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 ›
Old Europe
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 ›
Carol P. Christ’s Legacy: Of Birds, Angels, and Tidings of Great Joy
Moderator’s Note: We here at FAR have been so fortunate to work along side Carol Christ for many years. She died in July this year from cancer. To honor her legacy as well as allow as many people as possible… Read More ›
“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 ›
Coming Home to the Sacred by Carolyn Lee Boyd
In 1929, my grandmother wrote the word “HOME” in resounding letters across the bottom of a photo of a herself and my grandfather, smiling lovingly and confidently, with my infant mother propped in between them on a rattan chair. Within… 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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
Who Are the Pagans? by Barbara Ardinger
It has occurred to me that it’s possible that some of the bloggers and readers of this site may not know very much about pagans, so here’s a little New Year’s lesson. The first thing to know is that pagans… Read More ›
Of Birds, Angels, and Tidings of Great Joy by Carol P. Christ
A link to a video of a European Hooded Crow sliding down a snow-covered rooftop on a mayonnaise-lid sled appeared on my Facebook timeline a few days ago. For me this crow expresses the “spirit of the season” as aptly as anything I… 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 ›
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 ›
WOMEN FOR PEACE–TAKE TO THE STREETS by Carol P. Christ
Sometimes we are told that domination and violence and war are innate in human nature; therefore, it is futile to protest war. But this is not true. I oppose war because I oppose all forms of power-over, domination, and violence. As a radical… 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 ›
A CLASH OF CULTURES IN OUR GENES by Carol P. Christ
I carry the exact replica of MDNA handed down from mother to daughter since the depths of the last Ice Age 17,000 years ago. My father carries the YDNA of the Indo-Europeans handed down from father to son since the time when… Read More ›
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