My perspective is focused on gratitude towards Nature, towards Spirit, towards Happiness with the smallest things that can bring joy in ones life. "Creativity inspired by nature and given back to nature."

What is the difference between a maze and a labyrinth?

A maze is a space that contains paths that mostly lead towards an exit at the other side or sometimes to the middle of it. The paths are designed in such a way, that several choices have to be made. This implies that when one makes a "wrong" choice, one's path becomes a dead end and one walks back again to choose another path. I made lots of maze games in a program called “3D Construction Kit” in the nineties of the past century. This program was one of the first in which one could build 3D worlds.

A labyrinth is a space that contains paths that form a one way road towards the middle or centre of it. But, instead of leading one straight to the middle, one reaches the centre through roundabouts. One acutally cannot make wrong choices, one knows for sure that one walks towards the centre without dead ends, one cannot get lost.

The labyrinth is a very old symbol and has been used for a long time already, around the whole world, as a method to enlarge consciousness. A journey of discovering oneself.

The classical seven-path labyrinth
Every one who walks a labyrinth undergoes a totally different experience. This is only natural, cause every human is unique. That is the reason why it is difficult to explain what then exactly is the "magical" power of the labyrinth. And yet it is true: every one who walks a labyrinth, feels the difference between walking into it and walking out of it again.

Globally spoken, there are 2 kinds of labyrinths: The classical seven-path and the Chartres labyrinth, which contains 11 paths, that, by looking at them, are connected with each other in a very complicated way. All other labyrinths are derived from these two basic forms.

The Chartres-labyrinth
Each of these two has its own myths, legends and stories. Much can be found about this on the Internet. When you type Labyrinth in a search engine, you will find countless pages on the subject.

One might say that the labyrinth is a symbol for ones path of life. We are all on our way. We all know that no matter what problems we encounter, we in the end provide the solution to ourselves that takes us further. In other words: by itself we arrive again in our own centre.

Besides, it is the journey that counts. During this journey we experience things. Experiences that can teach us a lot, if we are open to them. It is an art to keep constantly moving. We walk to the centre and from there to the exit again. Sometimes one is very close to the middle (oneself), sometimes very far away from it. One meanders from the outside to the inside and vice versa. When one stands still, nothing happens. When one walks, everything is moving. About five years ago I was introduced to the labyrinth and have some very special and beautiful memories of this period.

I made a 7 path labyrinth in nature and on my computer designed them in a 3D design program called "3D Gamestudio". In my nature labyrinth it is a joy to walk, but now I am also able to virtually walk a labyrinth on my computer or let a 3D virtual character walk it, so that I can watch it from a distance in 3 dimensions.

www.heartphone.org

My maiden name is Annemieke Vervest. Later I abbreviated my name as Mieke and after my marriage I now am called: Mieke van der Poll.

I was born in Eindhoven in the Netherlands on 27th September 1945, just after World War II. Eindhoven is a founded (in the 13th century) industrial town in the south-east of our country, with several industrial companies and factories present, one of the most famous the Philips Light bulbs factory. During those days I was born, Eindhoven was still a small developing town. Nowadays it is the fifth city of our country. Just after WWII our country was very poor and we really survived in the beginning on the food that was given to us by the English and American liberators. And that tasted and smelled good, according to my parents who had some of them as friends during many years after.

The town of my youth, Eindhoven, was a cosy one. Not too many people during that time, very catholic and family-oriented. My father and mother, my sister and I lived the first 5 years of my life in the house of my grandparents. It was upstairs with a large rather steep stairway, leading from the entrance on the ground floor towards the first living room floor. I remember I fell off those stairs when I was around 3 years and landed below in the arms of the milkman for whom I just had opened the door (a little too enthusiastically). It was a small wonder that I wasn’t hurt at all and only startled and upset of course.

I remember we had an attic in that house with a big swing, where my sister and I could play to our heart’s content. We had to move to a ground floor house because my sister suffered from a bit of youth asthma. When we went to school we discovered some more playgrounds with swings, simple merry-go-rounds etc in the neighbourhood. In the street where we lived all the children played together outside. We had and invented ourselves lots of games to play en lots of songs to sing. It was great fun during those days, we had a blossoming community in that street, in all its simplicity and poverty, with everyone who lived there and we shared together all ups and downs.

