Mountain Gifts

It never fails. When I take the time to drive up the road into Rocky Mountain National Park, I always encounter beauty and creatures that restore my soul.

... especially when I go with a good friend

who is as enchanted as I am

 

 

by our companions on this planet

 

Sunday reflection on Crete

Like adolescents who, after they turn 30, are amazed by their parents’ wisdom, I continue to be astounded by my ancestors – our ancestors. I’ve done of lot of reading. Every year it seems archeologists, anthropologists, even paleontologists are discovering how sophisticated the ancients were – how much they knew about how the planet works, how the stars turn, and how to live with one another.

None of my reading prepared me for Crete. Part of me didn’t really believe there had ever been a civilization in which women’s values were paramount. Where generosity, nurturing and compassion were the standards by which women and men lived and breathed and had their being. I wanted to believe it but, like you, all I had to do was look at the headlines to know that humans are a nasty lot, tirelessly striving to dominate one another.

Or perhaps not.

Anthropologist Marija Gimbutas traced thousands of years when, in what she called ‘old Europe,’ people lived in peaceful, egalitarian societies.

One of the last of these societies was on Crete. People settled on the island somewhere around 7,000 BCE. These settlers were Neolithic – early farmers. For more than 1,500 years, Crete thrived without invasion, evolving from a Neolithic to a Bronze Age civilization (the Minoan) that managed to retain its belief in the unity of life and the sacredness of this planet.

Sometime around 1,450 BCE, the Minoans were wiped out as a result of a one-two punch involving a volcanic eruption, tsunami and invading Myceneans. But their heritage is still alive – in the caves, and trees, and springs, and ruins of ceremonial complexes that you can still touch today . . . and in their great art, which you cannot touch, in various archeological museums.

Like most of the world, Crete is now as patriarchal as we are. But there are still Minoan traces – Cretans are a generous, friendly people.

With Sally Henry, I toured Crete last fall. Our tour was designed to experience the past in the present. From our first gathering circle, we formed a community. Every morning, we repeated a blessing which ended with “As this day dawns in beauty, we pledge ourselves to repair the web.” In the evenings, when we shared our stories, we repeated the mantra: I am here, I am whole, I am [our names].

Ritual is powerful. Things repeated on a regular basis can work their way into our psyches. Circles are powerful. Often, when we gather looking into each others’ faces, we glimpse each others’ hearts. On the tour, whoever needed help got it. Whoever needed time alone, or comfort, or cash until we reached the next ATM, got it.

At every site once sacred to the Minoans, we paused before entering to be led in rituals acknowledging their significance. We took turns reading scripted rituals and, at most sites, poured libations over our individual goddess images. Often, we would sing songs or chants that seemed to echo across millennia.

Eventually, I began to believe that there really was a civilization that held the values of motherhood – nurturing and generosity – as paramount virtues. A society in which dignity was part of being human. It was more than the fact that the stone outlines of Minoan dwellings were all about the same size; it was the sense of community that vibrated up through the ruins even after 5,000 years.

We live in a culture of dominance. It’s not working very well.

What if we lived in a culture woven out of connection and relationship, built with authenticity, trust, and acknowledged interdependence? What if decisions were made by allowing responses to emerge from genuine dialogue? What if we honored the divine – in ourselves, in each other, and in all the components of Planet Earth?

We need new ways of doing things. The culture of dominance has permeated the air we breathe for so long we think it is the only way. It is not. Other ways exist. In Minoan Crete, they existed for nearly two thousand years. They are, finally, emerging again. With them -- with empathy, generosity, compassion and respect – we may indeed be able to restore the interdependent web of all existence.

Our Minoan ancestors got it right.

A Tribute to Crete Food

According to “Google”, Cretan cheese pies are called Kalitsounia Kritis. Unlike their Greek counterparts, they are made with pastry rather than phyllo. Fortunately, everywhere I went, the words “cheese pie” were understood and generally produced what would be sufficient motivation for a return trip to the island.

Cheese pies and all the other wonderful things I ate, suffused my days on Crete with pleasure. Nothing particularly effete. Just simple, fresh, yummy concoctions that were a joy to savor.

