The Maiden/Mother/Crone configuration of goddesses is popular in modern Paganism. It resonates with a lot of us, but there's no evidence the Minoans viewed their goddesses this way. In fact, the Maiden/Mother/Crone triplicity was invented by Robert Graves in the mid-20th century. Yes, it works, but it's not historically accurate so we shouldn't apply it to the Minoans. If you're interested in Graves' process and teasing out which of his ideas are historic and which are purely poetic, I recommend Mark Carter's excellent book Stalking the Goddess.
How do I describe what I feel? Words cannot complete the thoughts that flow through my mind like sparks of fiery truth. My heart is full and the hidden chambers that hold my devotion are overflowing with the petals of my tears and joys. May has come and with it the promise of newly fertile ground and quickening.
The Goddess speaks to me at every turn and I feel the caress of warming air flowing through my nostrils and lungs. Each morning is an offering to be alive and fully present. Each afternoon is a wish to be held in the warmth of my lover Sun's embrace. Each evening reminds me of the day's work and a gentle slumber as I drift off into the dreamscape.
The words dark and shadow are not synonymous, in fact when they are used interchangeably all manners of unintentional shaming, oppression and labelling falls upon women, the Divine Feminine and all persons born with skin darker than lily white.
It occurs to me that in the nearly four years that I've been writing this blog (!) I've created quite a collection of posts about the individual Minoan deities, the gods and goddesses that make up this fascinating pantheon. So you don't have to go scrambling back through the archives to find them all, I've collected them up here. I did recently post a "whole pantheon" list here that's pretty comprehensive - all the deities we work with in Modern Minoan Paganism. But you might want to know a little more detail about individual gods and goddesses. So here you go:
A while back I wrote up a list of the Minoan gods and goddesses we focus on in Modern Minoan Paganism. But since this is a living, evolving spiritual tradition, it turns out I need to update that list. We've discovered (rediscovered?) a new deity or two and have changed some other details of our practice. So here's the pantheon as we're experiencing it these days.
First of all, we consider the threefold division of Land/Sea/Sky to be fundamentally important. This triplicity is represented by three goddesses:
Devotionals are common practice for many Pagans: short prayers or meditations to help us connect with the gods. In my book Labrys and Horns: An Introduction to Modern Minoan Paganism I wrote devotionals for many of the gods and goddesses in the Minoan pantheon.
Now I've made a video with some of those devotionals, an easy way for you to listen and focus on some of the Minoan deities: Ariadne, Dionysus, Rhea, the Horned Ones, the Melissae, Ourania, and Posidaeja. Here you go:
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