Sign Up  /  Login

The Path to Enlightenment, or Certain Confusion LbNA #18019

Owner:The Domedreamers
Plant date:Sep 10, 2005
Location:
City:Coventry
County:Tolland
State:Connecticut
Boxes:2
Found by: Nairon
Last found:Jan 29, 2023
Status:FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
Last edited:Sep 10, 2005
What is the difference between a Labyrinth and a Maze? One is a path to Enlightenment, the other to Certain Confusion. Labyrinths, which have often been traced on the floors of cathedrals to provide a sort of moving meditation, have a single, if convoluted, path to the center. If you follow the path you will reach the goal. A Maze, on the other hand, has intersections that require choices; an individual decision may lead you to where you want to go, or it may lead to a dead end, or you may just go in circles or end up back where you started.

The Labyrinth and The Maze Letterboxes are hidden in the Nathan Hale State Forest, with a starting point of the Nathan Hale Homestead , located on South Street in Coventry. If you go to find the boxes while the museum is open, Wed-Sun, they have a corn maze set up until the middle of October where you can apply your newfound knowledge of the subject. (a small fee is charged for the maze).

Back to the subject at hand...
If you follow the clues for The Labyrinth Letterbox, you will be led directly to the box, but the clues for The Maze Letterbox are not so straightforward-you will have to make choices, not all of which will lead you to your goal. (NOTE-The Maze Letterbox is not located within the corn maze-you will not have to pay a fee to find it.) The terrain is easy, but the time required will depend on your choices. Still, it should be less than an hour, plenty of time to do the many other boxes nearby afterwards.

Park in the parking lot at the Nathan Hale Homestead and walk south, entering the woods on a wide dirt path. You will pass the entrance to a field on the left, and shortly after, another on the right. As you walk down the path towards enlightenment, or at least, a letterbox, there will be a stone wall to your right. You will come to any area with many boulders strewn by the wall. Eventually the wall begins to ease closer to the path and you will come to an area where instead of deciduous trees, there are now hemlocks to your right. Behind the largest hemlock, which has very prominent roots and is growing right up to the wall, the box is underneath the stone wall.

Now you will seek The Maze, and certain confusion. Continue down the path. At the first intersection you must choose either to continue straight or turn right. In both directions you will still have a stone wall to your right, but if the wall comes to a corner after a very short (less than a minute) walk, and the path ahead begins to look vague, you made the wrong choice-go back and try the other way. If instead the wall to your right has a number of openings and is at some points topped by a wire fence, you chose correctly.

At the next intersection you will choose between turning left or going straight. If you come to a point where there are many boulders on your left, a low, wettish area (depending on the recent weather) on your right, and a road up ahead, you went wrong, go back. If you pass over a big lump in the trail and find yourself at another intersection, you chose properly.

At this new intersection you must either turn right or continue straight. If the path begins to make an S curve with a small outcropping of ledge on the right, you went astray, go the other way. If the path curves more gently and there are remnants of an old basement (in other words, a pit) on the left, you are moving in the right direction.

After you pass the pit, the curve of the path will place a two-sister and a three-sister tree directly in front of you. Keep going. The path will have become rocky. The path will soon pass through a crumbling stone wall that extends to both sides. The box is in the wall. Which way should you go? In both directions you will encounter neatly sawed off stumps. If you go the wrong way, the stump is about 10 feet from the wall and there is a boulder in between. In this direction the wall is in sorry shape.

If you go the right way, the sawed off stumps is about 1 foot high, and about three feet from the wall. The wall in this direction becomes neater, and past the stump a short ways there is a break in the wall. The box is behind a flat rock in the base of the wall, just before the break.

You do know the way back to the car, don’t you?