One of the projects I am working on these days is an essay on the religion of ancient Crete for a series of books on various aspects of the Minoan site of Gournia. Harriet Boyd excavated the Minoan town of… Read More ›
Marija Gimbutas
“Old South Asia” and “Old Europe”: New DNA Research Suggests Tantalizing Relationships by Carol P. Christ
When European scholars began to study Sanskrit they were surprised to discover linguistic similarities between Sanskrit and Greek and Latin. Old Persian was found to be even closer to Sanskrit. Scholars thus began to speak of related groups of Indo-European… Read More ›
Goddess Pilgrimage: A Sacred Journey for Women by Carol P. Christ
A pilgrim leaves home and sets off on a journey, seeking healing, revelation, and direction in her life. She finds companions along the way whose stories reflect her own, validating her quest and shedding light on her journey. According to… Read More ›
The Cosmic Dance and the Goddess Hera (Part One) by Laura Shannon
Summer is here, and even with the terrible troubles going on in our world, I hope that some of us are managing to take time out and enjoy pleasant evenings outside under the stars. Gazing up at the heavens, we… Read More ›
A Question about “Egalitarian Matriarchy” in West Sumatra by Carol P. Christ
Following up on my recent blogs on the roles of women in the Neolithic revolution and on “egalitarian matriarchy,” I have been re-reading Peggy Reeves Sanday’s ground-breaking book, Women at the Center, about the survival of the “adat matriarchaat” (the… Read More ›
What Is “Egalitarian Matriarchy” and Why Is It So Often Misunderstood? by Carol P. Christ
In their purest form, “egalitarian matriarchies” place the mother principle at the center of culture and society. Their highest values are the love, care, and generosity they associate with motherhood. These values are not limited to women and girls. Boys… 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 ›
Elen of the Ways and the Antlered Goddess (Part 1 of 2) by Deanne Quarrie
Why would a goddess have antlers when only male deer have antlers? These ancient goddesses come from a time when people were closely connected with reindeer. They were hunter gatherers and followed the Deer trods of the reindeer in their… Read More ›
Great Goddess, Mother Goddess, Creatrix, Source of Life by Carol P. Christ
The symbol of the Goddess is as old as human history. The most ancient images of the Goddesses from the Paleolithic era are neither pregnant nor holding a child. In Neolithic Old Europe the Goddess was most commonly linked with… 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 ›
Marija Gimbutas Triumphant: Colin Renfrew Concedes by Carol P. Christ
The disdain with which the work of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas has been held in the field of classics and archaeology was shown to me when I stated quietly at a cocktail party at the American School of Classical Studies in… Read More ›
The Impact of Marija Gimbutas on My Life and Work by Carol P. Christ
Last winter FAR contributor Glenys Livingstone lovingly and professionally edited all of the interviews for the film on Marija Gimbutas’ life and work, Signs Out of Time, by Donna Read and Starhawk, and posted them on youtube. Though I received… Read More ›
The Mountain Mother: Reading the Language of the Goddess in the Symbols of Ancient Crete by Carol P. Christ
Before he told the story of how his people received the sacred pipe, Black Elk said: So I know that it is a good thing I am going to do; and because no good thing can be done by any… Read More ›
Was There a “Golden Age” before Patriarchy and War? by Carol P. Christ
Marija Gimbutas coined the term “Old Europe” c.6500-3500 BCE to describe peaceful, sedentary, artistic, matrifocal, matrilineal and probably matrilocal agricultural societies that worshipped the Goddess as the power of birth, death, and regeneration in all of life. Gimbutas argued that… Read More ›
The Bird Goddess by Judith Shaw
Birds soaring high above the earth reaching for the heavens have long inspired humans as links to the divine realm. Birds fulfill various functions in world cultures and religions – from playing a central role in creation, to birth, to… Read More ›
A Servant of God or a Lover of Life? by Carol P. Christ
