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.

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Ourania: Great Cosmic Mother

Over the years, I've written a lot about the Minoan family of deities. But I realized I haven't written about one of the Mothers - not the Three Mothers whose realms are land, sky, and sea, but a fourth goddess whose realm is the cosmos itself.

In Ariadne's Tribe, we call her Ourania. Some of us also call her Starweaver. She is the Great Cosmic Mother of our family of deities.

Her Greek name Ourania gives us a clue to her original function: she’s the cosmos, the starry sky, the very fabric of the universe. If you’re into quantum physics, you can envision her as the quantum foam, the not-quite-material substance out of which everything material is made.

Like other Minoan deities, Ourania was "demoted" in later Greek mythology. While Ariadne, Minos, and other Minoan deities became mere mortals, Ourania dropped from goddess to simple Muse. But her function among the muses betrays her original position: She's the Muse of astronomy.

Astronomy—the study of the starry skies—was a central focus of Minoan sacred life in the temples and the mountaintop peak sanctuaries. The clergy kept track of a complicated calendar based on the cycles of the Moon, the Sun, Venus, and any number of stars. They must have spent many long nights on the temple rooftops, watching the stars wheel through the sky, rising and setting over the tops of the sacred mountain peaks. To them, the entire process was holy.

Ourania’s motions drive the cosmos, turning the wheels of time. She’s the musician who plays the music of the spheres, and she is the music itself. Some people like to think of her as a force of nature, a cosmic power, rather than an anthropomorphic goddess. 

The idea of a cosmic goddess is probably a little harder to visualize than, say, an Earth goddess. Some of us experience Ourania as a black vulture, her broad wings spread out across the vast depths of space. Perhaps that’s her we see on the pillars at Gobekli Tepe, a temple from the region and era that the Minoans’ ancestors came from.

Though we consider Ourania to be a mother goddess, most of us find it difficult to envision her in human form except as a veiled figure, mysterious and shadowy. Instead, we look up to the starry night sky and feel her presence, knowing that she is around us always and everywhere.

She is the cosmos, the stuff of stars and atoms. We are made of her being.

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Laura Perry is a priestess and creator who works magic with words, paint, ink, music, textiles, and herbs. She's the founder and Temple Mom of Ariadne's Tribe, an inclusive Minoan spiritual tradition. When she's not busy drawing and writing, you can find her in the garden or giving living history demonstrations at local historic sites.

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