I've been thinking about roads the past couple of days. The Minoans were famous for their paved roads, an unusual feature of Bronze Age cities. Archaeologists think they had roads (not all of them paved) running all around the coastline of Crete and crisscrossing the island.
These are Rhea's Roads, since Rhea is the Minoan Earth Mother. It's her soil we walk on, especially on Crete, even if there's pavement on top of it.
Then I started working on some new music. We already have a collection of chants for our rituals and to honor our deities. I thought it was time to create some music for the festivals in our sacred calendar. Our calendar begins with the Blessing of the Ships at the start of the Mediterranean sailing season, so that's where I chose to begin with the new music. And what better way to celebrate a sailing festival than with a sea shanty?
I'm still working on the shanty; I promise I'll get it recorded and uploaded to YouTube as soon as it's ready, hopefully in time for the Blessing of the Ships. But in the meantime, I wanted to share a phrase that manifested during the early stages of composing this song: Posidaeja's Roads.
It was immediately obvious to me exactly what Posidaeja's Roads are: the trade routes the Minoans sailed around the Mediterranean Sea. The sailors probably saw the Roads in their minds as they moved from port to port and took off across the open water.
So we have Rhea's Roads and Posidaeja's Roads. That leaves the third Great Mother, Therasia. Where are her roads?
In the sky, of course.
In Minoan times, only the birds traveled along Therasia's Roads. But now we have airplanes, so we can move along the "roads" in all three sacred realms ourselves: Land, Sky, and Sea.
Which of the Great Mothers' Roads are your favorite?