A little brother was born in our family when I was eight, and so not only did I play a mother with my dolls but now had a living doll to play with :) During my teens we moved to another part of the same town and although I saw my former friends in the beginning regularly, once I started to make new friends, the others became more and more on the background until I eventually saw none of them again.

In the new parish I was active in organizing events for other youth of my age and it was here that I met Frank, my future husband. We were both at the age of 14 and we did some work together me typing the parish magazine and he making drawings for it. We both went to a secondary school during those days until we were around eighteen. Frank had to go into military service and I followed a secretary course at the Philips Light bulbs factory and worked there for the next 10 years. Frank found a job after his military service at a bank and did further studies in the evening hours. These were great years in the middle of flower power and great rock music.

We married in 1968 and were one of the first of our generation that both stayed working for the first 3 years of our marriage. Frank was still working at the local bank and I was still a secretary. I was 27 when my first child (a daughter) was born and in those days a woman had to stop working outside, whether wanting it or not: one became a mother, so one became a housewife, no other choice was available (yet). Some 20 months later our second child (a son) was born and 8 months later I encountered a really big change in my life.

My husband found a new job with a bank in a small village in the west of our province and we had to move to that village, which for me was an enormous quantum leap. Suddenly I found myself in a totally different environment with two very little children, no family, no friends and most of the neighbours working outside of that village. My husband was working during the day and I was feeling very lost and lonely. I had a difficult time to adjust during the first 3 years I lived there. It was quite a crossing from a middle-class industrial town that had grown more and more into a city and where one was reasonably anonymous, to a very small village with hardly any shops, where everybody knew everything from one another. During my teens and working years I had totally outgrown this. And so could start turning around again some 180 degrees.

I encountered a major shift in the period my two children went to (pre) school and I was following a course with a number of other women, orientating ourselves on society of those days (end seventies). Feminism was on the rise... I was 34 at that moment, there were a few younger women and the rest was older till about the age of 60. It was a wonderful diverse group. We talked about all kinds of subjects and then there was this moment that we became very close and talked about experiences we had in the past and a lot of sorrow and suffering came about. We all were given the time to tell our story and at the end we were offered the chance to tell each other what we liked and loved about the other. We were placed in two circles, two women at the same time facing each other, telling each other positive things, then changing place and facing another woman and doing the same. This had made quite an impact on me, as I was very unsure of myself in that period.

It was during that same period, that I was following Yoga lessons for almost a year then. This was also very new in that time, but from the beginning I knew this was my way of "sporting". Either way, I never knew what made the most impact on me but I had a wonderful dream one night in that same period. I was floating in space and saw some coloured light balls. Then suddenly, out of nowhere there was a small dot that bursted all at once out in the most beautiful colours that I have ever seen and radiating from those colours was such an unconditional love that I felt accepted and protected in such a way that I do not have words for to describe. From that moment on my life changed.

At first I had to overcome many fears. The message had been very clear: love yourself, because you are loved beyond measure. Could I really love myself in such an unconditional way as I experienced? We had another course, with the same women because our vibration with each other was so wonderful. This one was about exploring our own creativity and also how we were all free to do whatever we wanted. I remember we were given a booklet in which we could read about the many, many things we could choose from in life, amongst others having a job, but not necessarily having to choose for that. I soon found out that there were a lot of dreams I forgot that I wanted to realize.

But in first instance I let myself be talked into a volunteer job: becoming a member of a patient council in our village. I did a lot of work for that council and encountered many patients telling me their troubles and their rants about doctors and specialists who did everything the wrong way in their eyes. There were a lot of members in that patient council but only two or three that really did the work. And at a certain moment I got overworked and was totally back to zero. I couldn’t handle all those problems of others anymore and whilst doctors once in a while could vent to one another what they experienced with their patients, I had no one to do so because my husband was too busy with his job. At a certain moment I felt an enormous fear of failure and it felt around my chest as a heavy burden. I really thought I was having a heart attack so I went to my family doctor. He took me very serious, listened to me and I was able to vent my frustration about my experiences in his patient council and it was during those conversations I discovered that I listened too much to other people and their problems and totally forgot about myself. So that was the end of volunteer work for me and I never volunteered again. So now I had experienced both sides of the medal in two heavy experiences and learnt my lessons well. I really started from scratch and was grateful that I did not have a heart attack after all and was still alive an healthy. I was in the lucky circumstance that I did not have to go looking for a job and my husband was not so keen on me doing so either. I had a lot of hobbies and one of them made it possible to become my dream hobby or passion and that was making games on the computer while at the same time playing with and assisting my children on it. It was in those days that home computers became more available for people in general.

