Knossos – Feminism and Religion

Offerings to the Labyrinth on Papoura Hill, excerpt from the novel by Sylvia V. Linsteadt

Sylvia’s discussion of Papoura Hill was posted yesterday; read it here.

I have so many words I want to pour out of my vessel of milk and honey upon Papoura Hill, on the big scar in Crete’s earth where the airport is being carved, on all the places slated for the construction of electricity pylons, and into so many other scars left by millennia of conquest and occupation, but for today what follows is just one song to her. These words are not full of fighting rage or defiance, but of praise, and softness, and memory. Of motherlines that cannot die, and fatherlines almost lost, but not quite. These words come from the beginning of a novel that I began writing during my first season living in Crete almost seven years ago now, a novel that has metamorphosed with me across these many years, shedding skins and growing new ones— both me, and the novel. The book is still in process, close to being born, but here is one of her many skins, laid at the center of the labyrinth on Papoura Hill with my love.

Moonrise Over Old Crete
an excerpt

The earth tilted toward dusk.
Along the shores of Crete, the Aegean turned for a moment to gold.

Women flocked down to the sea like dark birds to pour jugs of oil and wine into the water. Amphitrite of the cockle crown, they murmured, Aphrodite mother of vessels, mother of the foam and deep, bring our men home safe. The sun lowered under the edge of the world, leaving the last light along the coast. Threads of it pooled in sea-caves and in the inlets where fishermen kept their summer boats. The old storytellers said that in lost times, when the queen was called the Ariadne and her king the Bull, the women of Crete could gather up the last light from the sea onto their distaffs and take it home to spin golden thread for their skirt hems and finest vests.

Snake Priestesses of Crete as Earthquake Oracles? by Laura Shannon

Knossos Throne Room showing edge of lustral basin at left. Photo: Laura Shannon

A few weeks ago I was on Crete, having coffee with an archaeologist friend. She happened to mention something strange. Crete has always been a seismic zone, with lots of earthquakes, yet remarkably, in Minoan times, no one was killed in collapsing buildings; they were never taken by surprise.

We pondered this – it seems astounding. They must have had some means of warning. Perhaps the serpents sacred to them could have given them some sign?

Ariadne’s Dancing Floor by Arianne MacBean

As the story was told to me, my parents were listening to composer Claudio Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Arianna when my name was decided. I would be called Arianne, after mythical Ariadne’s melancholy refrain, sung to the heavens after being abandoned on a deserted island by her lover, Theseus. Raised on the Greek myths as bedtime stories, my father regaled me nightly with tales of gods, goddesses, and mortals twirling in the maelstrom of life. I was in awe of Cyclops and Sirens, but it was the myth of Ariadne and the Minotaur that I requested most often.

Ancient Her-Story by Annelinde Metzner

Lately I’ve been rereading and refreshing myself with important books of the Great Goddess. Three books at a time! I would switch off, chapter by chapter, among When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone, When the Drummers Were Women by Layne Redmond, and one that had remained overlooked on my shelf, Sanctuaries of the Goddess, The Sacred Landscapes and Objects, by Peg Streep (1994.) I’ve been immersed in the knowledge of 30,000 years of honoring and worship of women’s bodies and the Great Goddess. When I got to Chapter 7 of Peg Streep’s well-researched book, “The Goddess at the Peak: Crete,” I was blown away with the evidence we still have, in art, architecture, religion and culture, of a highly advanced society, full of life and joy, where women were central to all life. With my mind, my heart, my intuition and my sense of past lives, I’ve attempted to place myself there, before any influence of patriarchy.

Knossos: The Truly True Story by Barbara Ardinger

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 Island of Crete and had the largest flower garden and the largest herd of cattle. Because of her riches, not to mention her common sense, she had been elected chief of the Council of Mothers, the government of the island. The Council had searched and searched for a proper title for their leader and finally, reluctantly, decided that Queen was as good as anything else…as long as everyone remained politically correct and understood that Queen was merely a handy title. Queen Carol had a husband named Minos who tried and tried to assume the title of King, but no one ever paid any attention to his pretensions. Because he had nothing else to do, he spent most of his time lounging in the front parlor and reading the Knossos Times-Myth-Dispatch.

“Look here,” he said one day, waving the newspaper at his wife. “The Greeks are ramping up for a war over in Troy. They’re calling for kings and armies to join them.”

Carol laid her feather duster aside for a minute. “Well, if you really want to,” she said, “you can go. It’ll be better for you than sitting around here all the time and complaining that you’re bored. But you’d better not come back here and set yourself up as a warrior king! None of those huge statues like they’ve built in Egypt. None of those huge temples with carvings of conquering armies on them, either. We mothers won’t stand for it!”

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