I spend a lot of time telling people that Ariadne's Tribe 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 our spiritual tradition 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.
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. Like everyone else in the Bronze Age Mediterranean, the Minoans were polytheists.
I had a marvelous time at Mystic South last weekend. I saw some old friends and met some new ones. I also gave a workshop about inclusive Minoan spirituality as we practice it in Ariadne's Tribe. I never know what to expect when I'm doing public events, but I was happily surprised that so many people were interested - we had to rustle up extra chairs so everyone would have a place to sit (thank you to the Mystic South volunteers and organizers for being so helpful with this!).
Though there were a lot of attendees at the conference, there are also a lot of people who didn't get to come. With that in mind, we recorded the workshop to share online. A big thank you to my daughter, who patiently babysat the equipment while I gave the presentation.
I hadn't intended to review Jane Meredith's book Aspecting the Goddess on this blog. But then I read her tale of Ariadne, and I just had to.
The book is both a how-to manual of methods for connecting with the divine and a recounting of her own experiences using those methods. Her writing is poetic, touching, and inspiring - and just to be clear, the methods can be used to develop relationships with deities, land spirits, and other non-human beings.
Today I'm sharing a guest post from my dear friend Dana Corby (author of The Witches' Runes, which I heartily recommend). She has many years of experience in the Pagan community and has seen all sorts of theories and points of view come and go. Today, she has generously offered to share her knowledge about the way Minoan spirituality has intertwined with Wicca over the years and how that has sometimes led to misunderstandings about the Minoans, their culture, and their religion.
When we learn history in school, we're given pictures of maps with clear lines drawn to separate the different empires, cultures, and nations. We're taught that one set of people lived within this little box on the map and another set of people lived within the next box over. But history isn't that neat and tidy.
Take the Minoans, for instance. Their culture centered on the island of Crete, just south of Greece, during the Bronze Age. They were a pre-Indo-European people (they weren't Greek) who became wealthy by importing raw materials and exporting fancy finished goods like bronze blades and dyed woolen cloth. But in order to do all that trading, they had to move around.
It was while I lived in Jerusalem, Israel, in the winter of 1992, and previous to becoming a metaphysician and fire priestess, that I began a surprising although insightful journey. Having spent days curled up on my couch glued to a Mary Summer Rain book titled, Dreamwalker, a book I found in Tel Aviv, I was hooked. I could not put that book down, it held me spellbound. Having noted the name Silver Eagle, Dreamwalker, a bell went off in my psyche. When I read that one could support this Tennessee US Native Dreamwalker by purchasing his hand made earrings consisting of beads, wood and or feathers, I determined to write to him. Dreamwalkers are individuals who can use dreams to visit people, or teleport themselves and read ones energy vibration, offering help and assistance.
Erin Lale
Fellow faculty at Harvard Divinity School posted an open letter to Wolpe in response to his article. It's available on this page, below the call for p...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. The Wild Hunt has a roundup of numerous responses on its site, but it carried this one as a separate article. It is an accoun...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. This one is by a scholar of paganism. It's unfortunately a Facebook post so this link goes to Facebook. She posted the text o...
Erin Lale
Here's another link to a pagan response to the Atlantic article. I would have included this one in my story too if I had seen it before I published it...
Janet Boyer
I love the idea of green burials! I first heard of Recompose right before it launched. I wish there were more here on the East Coast; that's how I'd l...