Blueprint for human dignity

Look closely at the ruins of the ancient Minoan town of Gournia. To me, they illustrate another aspect of our Cretan ancestors. These stones outline houses.

When you walk among them, you get a sense of the people. You feel invited to sit on porches, to share stories of your day.

To me, these ruins illustrate the egalitarian aspect of Minoan culture. All the houses were about the same size. (They were also two and three stories high and had a form of indoor plumbing. Not bad for three-plus millennia ago.)

Imagine, if you can, a society in which people – men and women, young and old – were more equal than they are today. A society in which dignity was part of being human. Minoan Crete was a place that honored all the components of the web of life.

What do we honor? To whom do we grant dignity?

At the summit of the hill on which this town was built there is a Kernos (sacred stone). Those of us on the goddess tour (www.goddessariadne.org) placed fruits there and, after readings, fed the fruits to one another.

Can you digest another culture? Can walking ancient paths, sitting on ancient steps, and honoring ancient sacred sites change the way you think about your own society, your own times?

Absolutely.

Hallelujah and Blessed Be

I Am Here, I Am Whole

There were 16 of us – two leaders and 14 women from various English-speaking countries – who participated in the Sept. 28 – Oct. 11 goddess tour of Crete (www.goddessariadne.org).

We gathered for the first time Friday evening, Sept. 28. The chairs were in a circle. Each of us was asked why we had chosen to participate and each of us was asked to say: I am here, I am whole, I am [and then our name]. It seemed somehow presumptuous, but we all did it.

During the course of the pilgrimage we often gathered in the evening, always in a circle. Each time, we took turns describing our perceptions of what had occurred that day, after we said: I am here, I am whole, I am [name].

Such a simple practice. But that practice, coupled with the morning blessing that we tried – with varying success – to repeat en route to whatever marvel was on our day’s agenda, wrapped us into community.

[The morning blessing was longer and only partially memorized – and, inevitably, by the time I found the written version, it was over. Still, it framed the day.]

Singing
The breath of my spirit will bless
the cells of my being sing
in gratitude, reawakening. . . .
Reciting
This earth is my sister
I love her daily grace her silent daring
and how loved I am
how we admire this strength in each other
all that we have lost, all that we have suffered all that we know:
we are stunned by this beauty and I do not forget:
what she is to me, what I am to her.
Singing
As this day dawns in beauty, We pledge ourselves to repair the web.

Circles are powerful. Often, when we gather looking into each others’ faces, we glimpse each others’ hearts. Ritual is powerful. Things repeated on a regular basis can work their way into our psyches.

Framed thus, our experience of the matrilineal Minoan culture deepened. I, for one, was able to perceive the divine feminine, to experience what it might be like to all that I could be as a woman, as a crone.

I am here, I am whole, I am Mim

Graphic Reminder

If I knew how to 'photo-shop' I might edit out the scaffolding, etc. surrounding this giant poster that was hung on plaza in Chania, Crete. But perhaps all the debris is appropriate. And, yes, I know I used this image in a previous post but I think you need to get used to it. I believe I will use it whenever I encounter something that denigrates women. I may have to use it a lot.

The other night I saw the documentary "The Invisible War" on PBS. I happened on it by chance and stayed with it, mesmerized by the enormity of the dilemmas faced by women (and men) in the U.S. military who have been raped by other members of the U.S. military. I had seen occasional headlines about this issue but I hadn't learned any of the personal stories. And the personal stories are horrific.

During the fall Goddess Tour of Crete (www.goddessariadne.org) led by feminist scholar and theologian Dr. Carol Christ, I was imbedded in a supportive female culture. Hampered by back problems, climbing over and into ancient Minoan ruins was daunting. But wherever we went, the other women on the tour held out their hands and offered whatever I needed. It was just the way we were. It was just the way we understood the ancient Minoan culture to be. In our evening circles, in our morning chants, in the ceremonies we performed in sacred centers, we reinforced these actions with words.

We honored each other.

The transition back into a culture where people do not honor each other, where rape goes unpunished, where violence dominates the headlines, can be (is) difficult and overwhelming.

I am beginning to emerge. Beginning to move back toward wholeness. In future posts, I will reveal how that might be possible. But every once in a while, you will see this photo again -- when once again, women (and/or men and/or children and/or other living things and/or our planet) are denigrated.

Because we need to acknowledge the wrongs or we will never get it right.

A Story in Three Images

I’m just making this up but when I was in Crete on a goddess tour (www.goddessariadne.org) led by feminist theologian and scholar Dr. Carol Christ, I saw three female images that could, perhaps, tell a story.

One, in the Archeological Museum in Heraklion, was a statuette of a Minoan priestess, vibrant and powerful.

Another, on a gigantic poster on a square in Chania, depicted another bare-breasted female who appeared deeply sad. Why?

On the way out of a small city where we had marveled at a museum's examples of ancient art, Dr. Christ pointed out this sign (I only had a few seconds to photograph) outside a grocery store.

