A bit­ingly cold winter even­ing, dusk fall­ing early, hardly any­one about in the park. At such times every­one draws into a warm corner, takes a hot drink, and over it muses on tran­si­ence, or waits for the breath of spring, which still seems so far away.

In the shad­ow of the giant trees a small com­pany is mak­ing its way towards a favoured corner of the park, men and women­folk, the old and the young. At first glance only a rocky crag and its shad­ows can be glimpsed, but step closer and the sight unfolds, the rock struc­ture a ver­it­able labyrinth on many levels – a tangled weave of halls, stair­ways, foun­tains and lookout plat­forms open­ing into one anoth­er. Inside the del­ic­ate wrought-iron fence the com­pany halts, and they stand in a circle, attent­ive to their guide of souls. They have come from the out­side world, but inside the fence a finely filtered atmo­sphere already pre­vails. They con­sec­rate their under­tak­ing by each offer­ing a stick of incense. Their guide of souls places a fra­grant stick in every­one's hand. Every­one lights theirs from one shared flame, the power of a single fire set­ting each of them aglow.

Along the fence, beneath the bushes, they push the incense sticks into the ground, and their fra­grance rises to heav­en. The hand­somely paved square lies under wet snow, slush every­where. As if cross­ing a frozen sea, they set off, slip­ping and slid­ing, towards the colon­nade, and stand in a circle along the mosa­ic man­dala's field of force.

The guide of souls places a secret treas­ure in the hand of the labyrinth-walk­er beside him, who tim­idly peeks at it, cupped in the palm, so that no one else can see it, and then passes it on to the one stand­ing along­side. Slowly the treas­ure goes round the circle – the time-stone. The sign of passing time is painted on a fair-sized pebble. Space they have already conquered, for they have left the out­side world behind, and now the time-stone has placed the key to etern­ity in their hands.

Round and round a nar­row spir­al stair­case they begin to climb, one by one, grop­ing in the dark. On the first level they reach the vaul­ted cent­ral hall, which is adorned with curi­ous ceil­ing cof­fers painted in three-dimen­sion­al per­spect­ive. This is Whir­li­gig Castle… Their guide fishes the lathe-turned wooden top out of his satchel. One after anoth­er, every­one spins it on the flag­stones, and for one it turns this way, for anoth­er that… As if life too were a cycle, which for one per­son ends soon­er, while for anoth­er it spins on unhindered, long and steady. As they move on, they come to a small cave that recalls a real chapel and marks out the sac­red place of med­it­a­tion. On its wall, a holy image: a monk at pray­er, before whom every­one bows their head. They make an offer­ing of burn­ing frankin­cense, and as the fra­grant smoke rises through the cave's chim­ney to heav­en, so their con­scious­ness rises too… This is the cave of holy heal­ing, where they receive a fra­grant anoint­ing, and their pray­er for heal­ing and puri­fic­a­tion is heard: drops of the water of life fall on them from high up the chim­ney.

At last they clam­ber up to the highest ter­race, and here they see celes­ti­al palaces and know they have arrived in the heav­enly spheres. They look back on the way they have come, and the fra­grance of the incense sticks that set the space apart mingles with the smoke of the aton­ing offer­ing of frankin­cense. In this heav­enly cloud of fra­grance the soul-bird takes wing, a metal-wrought albatross flown on a string, and yet the glit­ter­ing creature seems to fly of its own accord. For a while they linger on the heights, savour­ing the lofti­ness of the spir­itu­al hori­zon, then slowly set off, back from heav­en to earth, back into the world. Just as the great ones – Buddha, Zarathus­tra, Jesus – always return to the world, to human­kind, they too sink back into the world of the every­day. But dif­fer­ently now: hav­ing conquered space, taken pos­ses­sion of time­less­ness, risen in their con­scious­ness, and armed with a celes­ti­al mes­sage, with con­vic­tion and with hope: the labyrinth is no maze…