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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The Minoan Path Blog Greatest Hits, 2021 Edition

Posted by on in Paths Blogs

Every January, I like to look back over my blog posts of the past year and see which ones were the most popular. I usually find the results a little surprising, and this year is no different.

For 2021, my top five blog posts, beginning with the most popular:

The Minoan Menagerie Part 1: Animals of the Land: This is the first of a four-part series exploring the animals of land, sky, sea, and myth in Minoan art. It now occurs to me that Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 of this series would have gotten more hits if I had linked to all of them from each post in the series, so I've corrected that now. Animals are always popular (I'm a sucker for a cute cat pic myself) so it makes sense that this one showed up on this list.

No One Owns the Gods, but Traditions Have Rules to Follow: This is a subject I've had to explain more than once in various venues online, so I figured I'd enshrine it as a blog post. What it boils down to is, you have every right to do whatever you want for your spiritual practice, but if you use the title of a named tradition to describe yourself, you have to obey the rules of that tradition. If you're not following their rules, then you're not practicing that tradition and you don't have a right to call yourself by that trad's name. I don't know why this subject appears to be so controversial to some people, but apparently it is. I'm not surprised this one made it into the top five.

The Minoan Seal Ring Project: Minoan-Inspired Modern Art: This one surprised me a little bit. It's a post about an art project I've been working on since 2015, interpreting the ritual scenes found on Minoan seal rings in my own unique modern art format. Some of my other art is also inspired by Minoan seals, but the MSRP focuses specifically on seals that depict complex ritual scenes that might help us understand the practice of Minoan religion back in the Bronze Age. So yeah, I guess you folx like art. Me, too!

On Having a Sense of Humor in Spiritual Practice: I'm gratified that this one made it into the top five. The world is a hard place to be in right now, and humor is a glorious coping mechanism. It's also an excellent way to make sure we don't take ourselves too seriously - get too big for our britches, as my grandmother used to say. Joy is sacred, too, so as long as we're not punching down, I'm all for a good sense of humor.

The Linear A Conundrum: Another surprise. But then, mysterious ancient scripts that are still undeciphered have a certain attraction. Don't believe anything you read online about Linear A being deciphered. It hasn't happened, no matter what the occasional clickbait headlines say. We simply don't have enough texts yet for a proper decipherment. Until that day comes, we'll just have to have fun speculating.

Which blog post do I wish had made it into the top five? Probably this one: Days of the Week, Minoan Style. So many of us key our ritual and magical activities to the days of the week, but the only deity/day systems we have are based on Greco-Roman and Norse mythology. So the Ariadne's Tribe folx got together and figured out how to connect the Minoan deities with the days of our modern seven-day week. Give it a try and see what you think.

Here's to 2022 being every bit as fun a blogging year as 2021 was.

In the name of the bee,
And of the butterfly,
And of the breeze, amen.

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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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