Ariadne's Tribe: Minoan Spirituality for the Modern World

Walk the sacred labyrinth with Ariadne, the Minotaur, the Great Mothers, Dionysus, and the rest of the Minoan family of deities. Ariadne's Tribe is an independent spiritual tradition that brings the deities of the ancient Minoans alive in the modern world. We're a revivalist tradition, not a reconstructionist one. We rely heavily on shared gnosis and the practical realities of Paganism in the modern world. Ariadne's thread reaches across the millennia to connect us with the divine. Will you follow where it leads?

Find out all about Ariadne's Tribe at ariadnestribe.com. We're an inclusive, welcoming tradition, open to all who share our love for the Minoan deities and respect for our fellow human beings.

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Minoan Ivy: Lily's Other Half

Lilies abound in Minoan art. They're such a common feature of the frescoes and ceramics that I wrote a whole blog post about them.

Lilies have long been a symbol of the Divine Feminine. In Ariadne's Tribe, we connect them with the goddesses Rhea and Ariadne.

But what about the Divine Masculine? The Minoan pantheon contains gods as well as goddesses (and also deities who don't fit neatly into the gender binary).

Turns out there's a botanical symbol for the masculine side of the deity list as well: ivy.

Up above, you can see a fresco fragment from Hagia Triada. It shows an intrepid cat doing as cats do, hiding behind a bunch of ivy while stalking a bird. Here's another one, a fresco fragment from the House of the Frescoes in Knossos. You can see a small stand of ivy on the right:

Baboon and papyrus fresco Knossos

These are naturalistic depictions of ivy, with the vines weaving around and the leaves pointing in various directions, just like real live ivy does. But just as with lilies, there are both realistic and stylized versions of ivy in Minoan art. Here are some examples of stylized ivy on ceramic vessels, as depicted in Evans' Palace of Minos book series:

Minoan ceramic vessels from multiple sites, all with ivy decoration

Minoan pithamphora from Knossos with stylized ivy decoration

As you can see, these stylized ivy leaves have the double-curl that we also see in stylized depictions of lilies. In lilies, the double-curl is breast symbolic, pointing us to the goddesses connected with this particular flower.

In the case of ivy, which has masculine connotations, the double-curl symbolizes the testicles, with the pointy bit on the end of the ivy leaf representing the penis. The symbolism might be more obvious if you look at one of the versions of ivy that's erect, er, upright, on a terracotta pyxis from Pseira:

Ceramic pyxis from Pseira with ivy decoration

While lilies point to two specific goddesses and their mythos that connects the Underworld with the World Above, so far we don't have any specific gods to connect ivy with. It's possible that it's a general masculine symbol and not confined to just a single god or small subset of gods.

The connection of ivy with masculinity and specifically, male genitalia, continued past the LBA collapse in some places. The intrepid among you might try googling a 6th century Etruscan amphora, decorated with ivy leaves, now on display in the Aula Ottagona Baths of the Diocletian National Roman Museum in Rome. I can't post it here due to the explicit nature of the decorations on it that aren't ivy leaves.

So I'll leave you with this thought: We have lilies for the Divine Feminine and ivy for the Divine Masculine. What about the deities who don't fit neatly into the gender binary? Where do you think we can find them in Minoan art?

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Laura Perry is a priestess and creator who works magic with words, paint, ink, music, textiles, and herbs. She's the founder and Temple Mom of Ariadne's Tribe, an inclusive Minoan spiritual tradition. When she's not busy drawing and writing, you can find her in the garden or giving living history demonstrations at local historic sites.

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