As you walk the living labyrinth at Rogers Farm in Stillwater, you have one goal: Get to the center. You can’t really tell where you’re going, and you can see only part of where you’ve been. Stress seems to melt away as you wander the short, twisted paths, and just when you think you’ve finished, you realize you’re not even close. By the time you reach the middle, a transformation has taken place. You’re centered, focused, calm.

Oh, and you’re probably hungry, too.

The paths are lined with fragrant, edible plants, and sampling is encouraged, if not impossible to resist, as you run your hands over Thai basil and delicate dill flowers or spot the speckled lettuce and spiky chives.

The labyrinth garden is the culmination of a summer class in reading and meditation at the University of Maine. Though the course combined elements of tai chi, literature, analysis, writing and meditation, the focal point was the garden.

“We tried to get as many different senses as possible,” said Sara Speidel of Bangor, a Penobscot County master gardener who co-taught the course with UM English professor Tony Brinkley and tai chi instructor Katherine Kates. “We included sound – a lot of these are wonderful bee plants. There are many beautiful flowers, companion plants and medicinal herbs, and it’s very aromatic.”

Speidel and Brinkley taught the class together last year, but the labyrinth is a new addition. Cultures around the world have used the patterned paths since ancient times for ceremonial uses and religious pilgrimages. The group chose herbs and flowers with edible blossoms, as well as a minitrial of 10 basil varieties, as a way to both educate the public and stimulate the senses.

“The edible flower thing is a little foreign to people around here, so we try to incorporate it different ways,” Speidel said.

Though the students learned how to make edible mandalas – a circular centering point for meditation – from petals and leaves, Speidel came up with practical ways to add blossoms and herbal ingredients to everyday foods. She suggested using borage flowers in marinated cucumbers or adding marigold petals to deviled eggs.

“That seems to be the way that’s more accessible to people,” Speidel said.

There was never a shortage of food when the class met, and the teachers and students often would snack on crackers with herbed cream cheese topped with peppery nasturtiums. Student Lisa Asnis shared her recipes for pesto, and the group tried out different varieties of basil – the resounding favorite was Thai. But that didn’t stop the students from nibbling on other plants as well, such as anise hyssop, fennel or cilantro.

“You can just eat a really little bit and the taste lasts a really long time,” said Heather Jovanelli of Brewer, an art major at UM. “It lingers on the tongue.”

Jovanelli is an honors student and a runner for UM, and she took the class because it piqued her interest, but she learned more than she bargained for.

“I didn’t know why my mother gardened before this,” Jovanelli said. “Now I know why. Being proved wrong by beautiful plants, it’s nice.”

Speidel mapped out the labyrinth in the dead of winter, and even when the class planted the spindly herb and flower seedlings in July, it didn’t look like much. Now, it’s at the peak of its beauty.

“It’s a surprise to come back,” Jim Green of Brewer said at the group’s final meeting. “It doesn’t seem possible that these are the same plants.”

Green works as a therapist in private practice, and he arranged his summer schedule around the class.

“It had a lot of attributes I love in life,” said Green, a New York native who moved here years ago. “I love to read. I love to write and I hardly ever get the time to do that. I love tai chi. I love meditation after years and years of talking about it, and the natural world is what got me to Maine.”

What appealed to him most, however, was the style of teaching, which was completely different from his studies in social work.

“It doesn’t seem gardening would fit into writing would fit into tai chi, reading, meditation and a labyrinth,” Green said. “This is how teaching should be; this is how learning should be. Everyone was challenged to whatever degree they wanted to be challenged. It was a really neat kind of learning, very different from what I did working on my undergrad.”

That was the whole idea, according to Brinkley.

“We had a feeling that working with literature and at the same time working with gardening and meditation techniques would provide a different kind of learning, a different kind of reading, an attention, perceptivity, responsiveness to a world you can’t control,” Brinkley said. “It allows students to explore things.”

