Blogs from Laura Perry - PaganSquare - Join the conversation! Fri, 06 Dec 2019 19:01:02 -0800 Joomla! - Open Source Content Management en-gb A Mother's Love, Minoan Style

Whenever I check on my blog statistics, I always find that the post I wrote about topless Minoan women is the number one in terms of hits. The female breast is such a source of titillation (ha!) in modern society, it's hard to wrap our minds around the idea that exposed breasts might have represented something other than sexual innuendo to the ancient Minoans. But we're pretty sure they did.

In addition to the frescoes and figurines that show women with exposed breasts, Minoan art also includes quite a few representations of animals suckling their young. The image at the top of this blog is a drawing of a faience plaque found at Knossos. It shows a mama goat suckling a kid. There's a similar plaque with a cow and her calf. Images of mother animals suckling their young - cattle, goats, sheep, even deer - appear on a number of Minoan seals.

The human breast has the same biological function as animal teats: to feed the young, to give them nourishment and a sense of comfort through a physical connection with their mother. What if this is the reason for all the exposed breasts in Minoan art - to remind us of the nurture and nourishment of the mother, both human and divine?

The pantheon for Modern Minoan Paganism is presided over by a trio of mother goddesses. They are the mothers to all the other deities and to their human children as well. We can turn to them for comfort, nurturing, and spiritual nourishment as well as for the kind of guidance so many people seek from the divine. We can pour libations of milk as a reminder of the overflowing abundance the Great Mothers offer us.

Every one of us is born from a mother. Regardless of our personal relationships with our own mothers, we can recognize the concept of the mother as a source of comfort and support. We can choose to look past our modern hangups with the human body and see, in those bared breasts in Minoan art, a reminder that the divine feminine includes the mother goddesses who look after us all and care for us as their own.

In the name of the bee,

And of the butterfly,

And of the breeze, amen.

Read more]]> (Laura Perry) Paths Blogs Thu, 05 Dec 2019 04:57:30 -0800
Chasing the Minoan Sun Goddess: two book reviews



Arlechina was generous enough to join the conversation and help us in our search for the Minoan Sun goddess, pointing out the associations with the date palm, the murex dye, and griffins, all of whom show up in Minoan art as tipoffs that the deity being shown is indeed a Sun goddess. Some of this information was lost during the Bronze Age collapse and during the transition from bronze cults to iron cults, but enough threads remain that we can find our way back.

The second source that we found to be very useful was Patricia Monaghan's book O Mother Sun! This excellent resource traces Sun goddesses across Eurasia and beyond, from the Paleolithic era to modern times. It's out of print now but worth seeking out at used booksellers. Monaghan is known for her thoroughly researched, well-documented works about the divine feminine, several of which are still in print (she died in 2012).

What I found especially interesting about the material in O Mother Sun! is that the format I thought was normal (Sun=god and Moon=goddess) is reversed in the older layers of mythology. We can still catch glimpses of this in traces of earlier pantheons, such as the Norse Sun goddess Sunna and her brother Mani, the Moon god.

So we found Therasia, though we still don't know what the Minoans called her. She answers to this name now, spoken by modern Pagans in the contemporary world. And I'm grateful for the resources that helped us make that connection.

In the name of the bee,

And of the butterfly,

And of the breeze, amen.


NOTE: The lovely folks at NASA tell us that we should capitalize the names of our Earth, Sun, and Moon the same way we capitalize the names of other planets (Jupiter, Neptune), stars (Aldebaran, Sirius), and planetary moons (Io, Europa). I think it’s only right that we show as much respect for our Earth, Sun, and Moon as we do the other celestial objects.

Read more]]> (Laura Perry) Paths Blogs Thu, 14 Nov 2019 04:33:13 -0800
Modern Minoan Paganism: Ecstatic upraised arms

Strike a pose! Ecstatic postures have been a part of human religious practice for millennia, possibly going back as far as the Paleolithic. I've explored ecstatic postures and their place in Modern Minoan Paganism before. They're a kind of spiritual "tech" - like yoga and tai chi, ecstatic postures make energy move via the mechanism of holding the body in particular ways. We find examples of these postures in the form of votive figurines from Minoan sacred sites such as cave shrines and peak sanctuaries. The best-known of these postures is probably the famed Minoan salute.

