My Pilgrimage to Crete – September 2023, Part 2 by Terry Folks

Part 1 was posted yesterday.

Stage Four – Mentor Appears

Joseph Campbell spoke of ‘mentors’ appearing to help the sojourner, and what Maureen Murdock called the gathering of allies. In my hybrid of these two archetypal journeys, there may be several mentors – human, power animals, divine guides or a combination. She could be a wise elder who helps the heroine prepare for the journey or gives her a gift for later use. In my case the wise elder was my 93 year old mom who became one of my mentors. When I expressed my excitement and fears, she said what she always says when I – one of her seven children – am facing a challenge: “Go get’em Tiger!” She also offered financial support so I could take time away from my psychotherapy practice.

Two other mentors showed up in what Carl Jung called my ‘active imagination’: Carol Christ and Marija Gimbutas. Both have transitioned so my active imagination conjured their support as divine intervention. I reread Carol’s reflections and teachings on the pilgrimage, and watched the videos she made as inspiration. I felt her invitation. I was ready to change.

Stage Five – Crossing the First Threshold – Finding the Boon of Success

I deliberately and with intention changed my consciousness at will. I made magic. I committed to leaving “the known” and the familiar, separating myself from my community and family, and venturing into the unknown and unfamiliar – alone. There was magic as I crossed the first threshold. I began to embrace my imminent immersion into Minoan culture.

I hoped my exposure to Minoan culture on Crete would echo Sue Monk Kidd’s research discoveries in The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: “Until then I’d known practically nothing about Minoan Crete. That day I discovered it was a highly evolved culture that existed in Greece up until around 1450 B.C.E., a culture in which the supreme deity was female and women and feminine values enjoyed high cultural valuing. Scholar Riane Eisler suggests Minoan Crete was the last surviving example of a pre-patriarchal society.” Kidd is referencing Eisler’s book The Chalice and the Blade.

I was excited and hopeful. Imagine a world where women are honored as birth givers. Many ‘woman-honoring men’ proudly call themselves feminists, and work alongside women to create a more egalitarian world but here was a real historical example.

We can’t return to an exact replica of the Goddess cultures of Old Europe prior to the Kurgan invasions around 3500 years ago. But another world is possible for us now because we have historical evidence that woman-honoring cultures were peaceful, artistic, agrarian, circular, cooperative, and loving. We have an historical example, a precedent. It is important that we share this historical reality with our children and others, because much of it is not formally taught. If you don’t know what’s possible, how can you aspire to it?

Stage Six – Tests, Allies and Enemies – Awakening to Feelings of Spiritual Aridity: Death

I left my home on Vancouver Island, Canada on Tuesday, September 12th. I flew to Vancouver, then Toronto, then Athens, then landed in the city of Heraklion, Crete on Friday, the 15th. A ridiculously long trip with my decision to overnight in Toronto and Athens.

I thought I was simply navigating increasing jet lag when I started feeling peaked on Thursday and Friday, but I donned a mask as a precaution for the remaining flights to Athens and on to Heraklion, Crete.

I was still feeling ill on Saturday, so with the loving support of pilgrimage leaders Laura, Joan and Angelique, I tested for Covid on that first official day of the Pilgrimage. Sure enough – I tested positive. I was devastated. How could this be? No, this was not happening.

Immediately after testing positive, at the first formal circle of the pilgrims on the rooftop of the Olympic Hotel in Heraklion, I was given a Goddess card, my pilgrimage guide:Yemanya. She is the goddess who invites novices to walk through a door and embrace a golden opportunity. What could this possibly mean if I was sick and had to sequester myself?

Quite ill, I quarantined that evening in the city. Kind Laura and dear Kostantis supplied electrolytes, lozenges, tissue, and more tests. To complete my convalescence and isolation until I tested negative, I was driven from Heraklion to rural Hotel Idi near the tiny village of Zaros beneath Mount Ida in the Psiloritis Mountains of Crete.

In spite of my despair and illness, magic continued when I met Evi, the owner/manager of Hotel Idi. She had known Carol Christ (‘Karolina’) and had hosted many pilgrims over the years as Zaros was the first stop on the pilgrimage. When Evi gave me a standard key to my wee cottage/room, the key was in the shape of a labrys! It was heavy and solid and stunning. I knew that in spite of some of the ridiculous misinterpretations of symbolic meanings of the labrys, it is actually one of the age old symbols of the Goddess movement, and represents for many, our memory of pre-patriarchal woman-honoring cultures. The labrys was not a weapon until it was perceived as one by invading patriarchal attackers. I knew that the labrys carried spiritual and/or practical relevance in Minoan daily life. At that first encounter, I offered to compensate Evi if she could conduct a search for a labrys key without a number embossed on it. She was happy to oblige.

She had no idea what her promise meant to me.

Note: Terry will write about her continued journey in future posts.

BIO: Theresa (Terry) Folks, MA, RCC, CCC is a Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapist, educator and author. She serves women in her private practice, SpiritFirst Counselling, in Comox on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. She facilitates Sophia Women’s Wisdom groups, and leads workshops for empowering women. She offers self therapy strategies and spiritual practices on her website and her Author FB page because she believes her life’s mission is to help women empower themselves. She is the author of Counselling Approaches to Spiritual Issues, a Masters Level Curriculum for MA candidates interested in infusing spiritual resources in therapy. Terry is also the author of Another Spring: A Year of Self Therapy & Spiritual Healing Practices. She awaits a publisher who recognizes the value of empowering women with her book. You can access her gifts, meditations, and strategies at https://www.facebook.com/TerryFolksSpiritFirstCounselling and here at https://spiritfirstcounselling.ca/blog/