O’Meara...
mences anew: a return exit or a departure for a new center, one im-
material and spiritual, apparent solely from where the traveller now
stands. “[T]he labyrinth,” writes the historian of religion Philippe
Borgeaud, “is both the path which leads toward a center, toward a new
mode of existence, and the enchanted artifice which prevents any exit
if one has not taken care to leave path marks ... When he comes to
the end of his quest the pilgrim sees the desired center transformed
into a confusion which conceals from him the new center toward
which he must now direct himself, retracing his steps. The labyrinth always has two centers: where one is and where one
desires to be. ... To emerge from the labyrinth is equivalent to entering a new labyrinth. The labyrinth itself is the place
of its own passage.”^9
The architecture of much of the traditional Moroccan medina’s streetscape enhances this illusion of perpetual transit.
Better illustrated than described, this phenomenon is shown below in photographs of the medinas of Fez and Marrakech.
Essentially, the impression is that as you walk through the medina, primarily via the secondary and tertiary routes that
weave in and out of the residential quarters, your gaze is drawn ahead to the sky-lit breaks in the walls and ceilings enclos-
ing your passage. But as you reach any one of these openings, its quality as a one-time focal point of your path disappears
and another near-distant opening draws your gaze again. As in an ever-receding desert, your arrival seems deferred.
of Fez (London: Routledge, 2007).
- Philippe Borgeaud, “The Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King: The Greek Labyrinth in Context,” History of
Religions, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1974), p. 23.
Figure 4: Fez, Bab Jedid