Blessed Solstice! Calendar Fun!
At the height of summer, the Minoan sacred calendar increases
Blessings of the season to you all!
Here in the northern hemisphere, it’s Summer Solstice today - a day earlier than the more typical date of June 21. But did you know the solstice is a moment and not a day? This year, it lands at 9:51 p.m. GMT, which is late enough that in some parts of the world, solstice will actually fall tomorrow instead of today.
But enough of technicalities.
I’ve been eyeball-deep in working out the final bits of the Minoan sacred calendar for Ariadne’s Tribe, and I think I’ve had all the technicalities I can stand for a while! lol
It has taken us a full decade to finish the calendar. The whole thing has been a community effort, with research ranging from archaeoastronomy (check out the Uppsala Archaeoastronomical Project’s amazing website) to plain ol’ archaeology to dance ethnology and folklore.
Of course, the ancient Minoan sacred calendars (yes, there were multiple ones based on different astronomical cycles) developed slowly over time, probably over the course of many centuries. We didn’t have that long, so it was quite an undertaking.
We could have made it easy on ourselves and just pasted some Minoan-themed festivals onto the modern eightfold Wheel of the Year that many Pagans observe. But just as we chose to take on the extra labor of creating a ritual format that’s more true to the Bronze Age, we chose to devote ourselves also to the creation of a sacred calendar built from the ground up, based on the hints and clues the Minoans left us in their sacred sites and their myths, all of which (both buildings and myths) are only fragmentary now.
So it has been quite a journey. In a sense, it’s been a long-term devotional act for many of us, since our deities and their stories are inextricably linked with the calendar.
That’s a very long-winded way of saying, here are the last two festivals that finally complete our modern Minoan calendar:
Serpents and Mirrors: Minoan Summer Celebrations
For the full Minoan sacred calendar, go here.
And yes, I still observe the eightfold Wheel of the Year (in my Wiccan practice) as well as other sacred days for the Mesopotamian, Norse, and other deities with whom I have relationships. Interestingly, most of the people in Ariadne’s Tribe follow multiple traditions, interweaving and blending them as the year goes along. I suspect the Minoans did something similar, given how cosmopolitan they were.
How many calendars, sacred or otherwise, do you follow? How do you weave them together in your life?
Thank you so much for reading. Together we are joy!
My Substack is free, but if you’d like to support my work, you can find my books here and my art here and here.
About Laura Perry
I'm an author, artist, and creator who works magic with words, paint, ink, music, textiles, and herbs. I'm the founder and Temple Mom of Ariadne's Tribe, a worldwide inclusive Minoan spiritual tradition. My spiritual practice also includes spirit work and herbalism through the lens of lifelong animism. I write Pagan / polytheist non-fiction and fiction across several different subjects and genres. I'm currently working on an illustrated book of modern Minoan myths and a Minoan entry in the Moon Books Pantheons series. I’m also an avid gardener and living history demonstrator.