As another generation retires and ages, the Beverly Senior Center finds itself adding new programs and facilities like tai chi and yoga classes, a computer lab, and now, a labyrinth.
"This next generation's not doing the same things as our grandparents," said Judy Hopen, who was at the Beverly Senior Center all last week installing the walking labyrinth.
Not to be confused with a maze, which is a puzzle with wrong turns and dead ends, a labyrinth has only a single path that unfailingly leads to the center. When walkers move through the path, they relax their minds because no mental effort is required to find the way. Walkers then pause in the center for an opportunity to meditate on their journeys and inner selves.
Hopen is the director of Labyrinth Enterprises Studio out of St. Louis, a company that constructs these circular patterns all over the world in parks, churches, schools and hospitals.
MaryAnn Holak, executive director of the senior center, first walked in a labyrinth during a yoga class several years ago, before she came to Beverly.
"In my first month here," Holak said, "I read an article about spirituality at the end of life. I wanted to encourage that spirituality."
With the senior center being a public building, Holak needed a nonreligious way to promote spirituality for its 200 daily visitors.
"I've had the idea for the labyrinth brewing around in my head since 2005," she said. "It seemed like a beautiful way to reflect, meditate and improve balance, which is a huge issue for seniors."
More than a year ago when one of the center's assistant directors happened to meet Mia Corinha, who works at Labyrinth Alchemy in Nahant, it seemed fortuitous. Corinha, along with Hopen and her company, helped bring a temporary, canvas labyrinth to the Beverly Senior Center in 2009. Now, both companies are constructing the permanent labyrinth, which is being painted on the floor of the multipurpose room.
"It's very centering, peaceful," Corinha said about walking through the labyrinth. "It can be used for walking meditation or prayer. It's an opportunity to clear the mind and just go with the flow of the pattern."
Some labyrinth designs date back to 400 B.C., but the senior center's labyrinth is the modern Santa Rosa pattern, created in 1997, with seven concentric paths. The senior center received a grant from the Beverly Cultural Council and several other donations to fund the installation.
"It's a nice thing for the seniors to have and for the community to have," Holak said. "Everyone can walk together, caregivers and staff, too."
The Beverly Senior Center will have a grand opening for the labyrinth on June 17 at 6 p.m. There will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony with Mayor Bill Scanlon and an opportunity for all to walk through the labyrinth.
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