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One of the more exciting aspects of revivalist spirituality is the discovery of new-to-us deities. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does, we do a little happy dance!
In this case, a happy dance is especially appropriate. Allow me to introduce you to a new deity pair: Thumia and Kaulo.
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You may have noted that in these blog posts I use phrases like "the god we call Korydallos" or "the goddess we call Therasia." That's because we have an interesting conundrum with some of the Minoan deities: we don't know what the Minoans called them.
Some deity names survived the Late Bronze Age collapse intact, eventually being subsumed into the Hellenic pantheon: Rhea, Eileithyia, and Dionysus are well-known examples. Others were "demoted" to human characters in myth and legend (Minos, for example, and Ariadne). But we still know their names - that part of them was not lost over time, even if their characteristics changed due to cultural pressure as the Greeks came to power and the Minoans disappeared from view.
...This is one in a series of posts about finding the MMP gods and goddesses in Minoan art. Find the full list of blog posts in this series here.
Today we're looking for the bull-god Zagreus in Minoan art. In MMP, we consider Zagreus to be an aspect of our god Tauros Asterion. So obviously, we're going to look for images of bulls. But what kinds of images? When we go looking for Tauros Asterion in Minoan art, we seek out naturalistic/realistic images of bulls. When we're in search of the Minotaur (another aspect of Tauros Asterion), we look for shape-shifting depictions of half-man, half-bull creatures. So how do we know when we've found Zagreus?
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This is one in a series about the deities in the pantheon of Modern Minoan Paganism (MMP). You can find the full list of posts in this series here.
Today we're focusing on a well-known god, Dionysus, and the places we can find him in Minoan art and artifacts. The ecstatic god that many people know from classical times (a millennium after the destruction of the Minoan cities) is actually a syncretic deity, a combination of the Minoan god (or at least, whatever remained of him after the Bronze Age collapse) with a similar ecstatic god from Phrygia.
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This is one in a series about the MMP pantheon. Find the other posts here.
In this post, we'll have a look at Korydallos, one of the gods who are the sons of our three Mother Goddesses. Korydallos (or The Lark, as we sometimes call him) is a new name for an old god. We discovered him via dance ethnography, Mediterranean folklore, and a close look at some of the interesting details of Minoan art and artifacts. In MMP, we consider him to be the son of our Sun goddess Therasia, though there is a sense in which all the son and daughter deities are children of all the Mothers - more about that in a bit.
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This is one in a series about the MMP pantheon. Find the other posts here.
Today, we're focusing on Tauros Asterion. He's one of three gods who are sons of our mother goddesses. As you might guess from his name, he has both earthly and cosmic aspects. In MMP, we consider the Minotaur and Zagreus to be two of his faces. But for now we're focusing specifically on Tauros Asterion, whom we consider to be the son of our Earth Mother goddess Rhea as well as having a connection with our cosmic mother goddess Ourania.
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Chaos is often an illusion.
My Gods’ plans are so complex that my limited human intelligence cannot discern the plans’ intricate orderliness, so it seems like chaos to me.