The Goddess Ariadne, who probably migrated with Neolithic settlers from Anatolia some seven thousand years ago, was now transformed into the symbol for a grocery store chain.

I would be sad too.

A Discovered Heritage

Here she is. A terracotta Neolithic Snake Goddess from circa 4,500 BCE. She's just under six inches high and protected in a glass case at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum in Crete.

To me, she is a symbol of the millennia during which women were honored and society was more egalitarian and peaceful.

For more than 1,500 years, Crete thrived without invasion, evolving from a Neolithic society to a Bronze Age civilization (the Minoan) that managed to retain its belief in the unity of life -- and the sacredness of this planet.

It inherited the Neolithic culture of Old Europe which established these patterns as early as 7000 BCE.

I met the Snake Goddess on the first full day of the Goddess Tour of Crete led by Dr. Carol Christ (www.goddessariadne.org). She, amid all the treasures in the museum, was the item that bowled me over.

Later, in one of the shops across the highway from the ruins of the Knossis Palace (or sacred center) I bought a reproduction. I carried her around to all the sacred places we visited. Often, we would have ceremonies during which we honored our individual goddesses with libations.  I poured honey over mine so she is, even after several washings, a bit sticky.

Nonetheless, I honor her. I found a spot on the east side of my house where she now sits under a glass tree sculpture next to my twig from the sacred myrtle tree at the Paliani Convent.

I still have not absorbed her import.  Intellectually, I know that human civilization moved on. After more than 5,000 years of matrilineal communities, we took another 3,000  years to develop great literature and perpetual war on each other and the Earth.

As I sift through my memories and emotions, she remains -- serene and silent in my living room. Waiting, I think, for me to figure it out.

Or perhaps for all of us to figure it out.

Cat Encounters in Crete

Cats were one of the first things I noticed in Crete. In Chania, our first stop, there were lots of cats. They seemed well fed. They were not intrusive, just ubiquitous. And every little store with postcards and souvenirs carried images of cats.

I only took a picture of one. This one lived at the Paliani Convent which is built around a Holy Myrtle tree.

I never managed to photograph the cats with whom I had a special connection. I was on a goddess tour (www.goddessariadne.org). Led by Dr. Carol Christ – scholar, author, and theologian -- we honored the sacred at each site that had been sacred to the Minoan people and their descendants.

At the convent, we sat on a stone bench curving around the ancient tree and sang a response as each of us tied a piece of ribbon on the branches with a prayer. There, a little black cat hopped onto my lap to comfort me.

I don’t remember now whether it was at Phaistos or Malia – two of the ancient Minoan sacred centers we visited – but a little white and brown cat followed me, jumped on a bench when I asked it to (how did it know English?) then gave me a good-bye head bump as I was leaving.

There were other cats – a tri-colored kitten in Mochlos, a beautiful little fishing village, and the cat I fed French fries in the Anoglia tavern. But the most amazing was the little black cat who guided us around the Minoan ruins in the town of Tylissos.

We had had a wonderful visit to the home of Marie and Stella who shared refreshments and stories before we moved to the ruins of a Minoan village around the corner. As we entered the complex, the little cat trotted up and walked with us as we walked and sat with us when we sat.

[Actually I do have sort of picture of him, climbing onto Mikai’s shoulder.]

As we were leaving the complex, a family was just entering. The cat abandoned us and trotted up in front of the new group. Evidently, he was the official guide.

Who could ask for more?

Sacred Places

One of the things that made my recent tour of Crete (www.goddessariadne.org) so powerful was the fact that at each place held sacred by the ancient Minoan culture, we performed a ceremony or ritual acknowledging the sacredness.

Many of the sacred places were in caves (most of which I was physically unable to navigate). The one cave I managed was Elitheia outside Amnisos. A rock formation at the mouth of the cave looks like a woman giving birth. Further back in the cave, stalactites and stalagmites evoked images of maternity. As we entered, someone placed an egg in the ‘navel’ and each of us poured libations on the formation before proceeding further into this homage to womanhood – accompanying each stop with poetry. I could not help but note that others had been there before us. Fresh flowers surrounded the birth rock.

Later, we went to Gournia, a completely excavated Minoan town.

  Like all Minoan settlements, it had a sacred center, a stone in a courtyard where the holy was acknowledged. There, we placed fruits on the perimeter of the sacred stone and, after readings, fed the fruit to each other.

On another day our bus stopped outside the Aphrodite Tavern in Kato Symi. It could not take us the rest of the way up the mountain. We transferred into two pickups and went vertically to a mountain peak shrine where a sacred spring watered a magnificent tree (and goats literally gamboled on the surrounding rocks). We gathered in a circle, taking turns reading Saphho poetry. It was magic. Then we clambered back into the pickups and descended. The afternoon was crowned by a feast at the tavern.

Each site, each ceremony connected me with a civilization that honored women and the earth. And with the rich heritage each human holds within her DNA and psyche.