Sacred Places
Barton Park (formerly Whitman Walker Clinic)
A labyrinth that spent four years in a county warehouse before finding this ground.
WHERE
Arlington, VA
PARTNER INSTITUTION
Arlington County
Visit
Where it is
5232 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA 22207
What happens here
Community members pass through daily, walking dogs, tending plots in the adjacent community garden, or out for a stroll. The labyrinth sits at the quiet end of Rocky Run Park, a complement to the playgrounds and playing fields at the other end.
HOW IT CAME TO BE
The stones were numbered in chalk.
01
The Need
When Whitman-Walker Clinic closed in 2009, the labyrinth outside it was pried from the earth, its seven-circuit path of contemplation painstakingly numbered piece by piece and stored in a county warehouse. It sat there four years. Meanwhile Rocky Run Park was being rebuilt for active recreation, playgrounds and ball courts, with nothing quiet in it.
02
The Vision
The county had received use of three acres from a developer and began talking to neighbors about the space. Neighbors sought a quieter, more contemplative area at the south end near 10th Street North, and someone raised the possibility of a labyrinth. Kathy von Bredow, a county landscape architect, walked the property and saw potential in the large trees, which created a sense of isolation despite the busy streets nearby. She spotted a huge white oak that struck her as a mother tree, one that could give the site direction and focus. She knew where the clinic's labyrinth was.
03
The Transformation
The ground had been a bare and dormant patch of dirt and grass. Taking the labyrinth out of storage meant facing a massive puzzle: the stones had been carefully numbered and mapped, but in chalk, and some numbers had worn away. Photographs of the original path survived, and some of the people who built the first labyrinth came back to help build the second. What sits there now is the same seven-circuit path, bordered by boulders with smooth river stones nestled beneath them, the smell of pine needles strong in the air.
WHO TENDS IT
Dick Blackburn
Firesoul, Barton Park (formerly Whitman Walker Clinic)
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HEAR FROM THE VISITORS
From the Little Yellow Journal
I am enjoying the nature after a really long day. If you're reading this, I hope you the best and remember that you are enough.
You only live once.