Most ecstatic postures appear to have been used by spiritworkers and worshipers to journey to specific places in the Otherworld or to connect with particular deities or spirits. In that sense, the usual museum label of "worshiper figurine" is accurate.

But not all ecstatic postures were used by worshipers or spiritworkers to connect with the divine. Some were used by clergy for what amounts to trance possession. The upraised-arms pose is an example of that type of ecstatic posture.

You may already be familiar with the Poppy Goddess figurine at the top of this post. She's an example of a "bell jar" or "pot-skirted" figurine, so called because the lower half of the figurine was thrown on a potter's wheel just like any other kind of jar or pot, while the upper half was hand-sculpted. Most (though not all) of the figurines of this type have their arms raised up in one way or another. The Poppy Goddess has her hands raised to the side, palms facing forward. But there are multiple variants of this pose, as you can see here:

Goddess figurines Heraklion Archaeological Museum

(Image: Wikipedia CC BY 3.0)

The palms can face front or inward; there's one example with the right hand facing forward and the left hand facing inward. The arms can reach forward rather than being held out to the sides. Each of these variants creates a slightly different effect, but they're all used the same way.

These are poses that draw a goddess down into a priestess.

I've used a few of these poses in ritual, and they work well for smooth, easy trance possession. It feels like I'm slipping on a favorite garment when the goddess comes down onto me. This would be a good way to start with trance possession if you're inexperienced and want a method that will give you some control over the process. The arms-out-front variation provides a little separation between me and the deity, while the arms-to-the-sides pose is a more direct drawing down. The distinction between the directions the palms are facing is more difficult to articulate, more subtle, but there is a difference.

Some ecstatic postures appear to be gendered in one way or another; this is one of those. This one doesn't seem to work for men drawing down a god, but that makes sense given that all the figurines depict goddesses. (We're working on some poses for men to draw down gods - that may be a guest blog post at some point.) I suspect this pose would also work for non-binary/genderqueer people to draw down a goddess. And in case you're wondering about my definitions, trans women = women and trans men = men.

If you give this one a try, please let me know how it goes. Exploring these postures is a fascinating journey that connects us with the people of the past. Good stuff.

In the name of the bee,

And of the butterfly,

And of the breeze, amen.

Read more]]> (Laura Perry) Paths Blogs Wed, 06 Nov 2019 07:54:12 -0800
"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet" - King Minos

I love the Internet. There's so much information so readily available. It's such a contrast to my early days of researching the Minoans, back in the 1970s and 80s, when I had to scratch and scrabble for a sentence here, a paragraph there, in books about other ancient cultures. But that ease of access to the online world comes with a price.

Anyone can put up a website and say anything they want to in it. That's good; freedom of speech and expression is something I'm all for. The problem comes when websites repeat outdated and inaccurate information, either because the writer doesn't know any better or because they have a theory they want to prove. Of course, this sort of thing happens in books as well, but it's more common online, simply because it's easier to put up a website than to publish a book.

Most people know that Sir Arthur Evans was the major excavator of Knossos and brought the Minoans back into the spotlight. What a lot of people don't know is that his theories about the Minoans have largely been discredited, thanks to all the archaeology that has taken place at Minoan sites since Evans' time.

Evans was a fascinating, brilliant man, but very much a product of his times: a racist and imperialist who thought his beloved Victorian-era British Empire was the height of civilization. He was bound and determined to prove that the Minoans were just as "civilized" as the Brits, so to that end he force-fitted them into his idea of what a high civilization must look like: white people ruled by a male monarch, all of whom practiced a monotheistic religion and had an advanced military.

