The Mediterranean climate has its own unique seasonal cycle. In Ariadne’s Tribe, we’ve created a sacred calendar that acknowledges this climate and gives names to three sacred seasons: Summer, Winter, and the Blooming Time. You can find more details about this seasonal structure in this blog post.

Today I want to talk about the Blooming Time. It begins the day after Spring Equinox and ends with the Blessing of the Ships in mid-May, so it’s a fairly short season. We call it the Blooming Time because, although various trees and flowers bloom throughout most of the year on Crete, the wildflowers bloom in profusion during the Blooming Time and flowers are an important symbol of this unique season.

The Blooming Time was an important time of year to all three subcultures of Minoan Crete: the sailors, the farmers, and the herders. For the sailors, it was the time to prepare for the upcoming sailing season, to make any last-minute repairs, to ready the ships, and to gather the crew. For the farmers, it was the end of their busy season, the time when the grain had been harvested and was being threshed and winnowed in preparation for storage. It was the time to measure the grain and hope the harvest was big enough to last a full year. And for the goat-herders, it was the time to cull the weak and old members of the herd before moving the animals to the higher summer pastures where water would still be available.

So the Blooming Time was a season in which life and death intertwined: the vigorous spring growth as well as harvest and slaughter. It was a concentrated, focused pivot on which the larger seasons of Summer and Winter hinged.

We associate our bull-god Zagreus with the Blooming Time, since he’s the Bull Who Comes Wreathed in Flowers in the spring. Zagreus treads the line between life and death, as shamanic deities do, reminding us that they’re two sides of the same coin. Bear in mind that the Minoan Zagreus, as we know him in Ariadne’s Tribe, is very different from the later Orphic deity who was popular in Hellenic Greece.

In Tribe tradition, the Blooming Time also focuses on the ancestors, whom we honor at harvest time. It’s their blessing that generates the abundance of a good harvest. As Tribe Board Member Arlechina Verdigris likes to say, you need people on both sides of the soil line. Fresh flowers are a good offering for the ancestors at any time of year, but they’re especially important as the offering of choice at the Blooming Time: live flowers as a gift for the dead, a connection between their realm and ours.

May you enjoy all the beauties of the Blooming Time!