_-_Thera_MPT_-_06.jpg "Fresco (wall painting) of papyrus plants from the House of the Ladies in the Minoan colony of Akrotiri on the island of Thera (modern Santorini). Two blue-gray papyrus plants grow from undulating ground. Each plant has three tall stalks, and each stalk is topped by a fan-shaped bloom. A border of horizontal red, blue, and white lines runs across the top of the fresco.")
This is one of a long-term series of posts about Ariadne’s Tribe inclusive Minoan spirituality. All my Minoan spirituality blog posts can be found here.
Please note that Ariadne’s Tribe is a living spiritual tradition of modern people in relationship with the Minoan deities in the here and now. We begin with research about the ancient world, but we fill in the blanks and move forward with our lived spiritual experience with these deities. We are not a reconstructionist tradition.
What is a micropantheon, you may ask?
Sorry, but it has nothing to do with small gods, of the Terry Pratchett variety or otherwise.
You may be familiar with deities who have their own story sets that are separate from the larger, overarching mythos of their pantheon. Demeter and Persephone, for instance, with their tale of seasonal time in the Underworld. Or Thor and Loki’s sojourn in Thrym’s hall disguised as Freyja and her maidservant so they could get Thor’s stolen hammer back. Or the sad tale of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, Blodeuwedd, and Gronw.
All of these are micropantheons: smaller, self-contained story cycles within the larger pantheons to which their deities belong. Micropantheons feature a subset of the whole pantheon, a handful of deities who have their own stand-alone tales to tell.
Guess what? There are Minoan micropantheons, too. I bet you saw that coming.
Over the course of the past decade, as we’ve worked to put together the Minoan pantheon that we use in Ariadne’s Tribe and the myths that our deities feature in, we’ve watched as clusters of deities resolved themselves into micropantheons.
All of these micropantheon story cycles reflect the way we believe the deities want us to interact with them in the modern world. There’s no guarantee that any of these micropantheons look today the way they did back in Minoan times, though the first one I’ll mention below may be pretty close. So the myths and the groups of deities who feature in them are our modern lore.
As you might have guessed, although some fragments of Minoan myth survived the Late Bronze Age collapse, we’ve lost far more than the amount that made it through - hence our reliance on our lived experiences with the deities to fill in the blanks.
First we have the Minoan version of the Eleusinian Mysteries. This is an earlier version of the classical-era tradition and may be a precursor to it. The story cycle features Rhea and Ariadne instead of Demeter and Persephone. Eileithyia, Dionysus (as Iacchus), the Melissae, and Minos also figure in this set of seasonal tales.
Ariadne takes part in another micropantheon with the Minotaur, who is a god and not a monster, I promise. Together they guard and guide the souls of living spirit workers and the spirits of the dead through the Labyrinth. Their story has nothing to do with the tale of Theseus, who is a Greek culture hero from many centuries after the end of Minoan civilization (the Minoans were not Greek).
Another micropantheon involves Dionysus, the divine child born at Midwinter in the Mother’s cave. Then at Midsummer, he and Ariadne join in the so-called sacred marriage, which isn’t a marriage at all, but something far more ancient, a Confluence of forces that balance and complement each other: feminine and masculine, Underworld and World Above, life and death.
The other two mother goddesses - the Serpent Mother and Ourania - have their own stories, too, tales of creation and becoming and the weaving together of life, death, and all the Worlds.
There are other micropantheons we can identify based on the deities’ relationships with each other, but for whom we don’t yet have well-fleshed-out myths. For instance, all the mother-daughter goddess pairs probably have story cycles, so not just Rhea and Ariadne with the Mysteries, but also Therasia/Arachne and Posidaeja/Antheia.
It’s possible that the different mother-daughter myths were associated with the various subcultures within Minoan society; so far, we’ve identified farming, sailing, and herding subcultures in ancient Crete. It’s clear that Rhea and Ariadne’s tale of the Mysteries is connected with farming and the agricultural cycle. I think it’s likely that Posidaeja and Antheia’s story is associated with the sailing subculture, and it’s possible that Therasia and Arachne’s story is connected with the herding subculture. There may also be some overlap, or even multiple story sets, one for each different subculture.
Some more micropantheon possibilities: The Sons are all the youthful counterparts of god-pairs that include a face of Minos as the elder, or mature, face. Each of those pairs probably has its own myth cycle, and those stories may include the Mothers as well, since each of the Sons is connected with one of the Three Mothers.
There are probably also story cycles for each pair of Horned Ones, as well as micropantheon myths for Daedalus (along with Talos, the Daktyls, and the Hekaterides) and Zagreus and his Blooming Time cycle. I also suspect that Thumia and Kaulo have a few racy tales of their own.
One of the interesting aspects of ancient religion in the eastern Mediterranean is the effect that all those islands had on belief and practice. Crete is an island, yes, but the Minoans also had settlements on Melos and Thera (modern Santorini), and probably other islands as well. They sailed and traded all over the eastern Mediterranean, and possibly the western half as well. There are over 10,000 islands in the Mediterranean, with the majority in the eastern region.
Just as biological evolution tends to create different critters over time from the same ancestral animals when they’re separated on different islands, so too do social changes take place, creating differences in religion: differing myths, new ways of looking at the deities and experiencing them in story and practice.
This effect is obvious, for instance, in the diverse and sometimes conflicting array of surviving myths about Ariadne and her adventures with both Theseus and Dionysus after she left Crete following the (not Minoan) Minotaur-and-Labyrinth story. If you look closely, you’ll see that each different version of the tale is connected with a different island.
This is by way of saying, the micropantheons we’ve identified, and the myth cycles we associate with them, might not have been the only ones for those particular deities. There was a great deal of local variation - and probably a certain amount of “our version is the correct one!”
I’ve collected up the myths we have so far in my book Tales from the Labyrinth, but I expect that over time, we’ll discover even more. I’ll share them here as they come to our notice through our spiritual practice and numinous experience.
Minoan culture may have disappeared thousands of years ago, but the Minoan deities are still very much alive in our world today. I’m delighted that they’re willing to share their stories with us, so we can celebrate them together.
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About Laura Perry
I’m the founder and Temple Mom of Ariadne’s Tribe, a worldwide inclusive Minoan spiritual tradition. I’m also an author, artist, and creator who works magic with words, paint, ink, music, textiles, and herbs. My spiritual practice includes spirit work and herbalism through the lens of lifelong animism. I write Pagan / polytheist / magical non-fiction and fiction. My two latest books, Pantheon: The Minoans and Tales from the Labyrinth, are now available. You can read an excerpt from Pantheon: The Minoans here. I do more than just write and make art: I’m also an avid herb and vegetable gardener and living history demonstrator (heritage interpreter).
Ah, a new term for what was actually already a familiar concept. :) It will be interesting to know what can be possibly revealed of potential story cycles for Antheia and Grandmother Ocean. Before I discovered all this information on the Minoan faith, Aphrodite-Antheia had been sending me these intuitive communications that She may have a strong bond to Her mother Thalassa-Poseidaeja akin to what Demeter and Persephone have in Hellenic religion that has been largely forgotten in modern times. Aside from Pausanias' passing reference to a statue depicting an adolescent Aphrodite in Thalassa's arms in Corinth, I couldn't find any other reference to this possible bond between the two of them in ancient times, but now the information you've provided about their role in the Minoan faith does seem to lean heavily towards what was being communicated to me.
This makes so much sense, thank you! I will admit you had me there for a moment with the "Small Gods". I have never read anything by Sir Terry Pratchett (does that make me a philistine?) : )