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.

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that have been used in the blog.
  • Bloggers
    Bloggers Search for your favorite blogger from this site.
  • Login
    Login Login form

The Minoan Sacred Year: A Modern Pagan Calendar

Posted by on in Paths Blogs

Most modern Pagans are familiar with the eightfold Wheel of the Year: the solstices and equinoxes and the points halfway in between.

But that's a modern construct, perfectly valid, just not something that goes back to the Bronze Age Mediterranean. It also doesn't match the unique seasons of the Mediterranean region, where Crete is located (and where the Minoans lived).

So in Ariadne's Tribe, we've worked out a sacred calendar based on the Mediterranean seasonal cycle. We've combined information from Minoan artifacts and ruins, archaeoastronomy, dance ethnology, the few fragments of myth that made it down to us via the Greeks, and a bunch of shared gnosis.

That gives us a set of festivals that work for us as modern Pagans but that still reflect how we think the Minoans viewed the world.

I suspect the Minoans' sacred calendar was really full, like the Greeks and the Romans. They probably had lots of local festivals as well as the big ones that were celebrated across the island, and possibly all over the Aegean. What we have thus far in our modern version keeps us busy throughout the year but isn't so full that we can't manage to squeeze them in between our nine-to-five jobs and other obligations.

As I mentioned above, the Mediterranean climate has its own unique seasonal cycle. Instead of spring-summer-autumn-winter, it really only has two seasons: rainy and dry. This cycle affects the whole Mediterranean basin. There a few other areas that have Mediterranean climates as well: southern California, South Africa, and parts of Australia, for instance.

In these places, the "dead time" is the summer, the dry season. The rains stop, the weather gets really hot, plants turn brown and crispy, and water goes away; lowland creeks dry up entirely and rivers slow to a trickle. Then the rains come in the autumn, softening the soil so farmers can plow their fields and plant their crops. The crops grow throughout the mild, rainy winter and are harvested in the spring.

This is the opposite of what most people in the northern hemisphere are used to, but that's how it works in the Mediterranean.

So our sacred calendar includes an agricultural new year in the autumn. Like the farmers in medieval Europe who celebrated the new year in the spring, the Minoans appear to have started their agricultural year at the beginning of planting and growing season, which for them was the autumn. We think they may have had a multi-week-long "holiday season" around that time, and we've built that into our modern calendar.

They also had a sort of new year at the beginning of the sailing season. Crete is an island, and a large number of Minoans probably went to sea every year in the late spring, either to travel and trade or to fish. So the sailors became their own subculture with, we think, their own set of festivals to add to the sacred calendar.

There was a third cultural group in Minoan Crete as well: goat herders. They were transhumant, meaning they moved their herds between summer and winter pastures. They probably had their own set of celebrations, their own calendar that matched with their yearly activities.

So really, there are three overlapping cycles, one based on the sea and two based on the land. All were probably celebrated by different groups of people in ancient Crete, with a set of seasons that interlocked and united them. And in case you're wondering, they appear to have come from two or three different cultural groups that all migrated down to the Aegean from Anatolia during the Neolithic.

So here you go, the sacred year of Ariadne's Tribe:

The Blessing of the Ships: Third Monday in May, about the time when the Pleiades would have had their heliacal rising in the late Bronze Age. Crete is an island, so obviously boats and ships were important to the Minoans, from tiny fishing boats to enormous trading ships. The heliacal rise of the Pleiades signals the beginning of sailing season (the winter winds have stopped by that point) so it's the time to ask Posidaeja to bless your ship/boat, your sailors/fishers, and your voyage, even if you'll just be going out on the local lake to do a little fishing. We also use this festival to bless other vehicles for journeys in the modern world. More about this festival here.

The Height of Summer: Summer Solstice. Like the Winter Solstice, this festival developed a lot of layers over the centuries of Minoan society (the Minoans, like the Egyptians, simply added on to what they already had when new bits of religion developed or were imported). In Ariadne's Tribe, we celebrate this festival by honoring both the Sun goddess Therasia, who is at the height of her power at this time of year, and the sacred marriage of Ariadne and Dionysus.

Feast of Grapes: August 31. The grape harvest happens at the end of summer, though the actual date would have varied in ancient times (and can vary for you if you grow grapes). This is a time for honoring Dionysus, who dies with the grape harvest and descends to the Underworld. It's a good time for scrying in wine as well.

The Mysteries: September 1-10. The Eleusinian Mysteries appear to have had a precursor in Minoan Crete. For the Minoans, the story involved not Demeter and Persephone, but Rhea and Ariadne. Charlene Spretnak's book Lost Goddesses of Early Greece offers a beautiful, inspired version of this tale in which Ariadne descends to the Underworld willingly, no abduction involved. Find out more about the Tribe version of this festival here.

The Agricultural New Year: Autumn Equinox. In the Mediterranean, the rains come and the farmers plow their fields and plant their crops. Everything that was dead and dry springs to life again. In Tribe mythos, Ariadne returns from the Underworld with the first green sprouts in the fields.

Harbor Home: Third Monday in October. This festival celebrates the end of the sailing season, on a date that would have been the heliacal setting of the Pleiades during the late Bronze Age. This is the time when all the sailors and traders would have returned home and the ships were put in storage, awaiting repair for the next year's sailing season. We also use this festival to give thanks for the safe return from journeys in the modern world and to "decommission" cars, boats, and other modes of transportation.

Therasia's Labor: November 16 to Solstice Eve. This is the sacred season that leads up to the Winter Solstice, the time during which we prepare ourselves for the birth and rebirth celebrations of Midwinter Day. Therasia's Labor helps us focus not just on the way the days shorten leading up to the Solstice, but also on the way the energy builds toward that day around which the year hinges.

The Depths of Winter: Winter Solstice. The earliest celebration at this time of year was probably the self-rebirth of the Minoan Sun Goddess, whom we call Therasia. But by late Minoan times, they appear to have been celebrating the birth of Dionysus to the mother goddess Rhea at the Winter Solstice. A fatherless sacred child born in a cave, surrounded by animals, his birth heralded by a star. Sound familiar?

The Serpent Days: Days between Winter Solstice and the Blessing of the Waters. This "slithery" time varies in length from one year to the next as the solar and lunar cycles dance around each other. These are intercalary days, between the ending of one solar year and the beginning of the next, an excellent time for divination and contemplation.

The Blessing of the Waters: First Full Moon after Winter Solstice. This is a rite to connect you with your local water, preferably fresh water but the ocean works, too - ultimately, all the water on Earth is part of a single cycle. This festival can also be used to celebrate the coming-of-age of young men or to choose a particular man for a sacred position.

The Harvest: Spring Equinox. This is the end of the growing season in the Mediterranean, time for all the field crops to be harvested. The famous Mediterranean circle dances, as well as the Crane Dance that's associated with Ariadne and the Labyrinth, probably began on the ancient threshing floors of Crete. This is a time for thanking the ancestors and dining with them, something the Minoans appear to have done at the tombs near their cities. It's also the time when Ariadne returns to the Underworld to take care of the spirits of the dead.

So there you have it, the Ariadne's Tribe sacred calendar. I'll keep this post updated as the living calendar grows.

Last modified on
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.

Comments

Additional information