Back Story
I am Christiana Brinton and I have had a love affair with labyrinths since the mid-1990’s when I opened the Sunday edition of the New York Times and read the two-page article about the Rev. Dr. Lauren Artress walking the Chartres Cathedral labyrinth. She walked and realized that it could be a good thing for her Episcopal church in San Francisco, CA and, possibly, beyond. When I finished reading the two-page spread, I had one of those “Ah-Ha” moments, which then led me to become a Veriditas certified labyrinth facilitator in 1999. In the early years, I trained with Lauren, both in Chartres, France, Marriottsville, MD, and Portland, OR at the Veriditas Facilitator Trainings.
I attended two of The Labyrinth Society’s (TLS) earliest Annual Gatherings in Arkansas and Georgia and then, in 2009, I presented my thirteen-circuit Stargate Rainbow Labyrinth design at the 2009 Troutdale, OR Gathering and offered my Pow Wow drumming both during the event, and then during the Monday labyrinth bus tour following the Gathering. Since then and whenever possible, I have taken my beloved pow wow drum with me to accompany labyrinth walks around the USA. During these early years, I also created a BlogTalkRadio podcast called, Labyrinths in the News, that ran for three years, introducing the public to the international labyrinth community and its brightest labyrinth designers, builders, historians, and ritualists.
My involvement with the Portland OR Gathering team lead to my nomination to TLS’s Board of Directors in 2013 when I became its Nominating Chair. Two years later, I became TLS’s first Communications Director and then VP of Communications with the nomination of the new president, Kay Whipple, in 2016. Kay and I worked closely together to upgrade TLS’s PR and marketing areas into a well-known, branded labyrinth non-profit organization. Also, during this time, I created a new, TLS sponsored, podcast called, Many Paths Many Visions. As before, I wrote all the scripts, and interviewed guests from around the world who were active contributors to the global labyrinth reemergence scene. Forty-two of these podcasts were completed before I left the board of directors, and both my BlogTalkRadio and TLS podcasts can still be accessed on TLS’s website. The information they provide, on a variety of labyrinth related subjects, continues to be both educationally and historically relevant today. In February of 2020, I flew to San Francisco, attended an IONS Veriditas Advanced Facilitator Training, and became certified. I also contracted COVID 19 on the flight home.
I left TLS’s Board of Directors in July 2021, after accepting the President’s position in September of 2020, due to a rapid decline in my health from long-term COVID. It has taken two years, and many healing modalities, to be back in action again with my wits about me! I am very blessed to be in Western North Carolina surrounded by so many labyrinths and labyrinth lovers. And, this year, a local group of us labyrinth lovers started a new labyrinth team, The Blue Ridge Labyrinth Community (BRLC), for which I volunteered to be its first-year coordinator. Our team’s efforts contributed to a marked increase in local World Labyrinth Day awareness, and we will continue to invite area residents to join us and help grow labyrinth participation throughout North Carolina, over the coming years.
I am participating in the worldwide labyrinth community now at the level that is appropriate for me, and I wanted to offer the heart-centered communities I know and love something that is a personal expression of all that I have learned and experienced. This is my motivation for creating Annaea Harmony Blends, LLC. I have enjoyed making various blends casually for many years. I have used them for making prayers when walking labyrinths, and I have learned rituals and techniques in many communities that have deepened my understanding of vibration, sound healing, and connection. These traditions include Venerable’s Beauty Way, Gina Sala’s Sound School, Desda Zuckerman’s Sacred Anatomy Energy Medicine, and Isis Indriya’s Academy of Oracle Arts. It seemed like the right time to combine all I have learned and practiced into a tangible product that, through its use, supports a deeper connection to Gaia, Spirit, and each other, while walking, praying, singing, dancing, and being in community.
“Each of us is a battery, a resonator, a musical instrument, and we are setting waves of many patterns and many possible futures in the sea of life. Let us be discriminating in the futures that we shape forth.” Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo
I know her, and I want to buy her Blends.
800#: 833-378-3209 Local#: 828-820-8104