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The Maiden/Mother/Crone configuration of goddesses is popular in modern Paganism. It resonates with a lot of us, but there's no evidence the Minoans viewed their goddesses this way. In fact, the Maiden/Mother/Crone triplicity was invented by Robert Graves in the mid-20th century. Yes, it works, but it's not historically accurate so we shouldn't apply it to the Minoans. If you're interested in Graves' process and teasing out which of his ideas are historic and which are purely poetic, I recommend Mark Carter's excellent book Stalking the Goddess.

But back to the Minoans.

They say that as Muhammad lay dying, he saw in the corner of his tent a tall, standing shadow.

“Is that you?” he asks.

“I am,” She says.

His entire life had been a struggle against the Goddess, known in Arabic as al-Lât. (“Allah” is the masculine form of this name.)

For a while, he even thought that he had won. He destroyed Her idols, rooted out Her worship, did everything that he could to crush women's power.

Now he lays dying. He is silent for a long time.

When you see the Tree, you understand right away that this is the Mother Tree of All Apples.

A farmhouse, now long gone, once stood here. Nothing remains but a pile of old foundation stones.

But the Three Springs still bubble from the creek-bed, and feral apple trees fill the Secret Valley.

The Mother Tree is oldest, and biggest, of them all.

Orchard trees are pruned, bred low for easy picking. This tree has known neither pruning saw, nor the shade of other trees. Three with outstretched arms could barely span its girth.

Approach, and understand. Three sister trees—sprung, maybe, from a single apple—have grown up together, merging, in mutual embrace: the Three that are One, the One that is Three. You'd go far to find a better image of the Triple Goddess.

What does Winter dream of?

In observational astronomy, there's a phenomenon called an "epicycle," a cycle within a cycle.

If you watch a particular planet from night to night—Venus, say—you'll see her move along her regular path. Then she stops and goes backwards. She makes a widdershins loop in the sky, then resumes her regular course.

Of course it's all a matter of perspective and bodies in simultaneous motion. But what it looks like is time in reverse.

The Year is Earth's story. From youth she waxes into ripe maturity and wanes away into age.

And now the serpent catches its tail in its mouth, time runs backwards, and old woman becomes young girl.

They say that in ages of ages, Earth gave birth to Moon, her first-born daughter and other self.

The size-ratio of our planet to its moon is anomalous in the solar system. In many ways, the two look more like a binary planet than a planet and moon.

In Moon, it is said, we behold Earth's knowledge of self.

It is believed that the moon accreted from material expelled from what is now the Pacific Ocean, perhaps as the result of impact, some 4.5 billion years ago.

She then gave birth to Sea, it is said: Earth's daughter and other self, born of her longing for Moon, and imprint of her love for self and daughter.

We’re coming up on Beltane, that magical and fiery pagan holiday that I’ve always loved and was recently feeling strangely anxious about. I’m not a crone…yet. But I’m no spring chicken, either, and I was beginning to look at the brilliant, sexy, flirty day of Beltane for what it is: a spring holiday of fertility, and wondering to myself, how do I fit into this?

Among the preeminent deities of ancient Arabia were the Triple Goddesses of Mecca: al-Lât, al-'Uzzá, and Manât. We don't know much about them—the mosque far out-did the church in ruthlessness when it came to destruction of the past—but they certainly did cause problems for Muhammad. And, in fact, they still do.

When Muhammad had gained enough power to become a player in local politics, grandees from some of Mecca's most prestigious families came to him and said: “Look, make a place in your system for the Three Goddesses—they don't have to be on top, just make a place for them—and we'll back you.”

Like Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, Muhammad was well-known for having self-serving revelations. His wife 'A'isha once remarked that it sure was convenient how Allah seemed to back him in every argument. So he goes up to Mount Nûr and, lo and behold, the angel Jibrîl whispers into his ear:

Have you seen al-Lât and al-'Uzzá,

and Manât, the third, the other?

These are the exalted cranes,

their intercession much to be desired.