Grace of Life
A Sharing of the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete, October 1998 with Carol Christ
  by Anne Harrison
Unitarian Universalist Church of the Shenandoah Valley
March 7, 1999

Introduction and Background

Just over two years ago I met Bob Hughes, by coincidence, at the coffee house, Satisfied Mind, in Winchester. That meeting led to my enrollment in Stefani Cochran's "Rise Up and Call Her Name" Seminar in 1997. I had been on a search for the feminine face of God for some years and felt I had finally found a rich source. How right I was!

Not long after completing Stefani's Seminar, I took the New UU Class and joined the Unitarian Church of Shenandoah Valley, and continued my odyssey. As a resource, I discovered the Ariadne Institute, Blacksburg, Virginia and the offering of "A Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete".

This Pilgrimage focused on the pre-Hellenic civilization of the Minoans and the celebration of the earth-based spirit of ancient Crete. What might it have been like to be part of an egalitarian culture that honored the earth, was matrifocal (not matriarchal) and in which men and women flourished for 2,000 years without violence?

A Pilgrimage is one of the most ancient and abiding rituals in all cultures. Pilgrims travel to sacred space to receive inspiration and guidance in the journey of life, to give thanks, and to pray for the healing of physical and spiritual illness.

Crete is on of the few places where a highly developed prepatriarchal culture is clearly documented. The Minoans celebrated the grace of life. We saw museums with incredible treasures, visited spiritual centers, descended into sacred caves, We climbed to the tops of holy mountain, swam in the life giving seas, visited convents, gained a renewed sense of the beauty and strength of our bodies an our souls.

We know them only through their ruins, splendid though they are. Homer alluded to the civilization. the Greeks referred to them as barbarians, and in fact they are considered pre-historic! --because we cannot decipher their language yet.

8,000 years ago in the Neolithic period, the culture began after the Ice Age. Crete was settled by people who probably came from Asia Minor. By 2600 BCE, homes, pottery and agriculture had been established. By 2,000BCE they were already living in cities, trading with other nations in the Mediterranean and employing a hieroglyphic system of writing. We know them by their beautiful artifacts --and their lack of weapons, fortifications, and violence.

Around 1700 BCE the centers were destroyed by a massive earthquake, but were rebuilt in what in now called the New Palace Period. 200 years later a second wave of massive earthquakes destroyed the settlements. This second blow the Minoans did not recover from. The Myceneans coming over from the Greek mainland. began their invasion. At first the Myceneans adopted the Minoan civilization, but a second wave of Myceneans, a much more warlike group with weapons, put an end to the Minoan Centers and way of life. With the advent of warlike, patriarchal invasion, art and life declined and the ancient symbols were turned upside down and lost to memory.

The Minoans were lost to human memory for thousands of years. The poems of Homer talk about the pre-Homeric world but only the Greeks and Romans seem to have taken these poems as history. The Minoan world was lost in a haze of generations before Homer told his versions in his poems. The rest of Europe lost the thread completely Until---Heinrich Schliemann discovered the real Troy of the Homeric poems.

Heinrich Schliemann's discoveries inspired Greek archaeologists to begin searching. Some sites had been spotted by the time Sir Arthur Evans to begin digging in Crete, early 1900's. He thought he would find Mycenean culture; instead he found the splendid ruins of a people far more ancient than the Myceneans, the Minoans.

For two and a half weeks we walked and climbed on the ancient land little disturbed by modernization. We were 14 women ranging in age from 23 to 68. We focused on Mother Earth and our connections to Her. We felt the stark contrast to the idea of "Man, Nature and God being separate". We traveled, sang, danced and did rituals in the ancient sites . We experienced and learned about the Goddess/earth energy in this place on our planet where the land and objects facilitated the search.

"The earth is the source and being of the people, and we are equally the being of the earth. The land is not really a place, separate from ourselves, where we act out the drama of our isolate destinies."
Paula Gunn Allen

The earth is holy and our true home. Women's experience is a source of insight about the divine.