It turns out, Evans was wrong about an awful lot. If you'd like a good look at who he was, what he thought, and what he did, I recommend this biography of him, written by the archaeologist who oversaw the excavations at Palaikastro for two decades. And if you'd like an accurate, up-to-date overview of what we now know about the Minoans (without having to trawl through hundreds of papers on, I recommend this book - look past the click-bait-y title for some really good info. There's also some accurate information online, but you have to pick and choose. We have curated book and website lists for Modern Minoan Paganism in our Facebook group - they took a lot of work to put together and they take continual effort to maintain.

In the meantime, I spend a lot of time re-educating people about the Minoans, because school history books are often way behind the times. Believe me, just like everyone else, I started out with an outdated and inaccurate view of who and what the Minoans were. A few posts that I regularly share to help people get their bearings about ancient Crete include:

A Bit of a Rant: The Minoans weren't Greek!

Who were the Minoans' neighbors? (placing the Minoans in time and space in the ancient world)

Myth-information: Minoan facts, rumors, and wild tales

And just in case you were wondering, the "King Minos" I've quoted in the title wasn't actually a king - the Minoans don't appear to have had a monarchy. Minos was (and still is, actually) a god, and possibly the title of certain priests in ancient Crete. But not a king, just as Ariadne wasn't just a girl and the Minotaur isn't a monster. Just so you know.

In the name of the bee,

And of the butterfly,

And of the breeze, amen.


Read more]]> (Laura Perry) Paths Blogs Thu, 17 Oct 2019 08:31:04 -0700
Minoan archaeology: It's still a thing



Archaeologists working at the mountainous site of Zominthos have found new artifacts and learned more about the architecture there. [Let me point out that these buildings are more properly called temple complexes, not palaces, though many journalists don't seem to have gotten that memo.]

The Phaistos Project, run by the University of Salerno, Italy is in full swing, with a full team working on excavations there every summer. They even have a Facebook page where they post photos of the team working, cleaning artifacts, and generally having a good time.

The Palace and Landscape at Palaikastro project is also ongoing, run by the good folks at the University of Toronto.

The Sissi Archaeological Project continues work at this lesser-known, recently-identified site near Malia on the north coast of Crete.

And archaeologists are still working on the Minoan cemetery at Petras, still finding new tombs and artifacts.

In addition to these ongoing archaeological projects, random finds occur, like this Minoan tomb that was discovered last year when a farmer parked his truck on top of it and it caved in.

So Minoan archaeology didn't end when Sir Arthur Evans hung up his hat. It's still going on today, and archaeologists are still finding more Minoan cities and towns, more temples, more tombs. The current estimate is that Crete was probably as heavily populated in Minoan times as it is now.

So keep scanning those headlines and following the excavation teams online. Minoan stuff is still happening!

In the name of the bee,

And of the butterfly,

And of the breeze, amen.

Read more]]> (Laura Perry) Paths Blogs Thu, 26 Sep 2019 08:02:46 -0700
Modern Minoan Paganism: Reconstruction vs. revival

I spend a lot of time telling people that Modern Minoan Paganism is not a reconstructionist tradition. But the issue is actually a little more complicated than that.

When I was at Mystic South this past summer, one of the other presenters, Joseph Beofeld, attended my workshop about Modern Minoan Paganism. What was his presenation about? Reconstructionism! He came up to me afterward and pointed out that even though I had said we aren't a reconstructionist tradition, we use reconstructionist methods extensively. And that's quite true.

We rely on archaeology: the ruins of Minoan-era temples, houses, shrines, and tombs as well as the art and artifacts found in and around those structures. We sift through Greek mythology and legend, which contains garbled fragments of earlier Minoan myth. We use dance ethnography and comparative religion to help flesh out how we think the Minoans did their thing.

These are all reconstructionist techniques.

But there are two things that set us apart from typical reconstructionist traditions, one thing we don't have and one extra thing we add.

What don't we have? Any kind of reliable written text about Minoan religion. Linear A, the script the Minoans used to write their native language, has not yet been deciphered, sensationalist headlines notwithstanding.

Some enterprising person or persons adapted the Linear A script to write Mycenaean Greek. This is similar to the way the Greek alphabet was transformed into the Glagolitic, and later Cyrillic, script to write Slavic languages.

