Part 1 was posted yesterday. You can read it here. Arriving in Heraklion on Crete, I was enlivened by the sea air and the informal “island” vibration. My sister and I made our way through its labyrinthine streets, following Daedalus, a… Read More ›
Crete
Carol P. Christ’s Legacy: Is This How Patriarchy Began?
This was originally post on June 19, 2017 In my widely read blog and academic essay offering a new definition of patriarchy, I argued that patriarchy is a system of male dominance that arose at the intersection of the control… Read More ›
Carol P. Christ’s Legacy: THE LABRYS: A RIVER OF BIRDS IN MIGRATION
Moderator’s Note: Carol Christ died from cancer in July, 2021. Her work continues through her non-profit foundation, the Ariadne Institute for the Study of Myth and Ritual and the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. This blog was originally posted July 29, 2013. You can its original… Read More ›
Altars Everywhere, Part 1 by Carol P. Christ
In a recent blog, Carolyn Boyd invited us to reflect on how our women’s spiritual power is activated through symbols that help us to remember and manifest the “deep well” of our inner knowing. According to historian of religion Mircea… Read More ›
Endings, Beginnings, and Dreamings by Carol P. Christ
Fifteen years ago, I bought my dream home in Molivos, Lesbos, one of the most stunning villages in the world. Over the next two years I renovated a listed Neoclassical house that had been neglected for over thirty years, restoring… Read More ›
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… Read More ›
The Heraklion Museum: A Critique of the Neolithic Display by Carol P. Christ
If I had been asked to write the words that introduce visitors to the Heraklion Archaeological Museum of Crete to its earliest inhabitants, I would have said something like this: While there is evidence that human beings visited Crete as… Read More ›
The Beauty Way by Carol P. Christ
When I learned about the Navajo Beauty Way, I understood it to be a path in which human beings respect all beings in the web of life and live in harmony with them. But I didn’t understand why this path… Read More ›
Learning Gratitude for the Gifts of Life on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete by Carol P. Christ
In Crete we are always being given gifts—fresh cherries, ice cold bottles of raki, yogurt swimming in honey, and so much more. Over the years it finally hit me that this spirit of great generosity is a living remnant of… Read More ›
Notes from A Goddess Pilgrimage by Joyce Zonana
The solar eclipse has had me sensing deep alignment with earth, sea, and sky, with my sisters and brothers and Self. This, then, from my 1995 journal of my first Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete with Carol Christ, a trip still… Read More ›
Honey: A Thousand Flowers by Mary Beth Moser
Today I am finishing the last bit of the honey I hand-carried home from my most recent trip to Trentino. Sun yellow in color, it is made from the nectar of mountain flowers. Its label tells its origin—di montagna, of… Read More ›
Is This How Patriarchy Began? by Carol P Christ
In my widely read blog and academic essay offering a new definition of patriarchy, I argued that patriarchy is a system of male dominance that arose at the intersection of the control of female sexuality, private property, and war. In… Read More ›
Knossos: The Truly True Story by Barbara Ardinger
(Note: this story was inspired by a blog written by Carol P. Christ. But she’s not responsible for the nonsense I write.) Once upon a time there was a woman named Carol who lived in the largest house on the… Read More ›
Argument from “Absence” and Absence of Dialogue by Carol P. Christ
Recently in a conversation with a noted archaeologist and his male graduate student assistant, I proposed that the absence of war and the trappings of war, including images of larger than life-size warrior kings, suggested to me that we should… Read More ›
GIVING BACK TO THE MOTHER by Carol P. Christ
One of the inspirations for the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete was the spiritual power and energy I felt at the monastery of Paliani with its Sacred Myrtle Tree. The Panagia, She Who Is All Holy, is said to live in the tree,… Read More ›
IS THE SPIRIT OF GREAT GENEROSITY IN CRETE A SURVIVAL OF ANCIENT MATRIARCHAL VALUES? by Carol P. Christ
At a coffee shop in Agios Thomas, Crete last month a perfect stranger offered to pay for the coffees and sodas of the 16 women on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. This spirit of great generosity is rarely experienced in… Read More ›
Earth Connection & Healing the Bees by Jassy Watson
I’m an avid gardener. I must, need, long to have my hands in the soil. The sweet smell and feel of the earth connects me to something greater, to a sense of ‘other’; a source divine. I am interwoven, connected,… Read More ›
THE LABRYS: A RIVER OF BIRDS IN MIGRATION by Carol P. Christ
“There’s a river of birds in migration, a nation of women with wings.” —Goddess chant, Libana On the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete, I explain that many of the names given to “Minoan” (c. 3000-1450 BCE) Cretan artifacts and architecture are… Read More ›
Bird Watching and Geology in the Body of Goddess by Carol P. Christ
The notion of the earth as the body of Goddess has taken on deeper meaning for me in recent years. I have felt connected to nature all of my life. Yet often, though not always, I have related to nature… Read More ›
Inspiration by Jassy Watson
This “Mountain Mother” painting is an ode to women’s earth wisdom and is my prayer for reclaiming of that wisdom to heal the earth and all her beings. When I am inspired to paint I can think of nothing else,… Read More ›
The Turtle Goddess from Myrtos in Ancient Crete by Carol P. Christ
“As we bless the Source of Life, so we are blessed.” Song by Faith Rogow. The strange and cheerful figure portrayed in this ancient Cretan vessel comes from the site known as Fournou Korifi near Myrtos, in Crete. Dated before 2000… Read More ›
“The Language of the Goddess” In Minoan Crete by Carol P. Christ
While the “war against Marija Gimbutas,” rooted in what my friend Mara Keller calls “theaphobia,” is being waged in the academy, her theories continue to unlock the meaning of hundreds of thousands of artifacts from the culture she named “Old Europe.”… Read More ›
Why a Goddess Pilgrimage? by Carol P. Christ
What is a Goddess Pilgrimage and why are so many US, Canadian, and Australian women making pilgrimages to ancient holy places in Europe and Asia? The simple answer is that women are seeking to connect themselves to sources of female… Read More ›
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