The Lost Is Found by Carol P. Christ

Since I wrote “Claiming the Power to Choose to Our Lovers” and “Choosing to End Love” in the spring, my beloved and I came back together and parted again, not once, but twice.  At the end of the summer, believing our separation to be final, I decided to drop a miniature copy of the Minoan bee pendant, symbol of my desire to “let go of a beautiful dream,” into a crevice in the Skoteino Cave while on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete.

I don’t believe in divine intervention, but something happened to stop me. The day before the ritual, the pendant disappeared. It was not in my jewelry case, not in my handbag, not anywhere in my suitcase or my hotel room: it was nowhere to be found. That same day I received a gift of a large jar of honey from a local shopkeeper. In the end, I dropped a sugar-coated almond into the crevice and poured every bit of the honey onto the altar of the cave, asking for transformation and love.

Two days later the group visited the mountain where my beloved has a beautiful stone-built restaurant. I planned to embrace him quickly and to continue walking up to the cave, thinking only positive thoughts about what was no more.

When we saw each other, whatever either of us had in mind simply melted away. “I still love you,” I stammered. My beloved breathed a very deep sigh of relief.

That evening I enjoyed a delicious meal by the sea with three of the other pilgrims. One of them is a shaman. “You deserve love and you will find it,” she stated. “Most of the time you radiate so much love that everyone is attracted to you. But,” she continued, “some of the time you put up barriers and push people away. It is your insecurity,” she explained,” you don’t believe you deserve the love that is coming to you.”

I feel asleep easily that night and woke an hour later. Looking at my hand, I saw that my mother’s diamond had disappeared from its setting. The diamond was not in the room or on the floor of the restaurant. Wracking my brain, I wondered: could it have fallen off into my handbag when I was searching for my wallet?

I overturned my handbag and out fell sunglasses, lipstick, nail file, coins, a small emerald cut diamond–and the bee pendant. The Goddess was telling me in no uncertain terms that the lost is found: I guess She had to make her point three times to get through to me.

The Minoan Gold Bee Pendant (4.6 cm), masterpiece of jewelry, Malia, 1800-1700 BC, Heraklion Archaeology Museum, Heraklion, Crete, Greece

In the next days I thought about the shaman’s words and began to realize that I bore some of the responsibility for the separations: my insecurity led me to set up expectations and make demands and then to feel disappointed and rejected. I decided there was nothing to be gained by discussing who was at fault.

Our reunion was full of love with no recriminations.

In the intervening weeks, my insecurities returned. Following the shaman’s instructions, I pursed my lips and blew them away. When I met my beloved again I was no longer projecting resistance.

Everything changed.

The bee pendant has become one of three tiny amulets I wear on a gold chain: it nestles against a protective eye and an image of the tree of life.

 

*With thanks to Chloe Erdmann and to my Ariadne Sisters from the spring and fall Goddess tours in 2018 for their support and especially to Amanda Yates Garcia and Regina Wright for spiritual guidance. I also thank FAR sisters Joyce Zonana and Laura Shannon. “I get by with a little help from my friends” and I am grateful.

 

Carol P. Christ is an internationally known feminist writer, activist, and educator living in Crete. Carol’s recent book written with Judith Plaskow, Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology, is on Amazon. A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess is on sale for $9.99 on Amazon. Carol  has been leading Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete for over twenty years: join her in Crete. Carol’s photo by Michael Honneger.

Listen to Carol’s a-mazing interview with Mary Hynes on CBC’s Tapestry recorded in conjunction with her keynote address to the Parilament of World’s Religions.

Author: Carol P. Christ

Carol P. Christ is a leading feminist historian of religion and theologian who leads the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete, a life transforming tour for women. www.goddessariadne.org

22 thoughts on “The Lost Is Found by Carol P. Christ”

  5. Pingback: The Lost Is Found by Carol P. Christ — | Thesseli

  8. Here’s the invocation to the Blessed Bees:

    Twinkle, twinkle, Blessed Bees–
    As we ask you, grant it please:
    Wisdom, health, abundancies.
    As we will’t, so mote it, Bees.

    You can change the “health” to “love.” Bright blessings for a loving New Year!

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  10. It truly moves the heart, thanks, Carol P. Christ, when we realize that there was someone, or several, in ancient Greece, who long ago wore that lovely piece of jewelry. Today we can see and love that pin they once loved too.

    And that reminds me of a famous bee insight by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), and where she says magnificently:

    “To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, —
    One clover and a bee,
    And revery.
    The revery alone will do
    If bees are few.”

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  13. Oh what an amazing story – and thank you so much for sharing this personal joy with us.
    I do not believe in god, BUT I do believe in something I call Natural Power that is associated with being truly embodied (it doesn’t “save” us from anything but it is there to help) and have had so many personal experiences that reflect this power in action that I believe it is absolutely REAL. And I am ever so happy for you Carol; you are indeed a remarkable and oh so loving woman and sage… many many Blessings…

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  14. Thanks for this fascinating post Carol. It seems to me that gorgeous Minoan Gold Bee could also serve as an emblem for eco-spirituality.

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  16. What a wonderful story – I’m so happy for you! Yes – I do believe that the Goddess speaks to all of us often in many ways, but we (or at least I, for sure) have to believe that’s the case in order to hear what She is saying.

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  20. Beautiful Carol. That’s so wonderful that you had the advice of a shaman to help you see what you could let go of in order to let love in. We all need a shaman! You must have been connecting to your higher self when at first you couldn’t find your pendant – only to find it later when it would not longer be the symbol of what to let go of but the symbol of what to let in. You deserve love as do we all. I’m so happy for you.

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  21. You radiate Goddess love, Carol, and being so close to who you are you don’t see it. Words inevitably have a cartesian ring to them… the divide us. What I would like to offer is that there is another facet to our “insecurity” which can starve when we feed the immense trust in ourselves. And you have been a tremendous healing force for Women to trust themselves. This is perhaps an ally we ignored in times of precious Goddess vulnerability.
    I believe when something similar happens to me, I understand the insecurity comes with individuation as well as from a two-way hermeneutic of suspicion, so needed in critical analysis, unnecessary when it turns inwards and against us. I have learned watch for a more balanced, discerning use of being critical with myself, while maintaining my chosen standards of adherence to ethics and ways of relating to others. It is an ongoing, self-adjusting battle in my case. Reason why I love Durga, the Goddess always ready in battle stance. She lives in my journey, which reminds me of yours.
    Wishing you all the LOVE you are and give!

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