Increasingly, labyrinths are being used as psychological therapy, the idea being that there is an exit after the challenges, which is reassuring and builds confidence and contentment. In that regard a labyrinth is not a maze, where there are many dead ends and no assurance that there is a safe exit. But in history and lore — and in collective personal experiences and the patterns of dreams –the labyrinth is a maze because in real life we don’t know whether there is a safe exit and we do experience dead ends from which we must back away and begin again. In history and lore, the maze is only broken by a supreme sacrifice of one’s life or that of a surrogate or “scapegoat” — we can think of the youth sacrificed to the Minotaur or, more emblematically, Jesus. Ultimately, however, the sacrifice takes the form of “death” to the world, renunciation of the world and its red dust. Negotiating the maze of life means simplifying, rarifying, dwindling the self until it is indistinguishable from the universe and slips effortlessly through the maze like an ether or a spring breeze.