saturday. The roughly triangular, 1-acre maze, with about a half-mile of twisty paths, dead ends and botanical surprises, lies just to the south of the arboretum’s new visitors center and next to the new children’s garden, due to open in September.
Landscape architect Peggy Pelkonen spent four years traveling, researching mazes and plants, sketching, contriving and changing to make the $1 million maze a reality.
In the process, she delved into ancient history and current controversy.
To many people today, a maze and a labyrinth are different things. A maze, some say, is a puzzle, a toy, an entertainment. A labyrinth is something deeper: a single winding path, leading inevitably to a tranquil center, or “unicursal,” with one way in and one way out, and no way to get lost. These labyrinths, nearly always circular and reaching back in form beyond the Middle Ages, have been made in churches, parks and private gardens by those who seek to use them as a means of meditation and a connection to larger forces.
Tracing the path of a labyrinth “allows you to unwind and be receptive to the spiritual message,” says Chari Rosales, coordinator for adult faith formation at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Naperville, which has a labyrinth formed of gray- and rose-colored pavers, with stone benches around it and a path of tiles made by parishioners. At the center, as in the 13th Century labyrinth in the cathedral at Chartres in France, are six petals, “like the petals of a flower,” that recall the faithful to the signs of God in nature, Rosales says. The labyrinth is surrounded by a year-round garden.
Pelkonen shrugs off the maze-labyrinth distinction. To her, the thousands-year-old history of mazes and labyrinths is too intertwined. After all, she says, the legendary Labyrinth must have been mazelike, or there would have been no danger that Theseus would get lost and fall victim to the Minotaur.
To be sure, the models for the arboretum’s maze are the 18th Century hedge mazes of great English houses that were “all about fun and folly,” Pelkonen says. Her challenge was to make a maze that could keep surprising so children and adults would come back.
The arboretum’s maze is not neatly right-angled, like the draw-a-line mazes in children’s activity books. It is an organic, swirling shape around a great sycamore tree, with seven rooms where paths cross and shift. The design owes more to the swerves of England’s famous Hampton Court Palace maze than to the squared-off mazes of the ancient Romans.
Surrounded by American arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis `Smaragd’), with its paths formed by hedges of narrow yews (Taxus cuspidata `Columnaris’), the maze is evergreen. But its seven rooms will change through the seasons. In one, Cornelian cherry dogwood (Cornus mas `Golden Glory’) will brighten the early spring with yellow blooms. Forsythia x intermedia `Meadowlark’ will follow. In the lilac room, Syringa meyeri `Palibin’ will perfume the air in May. Elsewhere are rooms where hedge maples (Acer campestre) and Viburnum dentatum `Autumn Jazz’ will enliven the fall with richly colored foliage. In one room, switchgrass (Panicum virgatum `Northwind’) will grow each year from a green stubble to a tall, swaying golden banner. And in winter, eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) will carry soft, green needles.
And there will be counterpoint: In the hedge maple room, for instance, an arbor has been planted with wisteria. Eventually, it will bloom in summer, when the hedge maples are not at their most interesting.
The maze has a few more tricks up its sleeve. There are two gates that can be closed to change pathways and require a new solution to the puzzle.
A toddlers’ maze, of boxwood that will grow no more than 2 feet tall, with a soft rubberized surface and a stroller park, will give parents a place to rest while they watch the youngest whiz around.
And though it has many pathways, the maze has only one gate. So if your kids have disappeared, “they have to end up here eventually,” says Pelkonen.
It has taken two years to plant the maze and let it grow enough to create its mysteries. It was open for a few hours several times last fall for testing. “The 10-year-old boys just flew through,” Pelkonen says.
To keep them from making shortcuts, a wire fence is embedded in the yew hedges.
The yews already nearly cover the wire. “If you want to make a hedge in a hurry, use tall, skinny shrubs and plant them close together,” Pelkonen says.
The off-center heart of the maze is the great 50-year-old sycamore tree, with a viewing platform spiraling up its gray trunk. It recalls ancient Scandinavian mazes centered on trees, perhaps symbolizing Yggdrasil, the tree that links and shelters all worlds in Norse mythology.
From the beginning, Pelkonen set out to save the sycamore and other mature trees on the site. Air pressure was used to locate its roots, so the pylons sunk for the platform would not nick them. And the ground-level Brazilian redwood decking protects the tree’s root zone from compaction by traffic.
From the high platform — the only part of the maze not wheelchair-accessible — there is a view of the arboretum’s 1920 hedge garden to one side and its children’s garden to the other.
The hedge garden, “a library of shrubs,” helped Pelkonen and her team choose plants that could take the shearing needed to keep the maze in shape.
As the yews mature to their full 6-foot height the arboretum may cut peepholes in some of the hedges to add to the fun. Or the tops may undulate, like some of the hedges in the Lurie Garden in Millennium Park. “We’re learning as we go,” says Pelkonen. “It won’t be static.” The history goes on.
The Morton Arboretum is at Interstate Highway 88 and Illinois Highway 53 in Lisle. Admission: $5. For more information, see www.mortonarb.org or call 630-968-0074.
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Mazes through the ages
Much mystery and controversy surrounds the development and meaning of mazes and labyrinths around the world. Here are just a few interesting dates.
2500 B.C.: Unicursal labyrinth is apparently carved on a cave wall in Luzzanas, Sardinia. Unicursal labyrinths have one way in, one way out and no way to get lost. Today, some distinguish between such a labyrinth and a maze, which has many paths and is designed to confuse.
Pre-1500 B.C. (?): A Minoan palace in Knossos, on the island of Crete, may have been so large and mazelike that it contributed to the legend of the labyrinth in which only the Greek hero Theseus avoided being lost and trapped while he found and slew the monstrous Minotaur.
1200 B.C.: Classic seven-circle labyrinth appears on a clay tablet in Pylos, Greece.
700 to 600 B.C.: Circular labyrinth appears on an Etruscan vase that may connect it to the legend of Troy.
250 B.C.: Labyrinth on a rock painting in India.
400 B.C. to 450 A.D.: Circular and squared labyrinths appear throughout the Roman Empire.
Post-1150: Hopi people in U.S. Southwest depict Mother Earth enfolding in her arms the world as a maze.
1220 A.D.: An 11-circle labyrinth is part of the paving of Chartes Cathedral in France; it may have been used to represent pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Medieval period: Turf and stone mazes, widespread in Europe, are often associated with pre-Christian religions.
1690: Hampton Court Palace maze, replacing an earlier medieval maze, kicks off English fashion for puzzle hedge mazes.
1814: Hedge labyrinth built in Utopian community of New Harmony, Ind.
1970s: Interest grows in labyrinths as representing spiritual quests and as meditation guides.
1996: Craze for cornfield puzzle mazes sweeps the heartland.
1999: Turf-and-gravel labyrinth constructed at Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago.
2000: Paved labyrinths constructed at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Naperville and on the Naperville Riverwalk.
2005: Puzzle hedge maze opens at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle.
Sources: Peggy Pelkonen; www.labyrinthos.net; www.amazingart.com; www.crystalinks.com; “The Greek Myths” by Robert Graves (Penguin, 784 pages, $19.95).
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ebotts@tribune.com
