I'm more than just The Minoan Lady!

Many of you know me as The Minoan Lady. And it’s true, a big part of what I do publicly in the Pagan community revolves around Ariadne’s Tribe, our inclusive Minoan spirituality community.

But that’s not all I do. It’s just the part that’s most visible and that I’m best known for.

Of course, I’m delighted that people are finding out about the Tribe, and I’m honored to be the Temple Mom for our beautiful community.

But my spiritual life is actually more diverse and textured than you might guess. My practice involves far more than just the Minoan deities, and it spills over into what some people might call the mundane facets of my life. Although really, to me, it’s all sacred.

A major aspect of my spiritual practice is ancestor veneration. I wrote a chant to honor the ancestors - maybe you’d like to use it to honor yours. I have ancestors from three different continents, including Africa and the Indian subcontinent, and I cherish them all.

My Beloved Dead and their deities are with me, along with the Minoan family of deities, when I spend time on the non-digital activities that I enjoy: gardening, art, herbalism, music, and living history.

My gardening leans a bit into permaculture these days. I love growing food, and I share photos of my adventures in the garden and our little bit of wild property on Instagram and Mastodon. Connecting with the Earth and the land spirits to grow some of our food is an important facet of my spiritual practice.

Creating art is my refuge from the Big World as well as a way to express the joy I find in my spirituality. Much of my art is devotional in nature. I’ve taken down the art gallery from my website to keep AIs from scraping my original work without consent or compensation. But you can still see some of it in my Minoan Tarot deck and much more in my Redbubble shop. I hope one day I’ll be able to put the art gallery back up on my website.

I began seriously studying herbalism in 1991, when my first child was born with severe birth defects. There were simply some things the doctors were unable to help with, including her chronic pain. So I began what has become a decades-long relationship with the plant spirits, one I’m quite grateful for. I eventually earned an MS in Natural Health and an ND degree, and I had a naturopathy practice for a while. But eventually my priorities shifted, and now I use my herbalism skills for my own family.

I’ve played music since I was a child, taking piano lessons and noodling around on a plastic recorder in elementary school. These days I play the piano and folk harp, and I compose chants for the Tribe. To me, music is a way to express what is inexpressible in words and to create devotional works for my deities and ancestors. And like art, it feeds my soul.

Finally, living history is a way to connect with the ancestors, both my personal genetic ones and the ancestors of the land where I live. Since I do public demonstrations, it’s also a way to share these connections with others and help them find connection with their own past. I’ve been sewing, weaving, and spinning since the early 1980s. Over the years I’ve picked up other pre-industrial skills including natural dyeing, hearth cooking, and washpot laundry. Spending a day, or a weekend, living the way people in previous centuries did helps to recalibrate my “speed of life” and keep me focused on what really matters in life.

So I’m not just a one-trick pony. None of us are, really. We’re all multi-faceted beings with a variety of interests and connections.

What are your favorite activities to bring meaning, connection, and sacredness to the fore in your life?