Artist, poet, teacher and founder of Living Labyrinths for Peace, Sandra Wasko-Flood will offer poetry readings and sign her book, “The Labyrinth Path to Light and Peace: Art and Poetry by Sandra Wasko-Flood,” together with free 30-minute presentations of Introduction to Labyrinths this weekend.

After the lecture, attendees are invited to take a walk on the colorful, indoor Rainbow Labyrinth of Peace canvas at the Sedona Artist Market. Wasko-Flood will be present at the gallery throughout the day and will offer her presentation Saturday, Nov. 18, at 1 and 2:30 p.m. She will also be sharing her book Sunday, Nov. 19, during the Sedona Psychic Fair at the Hilton Sedona Resort at Bell Rock in the Village of Oak Creek.

Wasko-Flood creates photo-etchings and labyrinth light art. Her mystical vision combines the darkness and the light, and those cycles of life, death and rebirth on the spiral path that American Indians say connects earth to universe.

“You can lose yourself in a maze, but find yourself in a labyrinth,” Wasko-Flood said. “Mazes have many false paths and dead ends, but labyrinths have a single, meandering path to the center and back, which many find slows the breathing, focuses the mind and induces a peaceful state of being. Over 4,000 years old and found worldwide, today labyrinths are having a renaissance. They are found in churches and schools, hospitals and prisons, parks and recreation centers, and backyards around the globe.”

Wasko-Flood was inspired by a vision she had in Chaco Canyon’s Great Kiva, where she saw dancing figures emerge from a ceremonial spiral “under Earth,” to a labyrinth “on Earth,” and a glass dome opening to the galaxies “above Earth.”

“It became my priority to construct the Labyrinth Light Media Peace Museum in New Mexico and New York City that will unite all disciplines, institutions and cultures for world peace,” she said.

Wasko-Flood said she loves to share understanding about labyrinths.

“In the past, people walked them for major life celebrations — birthdays, marriages, funerals, as we still do today. The labyrinth is a form of meditation that represents life’s journey, the cycles physical, psychological and spiritual of life, death and rebirth,” Wasko-Flood said. “You enter it with some life concern or intention for walking. You rest at center — death — dying to an old way of being, as you listen with your mind and heart to that higher force in which you believe. You walk back out reborn with a new way of seeing to give to the world. You can walk to express a feeling, make a decision, resolve a conflict or make a peace wish for yourself, family, friends, community or the world.”

A resident of Angel Fire, N.M., and part-time resident of Baltimore, Md., Wasko-Flood studied printmaking at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1966; the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from 1970 to 1973; the University of Wisconsin, Madison from 1977 to 1978; and at Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. in 1986.

One of the first to use the monotype printmaking technique, she gave classes in her Alexandria, Va., studio from 1981 to 1985. As director of the Printmaking Studio, Lee Arts Center in Arlington, Va., in 1996, she invited Keith Howard to introduce his safe etching techniques to the East Coast. She has continued to study at the Universtiy of New Mexico-Taos with Gary Cook since 2009. Collections include National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; Modern Art Museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

Accomplishments include founding member of Washington Women’s Arts Center in 1981; Washington Printmakers Gallery in 1985; International Labyrinth Society in 1998; TLS Project Director, Labyrinths for Peace: 2000, a labyrinth walking on the East Lawn of the U.S. Capitol; and founder of Living Labyrinths for Peace, a national organization whose mission is to inspire healing and transformation through labyrinth creation and education in 2005.

She co-hosted Labyrinth Society’s annual gathering in Taos, Return from the Center: Open the Heart of Peace featuring Mayan messenger Ac-Tah, and shamanistic medicine woman Virginia LoneSky in 2011.

Through grants from the Washington D.C. Performing Arts Society and New Mexico schools from 2002 through the present, Wasko-Flood conducts Labyrinth Workshops for Creativity and Peace where students create and walk labyrinths to make decisions, resolve conflicts and make peace wishes — for themselves, family, friends, community and the world.

Her current projects are the Labyrinth Instructors Handbook relating labyrinths to every intelligence and subject, and Taos Academy’s teaching and updating art/technology, “Dance of the Labyrinth.”

Experience a walk on the Rainbow Labyrinth of Peace on Saturday, meet the artist, enjoy the free 30-minute lecture and poetry readings, learn about the health benefits of walking a labyrinth and see her art.

The Sedona Artist Market is at 2081 W. State Route 89A in West Sedona. This art destination showcases more than 100 artists offering jewelry, wearables, handmade baskets, photography, glass art, digital art and more. Call 282-2153. More information about the labyrinth event is available by calling (480) 599-4830.

The Sunday book signing takes place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the Sedona Psychic Fair at the Hilton Sedona Resort at Bell Rock and is free with fair admission. The Hilton is at 90 Ridge Trail Drive in the Village of Oak Creek.