Perhaps some of the allure was generated by the weird eating hours. While on the fall goddess tour (www.goddessariadne.org), we’d eat breakfast at 7 or 8 a.m. then wait until 1 or 2 or 3 p.m. for lunch, then 7 or 8 or 9 for dinner.

No. The allure was the food itself.
    Fresh, fresh salads.
    The best yogurt I have ever encountered (made with sheep’s milk, rich and creamy and needing no sweetener whatsoever).
     Wood-roasted almost any kind of meat imaginable. Fresh fish near the coast (and trout in the mountains). Lamb or pork or rabbit or goat or almost anything except beef everywhere else.
     The world’s finest olive oil, used liberally for almost everything.
     And great olives of course.
     Incredible eggplant concoctions with amazing tomatoes.
     Other delicacies, more typically Greek, like dolmades.
     And the wine was fine and the raki enabled me to at least attempt Greek dancing. (Zorba I am not.)

It’s been almost six months since I returned from Crete. All of my posts have had something to do with that trip. That’s probably enough (although I think I’ll do a couple more). Am I obsessed? No. Just stunned to discover evidence of a civilization that lived in peace for some two thousand years, honoring women and valuing generosity and compassion, while producing great art . . . and, surely, great food. Oopah!

Non-Dominational

It’s been more than four months since I returned from the ‘goddess tour of Crete’ (www.goddessariadne.org) led by feminist theologian/ scholar/ author Dr. Carol Christ. You’d think by now I’d be ‘over it’ – that I would find something else to write about. And I will – eventually – write about other things. But I don’t think I want to be ‘over’ what I learned in Crete. Ever.

By walking amid five-thousand-year old ruins, climbing carefully into caves sacred to the Minoan people, and holding rituals around sacred stones or springs or trees, I began to have a vision of a different kind of society: a non-dominational society.

[My computer does not like that word – which I just made up – probably because it’s a pretty patriarchal machine. Let’s use it anyway.]

Oddly, since when most people think about ancient Crete (if they do) they think about the bull-leaping depicted in Minoan art and reflected in tales woven by latter-day Greeks, I did not photograph any bull-leaping art except this one clay vessel of kids dangling off the head of some bovine form.

 [Ponder this: the mammal could be either a bull or cow and the kids could be male or female, or some combination.]

I digress.

From all that I read and all that I heard and felt while in Crete, the Minoans had a matrifocal/ matrilineal/matrilocal society. Mothers and mother values [love, generosity, and care] were honored. By both men and women.

As I imagine it, this ancient society had some gender-specific roles. In all probability, its sailors were male. It is possible that those who built the temples and cleared the land were male. Artists could, I think, have been either female or male. I’m guessing that most weavers and cooks were female. But the important thing is that nobody was dominant over others. Not males over females or females over males. Think about it. Mutual dignity and respect. Where everyone’s gifts and opinions were valued.

Shazaam.

I do not want to ‘get over’ Crete. I do want to do whatever I can to foment a non-dominational society – here and now.

A Moment in Crete

One of the factors that made the fall tour of Crete (www.goddessariadne.com) so powerful was the community that the participants became.

Often before walking a site, such as the ruins of Knossis, we would learn about its history and significance and approach it with the respect and in the manner which it deserved.

Still, one of the most powerful experiences I had, happened on the day I got lost, with one of the tour's leaders, Mika. The group was to gather at a Minoan tomb, Tholos, near Kamilari. Because of back problems, I walked so slowly that Mika and I lost sight of the others and wandered around for an hour before giving up and creating our own little ritual on the side of a dirt road, in the middle of nowhere important.

Sitting in a little patch of rocks, we set our goddess images on their mineral perches and poured our respective libations as we remembered aloud our female ancestors. I invoked my paternal grandmother, Edna Miriam Thacker McClure, her mother (my great grandmother) Nell Miriam Fowler Thacker, and the generations of prior Miriams recorded on a sampler that hangs in my guest room. The ritual prompted me to renew the honor in which I hold my own name (Miriam of course) and its heritage/ my heritage.

After the ceremony, we found our way back to the bus and eventually the others joined us and the tour continued with, as I recall, an incredible (and incredibly late) lunch at a seaside restaurant in Kamilari.

That private ceremony still reverberates in my memory. I have no pictures of that pile of rocks (my camera was temporarily jammed).

Sometimes photographs are redundant.

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