This new script, Linear B, is mostly readable. But it tells us about the time of the Mycenaean occupation on Crete, not about native Minoan practices. And what information the Linear B tablets offer is pretty scant to start with. They appear to be accounting records of donations and offerings brought to the temples.

What's the extra thing that we add? Shared personal gnosis. Before you run away screaming, take a deep breath and I'll explain.

Unverified personal gnosis, often known as UPG, is a shaky thing. Each of us filters our spiritual experiences through our own psyche, and that can lead to understandings that work for an individual but not for a large group. Often, single-person UPG is kind of weird and way off from what we think we know about deities and ancient spiritual practices.

However - and it's big however - if you have a number of people whose UPG coincides, that suggests you're on to something real. Shared gnosis can be very helpful in creating religious practices that work for us as Pagans in the modern world. For instance, Diana Paxson and her folks have used shared gnosis very effectively to build a modern seiðr practice.

We've used shared gnosis to connect with deities, to develop the Modern Minoan Pagan worldview, and to create rituals. We share with each other, then we experiment and listen for the gods' responses. It's an active process that often involves changing how we thought things would work, when it turns out the divine has a different idea.

So we rely on shared gnosis, combined with archaeological and ethnographic methods, in the ongoing process of creating our spiritual practices. We're not reconstructing exactly the way the ancient Minoans worshiped. Instead, we're reviving ancient Minoan religion in spirit, but adapting it for modern Pagan practice. That's why we say we're a revivalist tradition. Not ancient Minoan religion, but Modern Minoan Paganism.

In the name of the bee,

And of the butterfly,

And of the breeze, amen.

Read more]]> (Laura Perry) Paths Blogs Wed, 11 Sep 2019 04:57:07 -0700
There's more than one Minoan goddess!

When I mention "Minoan," most people think of the famous Snake Goddess figurines. And many people think those figurines represent "the Minoan goddess," as if there were only one of them. But there are many Minoan goddesses, not just one.

In fact, there's a whole pantheon.

One of the issues we have to deal with in terms of gathering up the pantheon for Modern Minoan Paganism is that we can't read the Minoans' writing. So we're left with just the scraps and tatters of Minoan myth that came down to us via the Greeks.

So, for instance, if you see Crete mentioned in a Greek myth as the homeland or birthplace or even the destination of a deity, chances are that deity was originally Minoan. We find remnants of Minoan deities in Mediterranean folk dance as well. So they're still with us, albeit in clandestine form.

How many Minoan goddesses are there? We don't know for sure. But these are the ones we've found so far, whom we honor in Modern Minoan Paganism:

The Three: a triplicity of mother-goddesses - Rhea (Earth/Land), Posidaeja (Sea/Ocean/Water), Therasia (Sun/Fire/Sky).

Ourania: Great Cosmic Mother-of-All. She is the very fabric of the universe.

Ariadne: Lady of the Labyrinth, a goddess and not a mortal girl.

The Snake Goddess: We call her Serpent-Mother. Her abode is the Underworld and, perhaps, the stars.

Arachne: Also called Ananke. The goddess of Fate, a spinner and weaver of the lives of mortals.

The Melissae: Ancestral bee-goddesses who guard and guide the spirits of the dead in the Underworld.

Europa: A horned cow-goddess, double or twin to Pasiphae. Both were probably originally solar goddesses in pre-Indo-European times , though they were later associated with the Moon.

Amalthea: A horned goat-goddess, sister/twin to the mother goddess Rhea and source of the sacred cornucopia, the Horn of Plenty that never empties.

Britomartis: Also called Diktynna. A deer goddess who is a huntress, connected with Mt. Dikte on Crete and with Rhea, whose mountain Dikte is.

Eileithyia: Torch-bearing goddess who is midwife to gods and women.

There are others we haven't yet discovered, I'm sure. But is plenty to start with, don't you think?

In the name of the bee,

And of the butterfly,

And of the breeze, amen.


Read more]]> (Laura Perry) Paths Blogs Thu, 05 Sep 2019 05:02:59 -0700