Unlike a maze, which can be disorienting, a labyrinth has no branches or dead ends. Rather than getting lost, people who walk a labyrinth will always find the center. Brinkley particularly liked that metaphor as it related to writing.

“It makes you perceptive to things that seem to be blocking you as a writer and use them,” Brinkley said during a recent garden gathering. “The labyrinth turns you in another direction. It shows you a different, meandering way to creativity.”

It also showed students patience. When it was time to mulch, this summer’s dreary, rainy weather wouldn’t let up, so the teachers held the class outdoors anyway. It wasn’t pretty, but the job got done, and the students learned from it. They also learned from a group of hungry woodchucks who wanted to eat the plants almost as much as the students did. Speidel planted a few treats for them, too, and the woodchucks were so happy, they sat in on a few classes.

“If you treat them with respect, if you plant chard, they behave and eat what’s been planted,” Speidel said. “They’d come out and watch.”

“They’re sort of our friends,” Brinkley added. “They’re welcome here. Their labyrinth is under our labyrinth.”

The edible labyrinth is at the back of the Penobscot County Master Gardeners Demonstration Garden at Rogers Farm, located on Route 16 (outer Bennoch Road) in Stillwater. For information on next summer’s reading and meditation class, contact the UM English department at 581-3822 and ask to speak to Tony Brinkley.

Lemony Anise Hyssop Tea Bread

Makes 1 loaf

2 cups flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

Rind of 1 lemon

1/3 cup anise hyssop flowers, finely chopped

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup lemon juice

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease and flour a bread or loaf pan.

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. In another bowl cream butter with sugar until fluffy. Then add lemon rind, chopped flowers and eggs. Beat until just combined. Stir in lemon juice. Gradually mix in dry ingredients and nuts and mix until blended. Spoon into prepared pan and bake 50-55 minutes. Cool on rack.

Note: Bread tastes best when made a night ahead and wrapped in aluminum foil.

Recipe adapted from “Recipes from a Kitchen Garden” by Renee Shepard and Fran Raboff.

Yogurt-Basil Sauce

Makes about 21/4 cups

11/2 cups yogurt (or use 1 cup yogurt and 1/2 cup tofu)

1/2 European cucumber, seeded

1/2 cup basil leaves

1-2 teaspoons lemon juice

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon honey

Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor and mix until smooth. Refrigerate for at least an hour to let the flavors meld.

Serve with seafood or poultry, or use as a salad dressing.

Note: Adapted from Body and Soul magazine. Substitute dill for the basil for a different flavor, or use a little of both.

Lisa Asnis’ Pesto Genovese

Makes 6-8 servings

3 cups fresh basil leaves (try Thai basil for a kick)

3 cloves garlic

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup pine nuts or walnuts

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Coarse salt (sea or kosher), to taste

2 pounds spaghetti

Rinse basil in cold water and remove stems. Boil water and start cooking spaghetti.

In a blender or food processor, combine basil leaves, garlic, oil, nuts and cheese. Add 2 tablespoons of hot pasta water, if desired, to make mixture more like a sauce and less like a paste. Add salt to taste.

Note: The proportions in this recipe can be adapted in many ways. If you prefer more basil, add more, but be sure to add a bit more oil as well. Also, feel free to use more or less cheese and nuts.

Lisa Asnis’ Pesto Base For Freezing

5 cups basil leaves, stems removed

1/2 cup olive oil

Coarse salt to taste

Rinse basil in cold water. Drain well. Place the leaves in a blender or food processor. Add the oil and salt, to taste and blend, pushing the mixture down carefully with a rubber spatula, until thoroughly homogenized. Scrape into an ice cube tray and freeze. When solid, pop out the frozen cubes and place into plastic bags. Return to freezer.

When ready to serve, thaw cubes and cook pasta accordingly (consider each cube a single serving). Place pesto in a blender and add walnuts, Parmesan cheese and garlic to taste.