“Beauty Sensuality and Wonder”

As I made my way through the extensive grounds of Knossos Palace on the Greek island of Crete today, I kept wondering what it might have been like to live in a time when God was a woman, how my life might have been different if ‘church’ had meant attending processionals to bring offerings to a Divinity who looked like me.

The Minoan was an advanced civilization with hot running water and flushable stone toilets and filtered water, efficient anti-erosion drainage system, had hydroplanes beneath the sterns of ships, and had system of hydraulics. (Scholarship from the wall paintings from the Xeste 3 Building at Akrotiri), according to Mary Casey (Voices in the Ocean, 2016) They revered Potnia, Goddess of Benevolence and Love for All Things and had no defenses or fortifications. They lived in unity with nature and in prosperity.

The “palace” of Knossos was the ceremonial and cultural center of the Cretan Minoans and included a Bull-Leaping field. In its peak shortly after 1700 BC, the center and surrounding city had a population from 10,000 to 100,000 people. Internal rooms were brightened by light-wells and columns of fluted wood. Warfare was conspicuously absent in any display. The chambers and corridors were decorated with brilliant frescoes showing scenes from everyday life and scenes of religious processions carrying offerings to the Great Mother. Here is the famous fresco of the lifesize dolphins in the Queen’s quarters, which I was privileged to view today.Mary Casey states that the dolphins were the guides, the guardians, the intermediaries between this world and the underworld and then back again. The Greek word for dolphin is delphis and the Greek word for womb is delphy. They were seen as midwives of rebirth, and their values of bliss and harmony both reflect and, are reflected in the Minoan culture. Casey says, “The Minoans seemed to immerse themselves in beauty, sensuality, and wonder, a set of intentions that diverge radically from our own…and scholars believe the Minoans’ ubiquitous spirals represented a circular view of time.”

How might your life have gone differently if the Minoan Snake Goddess found at Knossos offered her benevolent protection to you and was revered on every home altar in your town?