Ariadne's Tribe: Minoan Spirituality for the Modern World
Walk the sacred labyrinth with Ariadne, the Minotaur, the Great Mothers, Dionysus, and the rest of the Minoan family of deities. Ariadne's Tribe is an independent spiritual tradition that brings the deities of the ancient Minoans alive in the modern world. We're a revivalist tradition, not a reconstructionist one. We rely heavily on shared gnosis and the practical realities of Paganism in the modern world. Ariadne's thread reaches across the millennia to connect us with the divine. Will you follow where it leads?
Find out all about Ariadne's Tribe at ariadnestribe.com. We're an inclusive, welcoming tradition, open to all who share our love for the Minoan deities and respect for our fellow human beings.
Adding to the Minoan Sacred Calendar: The Winter Serpent Days
This is a busy and festive time of year for the Tribe. Over the past month or so we've observed Therasia's Labor, which led up to Winter Solstice and was quickly followed by the Blessing of the Waters.
Because the Blessing of the Waters takes place on the first Full Moon following Winter Solstice, the number of days between the two events varies from year to year. The lunar cycle slithers around the steady points in the solar calendar, the two intertwining in a dance that stretches out into a longer cycle: eight solar years equal 99 full lunations.
In a sense, these days are echoes of Therasia's Labor, the time leading up to the solstice. But the days leading away from it are not so much the afterpains of birth as the shifting of the year as it turns on its hinge.
The earliest New Year among the Minoans was most likely the Autumn Equinox, and we observe it as such in the Tribe sacred calendar. But there's a sense in which the Winter Solstice is also a New Year celebration.
In that sense, we might think of the days between the Winter Solstice and the Blessing of the Waters on the first Full Moon after Solstice as intercalary days, days that belong neither to the year that has just ended nor to the one that's about to start.
A time out of time, slithering its way between the years, shifting in size from one year to the next, but always magical and special.
What do we call this time between the end and the beginning?
The Serpent Days, of course.
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