This went on and on till the children went to live on their own. I had so many nice experiences with people from around the world and at the same time practising my English and the introduction of the Internet was also really great. You can read about my programming experiences on my website: http://www.heartphone.org : English version and buttons to the right of the page.

I have been online ever since it was available. At the same time I have read many, many esoteric books, because there I would always find something back from that what I had experienced, because it was very difficult to really talk with someone about this. You cannot talk about something that cannot be expressed in words. From then on my life went more smoothly with ups and downs, always present when raising children, and we also suffered some dramas in our family. But who doesn’t? We were just another family. But I always could turn back to that wonderful feeling of inner freedom inside which I had received and I have made sure that I never lost it again.

When, some five years ago, my husband retired from work (in 2003), we both were invited by his employer to follow a course of a week about: “What lies ahead after being pensioned? We received lots of useful information and had a great time with some 14 other couples also present. It was during this course I had a conversation with our course leader in which he introduced the word labyrinth to me. I immediately thought that the labyrinth was some sort of maze and having made lots of 3D maze games on my computer, I was immediately interested. He explained to me that a labyrinth was not really a maze but more a one way route towards the middle, albeit with roundabouts.

After the course was finished, we stayed in touch and he gave me the names of a few websites to study and at first I was only interested in the fact how I could make them as a kind of game in my 3D computer program. But when I started to read about the meaning and possibilities of the labyrinth it soon became a two way experience. By making them on the computer I experienced at the same time, while virtually walking them a wonderful flash back or reflection over the past 30 years and when finally we met again, we drove to a small beach in my neighbourhood and he drew me a labyrinth in the sand which we both walked. After that experience I was overwhelmed with gratitude because I found out how fulfilling my life had been with that computer hobby during the past almost 30 years. I made a wonderful 3D animation of this beach experience, a small part of which can also be seen on my website. From that moment I experienced one wonderful thing after another, all fully described on my website.

In that same year (2003) our first grandson was born and I made several family movies during the first three years of his life which he now, at age 5 still loves to watch. In short, during the past 5 years I rolled from one beautiful experience into another and one could really say that I reaped the fruits I sowed long ago and they do taste sweet :). Mind you our family life had its ups and downs just like everybody else has, but I can truly say that the last five years up till now and still continuing have been and still are the most wonderful years of my life. In the meantime I have 3 grandchildren, 2 boys and one girl and the fourth (a girl) will be born in February 2009.

My labyrinth passion is still growing and growing and lately I have made some more in nature with natural objects found in nature and this is very fulfilling. I have more dreams and intentions on labyrinth experiences, which I hope will come true in the course of due time, so will keep myself busy for a while.

My life is a fulfilling one. I can have fun by myself but also with my husband and the rest of the family and something special is ahead within a short time now: In November we are married 40 years and we will celebrate this with our family and closest friends. We will not give a big party but will be together in a holiday park for a long weekend, where we, our children and grandchildren can enjoy that what I enjoyed in my youth, albeit in a more modern way. History is repeating itself, yet on another evolutionary spiral level.

I am grateful that I have experienced life in almost all its aspects, from being poor to slowly but surely building up a nice middle class life for our family, together with my husband and our children are now doing the same. I am grateful for what life has given me, both the good and the bad and the lessons needed to learn from it and that both my husband and me are still very healthy. And……. One always remembers the good things the best :)

As I already mention on the index page of my website, I made it in the first place for myself as an opportunity given by this Internet to actually write a kind of diary. But certainly I made it also for others to learn and to be amused. For everyone who is interested in it and it is my hope that my explanation of the numerous possibilities of the labyrinth can inspire others to do something with it too.

Best wishes from

Mieke