2023 Mini-Sessions Panel

At the 2023 Gathering we experienced a serries of Mini-Sessions 

New Horizons Panel of Mini-Sessions
Each of these presenters is working at bringing the labyrnth to a previously underserved community. 

Frank Faine is a spiritual director, Veriditas-trained labyrinth facilitator, and retreat leader living in Orlando, FL. He is also the TLS Regional Representative for Florida.  He completed a TLS Special Project on ways to use the labyrinth experience/walks on college university campuses in Central Florida. With a rich and diverse background in companioning, healing, and teaching, he offers spiritual direction, labyrinth walks, and retreats to all persons on their journeys to embrace a life affirming spiritual path through his organization, Steps, Stories and Songs. 

Janice Lewis is currently serving as president of The Labyrinth Society (2021-2023). She has a degree in business, attended seminary, and is a certified Pastoral Care Specialist and a Spiritual Guide. Janice was part of the team that created a new spiritual practice called “Contemplative Fire.” She also is an advanced certified labyrinth guide, a certified Life Coach, advanced certified consultant with the Enneagram, certified and trained meditation practitioner in MBSR, Christian, Buddhist, and mindfulness methodologies. Janice is a certified Peacemaker Circle Keeper and a trained Mandala Teacher. She created Peace Club, an experiential mindfulness program. Mindfulness, meditation, peace circles, mandalas, storytelling, mindful journaling, and labyrinths are enjoyed by more than 200 youths and adults each year in Chicago at Peace Club.

Susan Murphy feels blessed to have documented stories of how Embrace Rwanda (ER) helped vulnerable women nurture their children while becoming financially stable all through the flair of a goat. ER recommended her proposed labyrinth project to The Children’s Peace Library in Kigali. This Special Project brought Francine Muhawenimanam and Jean d’Amour Tuyizere to TLS. Francine and Susan were able to host Umuganda workshops for students and librarians, build three labyrinths and four finger labyrinths using imigongo art (cow dung). Susan, an active member of TLS in Toronto, Canada, retired from the Ontario Government and now enjoys travelling between France, England and Rwanda. In 2023 she will make her 5th trip to Rwanda to work on her 2nd Special Project with the Children’s Peace Library. She is excited to see a list of diverse participants. Developing programs to teach Peace was her original retirement plan. She is blessed to work with the George Fox School and the Children’s Peace Library encouraging walking the labyrinth on Hero’s Day, Walk to Remember, World Labyrinth Day, Umuganda (last Saturday of each month), all events culminating in International Day of Peace – September 21st .

Maia Scott is a longtime labyrinth facilitator and enthusiast who started this journey as a recreation therapist and currently enjoys careers as a body worker and off-site community college instructor teaching visual and performing arts for people with disabilities. Maia is an interdisciplinary artist with an MFA in Creative Inquiry Interdisciplinary Arts who finds happiness in trying to make anything into labyrinths.Maia partnered with the American Printing House for the Blind in the production of a tactile labyrinth collection to introduce the blind community to labyrinths.Over the years, a tried-and-true set of standards and expectations have been established to offer a sense of safety and when we engage in a labyrinth experience. Even so, there are many communities and subcultures that do not have access to labyrinths or even know about them.  People who are blind and disabled often sit outside the circle.  Let’s look at the labyrinth and universal design as we consider a variety of hand-held labyrinth options and walking variations along with open-ended ways to implement them into your labyrinth offerings for Every Body to enjoy. 

Dr. Jan Sellers serves on the TLS Research Committee, the Veriditas Higher Education Committee and the Steering Group of Labyrinths in Britain. Her professional background is in education and guidance, and she worked for many years at the University of Kent in England. The award of a National Teaching Fellowship gave Jan time to explore a topic dear to her heart: creativity and joy in learning. Through this, Jan encountered Di Williams’ work with labyrinths at the University of Edinburgh and was invited to visit: a life-changing encounter. The University of Kent followed Edinburgh’s example, building the iconic Canterbury Labyrinth in 2008. With a focus on teaching, learning and wellbeing, Jan’s enthusiasm for labyrinths in higher education is infectious! Publications include Working with the Labyrinth, (Sewell, Sellers and Williams, 2012), and Learning with the Labyrinth: Creating Reflective Space in Higher Education (Sellers and Moss, 2016), the first academic book to focus on the theory, practice and sheer creativity of labyrinth work across the sector. Her latest research collects together, for the first time, a detailed international Index of permanent and landscaped labyrinths in academic settings (2nd edition: May 2023). Find out more at https://jansellers.com/publications

Annelle Tanner Annelle, BSN, MSN, EdD, is a Veriditas trained and certified Advanced Labyrinth Facilitator. She is a retired nurse who practiced, researched and taught Maternal-Child and Public Health Nursing and Nursing Informatics. She and her husband, Martin, a retired Obstetrician Gynecologist, serve on the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation National Grampions Committee and co-chair LA-MS Grampions, grandparents of folks - like their 12-year-old granddaughter - with Cystic Fibrosis, an incurable, life-limiting disease that affects primarily the lungs and digestive tract. Their granddaughter’s need for a tool to help HER deal with her health and personal anxieties at 4 years of age brought them to the labyrinth. Annelle is particularly interested in the value of labyrinths for physical and spiritual healing. She enjoys introducing labyrinths to children and teens as a tool for personal decision-making, reinforcing a sense of Self and the progression of their journey along the path of life. As such she knows that the Labyrinth can be a tool for their personal and spiritual growth in these chaotic, frightening, ungrounded times. For several years she has facilitated walks with children and parents and teachers and staff at churches and the Montessori school in her city.