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I used to think my huge anxiety, angst, and nervousness meant something was deeply wrong with me. Then one day the Goddess told me the intensity of those feelings stems from my wild, free spirit. I would’ve thought that was contradictory, but when She showed me the whole picture, it made sense.

Emotionally and spiritually, I’m in fairly decent shape. Am reasonably serene, given the pandemic and my statistically being at greater risk of dying in it. But anxiety visits. Sometimes, it overwhelms me. Right now, my stomach’s in a knot, but at least I’m not sobbing today.

It really helps when I remember that my abundance of intense feelings is appropriate and part of my passionate nature, and that passion is a gift I was given by the Goddess, and that I enjoy right down to my toes. Feeling passionate about life’s ups and downs of is part of my vitality—my life force expressing itself. I want to honor that.

This is the second in a series about our pantheon. Find the list of the full series of posts here.

We're on a journey, working our way through the Tribe pantheon one deity at a time. This time, we're discussing another of our three mother goddesses: the Sun goddess Therasia. (Yes, I capitalize Sun just like I capitalize the names of other stars like Sirius and Aldebaran. I also capitalize Earth, just like I capitalize the names of other planets like Venus and Jupiter. Respect.)

During crisis, I find being gentle with myself vital. However, were gentleness with myself to take precedence over gentleness with other people, I’d be widely amiss.

Gentleness with myself is not tantamount to forgoing moral accountability, but rather acknowledging what I’ve done wrong without shaming myself for it. We are all only human. We will all make mistakes. Compassion for others means rectifying whatever errors I make.

Compassion for others also requires the practice of self-awareness, so I spot my ill behavior, as well as notice an impulse toward an unkind deed so I can nip it in the bud.

I intended to make it more elaborate. I thought of getting out the embroidered round altar piece with Frigga spelled out in runes, at least. Possibly a decorative spindle. Find and bring out a matching tea pot and tea cup and even a saucer. Get or maybe even make some tea cookies. In reality I just made the tea in the usual pot that was already sitting on the kitchen counter. Instead of a beautifully arranged altar setup we just had our tea at the table, without even a table cloth, like a friend had dropped over to help out and express support.

Who knew the sovereign goddess, the queen of heaven, the goddess most associated with the running of an efficient estate, could also be the sort of friend who ignores the mess when one is overwhelmed?

Candlemas

For a long time, I wondered what on Earth possessed the Minoans to paint women as white (not Caucasian-toned, but the color of a sheet of paper) and men as dark-dark red. After all, DNA evidence shows that, like their ancestors in Neolithic Anatolia, the Minoans all had skin in various shades of brown. So why the weirdness in the art, like the Bull Leaper fresco above?

Then I began to learn about Mediterranean folk dance. Dance ethnology isn't a field I ever really thought about much before, to be honest. Then a talented dance ethnologist who happens to be a member of the MMP Board began to share her insights with us, and a lot of things began to make sense.

Whenever I check on my blog statistics, I always find that the post I wrote about topless Minoan women is the number one in terms of hits. The female breast is such a source of titillation (ha!) in modern society, it's hard to wrap our minds around the idea that exposed breasts might have represented something other than sexual innuendo to the ancient Minoans. But we're pretty sure they did.

In addition to the frescoes and figurines that show women with exposed breasts, Minoan art also includes quite a few representations of animals suckling their young. The image at the top of this blog is a drawing of a faience plaque found at Knossos. It shows a mama goat suckling a kid. There's a similar plaque with a cow and her calf. Images of mother animals suckling their young - cattle, goats, sheep, even deer - appear on a number of Minoan seals.