Thus through an enormous network of mythological narrative, every aspect of culture is cloaked in the relationship of ruler and ruled, creator and created. . . . [Sumerian] legend endows the Sumerian ruler-gods with creative power; their subjects are recreated… Read More ›
What is the Cause of Violence? A Response to Karen Armstong by Carol P. Christ
“So, when we in the West talk about religion as the cause of this violence, how much are we letting ourselves off the hook, and using religion as a way to ignore our role in the roots of this violence?”… Read More ›
An Archaic Trinity of Goddesses? Not Necessarily. by Barbara Ardinger
In her comment following my last post which was about mythology, my friend, Carol Christ, expands on my paragraph about how the so-called “ancient triple goddess” was really invented in 1948 by Robert Graves in his book, The White Goddess…. Read More ›
When Baby Girls and Old Crones Ruled by Jeri Studebaker
The data came as somewhat of a shock to me. I stumbled across it one day in The Civilization of the Goddess, a mammoth book by the late Lithuanian-American archaeologist Marija Gimbutas about what Gimbutas dubbed “Old Europe” – a… Read More ›
Dance of the Bees: Reading the Language of the Goddess by Carol P. Christ
The image from an ancient Cretan bowl (c.1700 BCE) from the Sacred Center of Phaistos pictured here has often been interpreted as an early depiction of Persephone’s descent or rising. But are clues from later Greek mythology pointing in the… Read More ›
Has the Phaistos Disk Been Cracked? by Carol P. Christ
Recent headlines in the international press announced that the enigmatic language of the ancient Cretan “Phaistos Disk” has been translated—in part—by the Welch-Cretan scholar Gareth Owens. Owens states that the Phaistos Disk records an ancient hymn to a Mother Goddess…. Read More ›
BARBARA LEE SPEAKS FOR ME by Carol P. Christ
While I was in Crete on the Goddess Pilgrimage teaching about and experiencing a Society of Peace where violence and domination were neither celebrated nor encouraged, another war broke out in Iraq, breaking my heart, breaking all of our hearts—yet… Read More ›
Curiosity About Everything and the Language of the Goddess by Carol P. Christ
My recent discovery of Marija Gimbutas on Youtube rekindled my admiration for her work. In her slide-lecture “The World of the Goddess” Marija Gimbutas allows us to follow the line of reasoning she used to decipher the “language of the… Read More ›
Women’s Ritual Dances: The Dancing Priestess of the Living Goddess by Laura Shannon
Kyria Loulouda calls to her sister to help her wind the yards of woven girdle around and around my waist. Kyria Stella’s aged fingers, still strong, tuck the sash ends in tightly, smoothing down the fabric she and Loulouda wove… Read More ›
“Immanent Inclusive Monotheism” with a Multiplicity of Symbols Affirming All the Diversity and Difference in the World by Carol P. Christ
In recent years monotheism has been attacked as a “totalizing discourse” that justifies the domination of others in the name of a universal truth. In addition, from the Bible to the present day some have used their own definitions of… Read More ›
“MERMAID, GODDESS OF THE SEA” by Carol P. Christ
On the recent Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete, I visited the Historical Museum in Heraklion where I saw a beautiful embroidered silk panel of a mermaid identified only as having come from Koustogerako, a village in western Crete. As it is unlikely… 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 ›
WOMEN ARTISTS AND RITUALISTS IN THE GREAT CAVES: THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF INDOLENT ASSUMPTIONS by Carol P. Christ
In an earlier blog, I suggested that women might have blown red ocher around their hands to leave their marks in prehistoric caves. At the time I thought this was a rather bold suggestion. Had I been asked why I thought the… Read More ›
A New Glossary for Crete: The Power of Naming and the Study of History by Carol P. Christ
The words we use affect our thinking. In the case of ancient Crete the repetition of the terms “Palace,” “Palace of Knossos,” “King Minos,” “Minoan,” “Priest-King,” and “Prince of the Lilies” shape the way we understand history–even when we ourselves know… 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 ›
