It's the Blooming Time!

A very special season that you've probably never heard of

Hi, it’s me again, the Minoan Lady! When I’m wearing that hat (I also do other things, believe it or not) I spend a lot of time explaining the Mediterranean climate. This is because it’s very different from the four-season spring / summer / autumn / winter cycle that many of us are familiar with.

It’s also because, what with Paganism being a form of nature spirituality, the Ariadne’s Tribe sacred calendar is based on the seasonal cycles of Crete and the surrounding area in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

One of the many challenges we had in creating our calendar was learning to understand the seasons of ancient Crete and how they formed the structure for each year’s sequence of sacred festivals. Into this process we also had to incorporate the three subcultures that we’ve identified from ancient Crete: the sailors, the farmers, and the herders. So essentially, the calendar is the intersection of the humans with the natural cycles of the region.

What we came up with may be familiar to those of you who live in southern California, parts of Australia or South Africa, or the actual Mediterranean itself. But it was an adventure in newness for those of us who grew up in the four-season areas of North America and Eurasia.

So not only do we have Summer and Winter, which correspond to the dry and rainy seasons in the Mediterranean climate. We also have the Blooming Time, which is a special, short season in the spring.

It’s special both because it’s a separate little section of the calendar when the wildflowers bloom like crazy across Crete. But it’s also special because it’s a time of opposing forces, mirrors and opposites, a hinge on which the rest of the year turns.

So come with me, and we’ll explore the Blooming Time in today’s Minoan Path blog post and find out what those opposing forces are and which deity shows us the way through this complex path:

Welcome to the Blooming Time!

What’s your favorite season in the yearly cycle where you live?