The Minoan Sacred Calendar

The Wheel of the Year in Ariadne's Tribe

This is one of a long-term series of posts about Ariadne’s Tribe style inclusive Minoan spirituality. Some of these posts, including this one, are revised and updated versions of older articles that I wrote over on the Minoan Path blog. I’m moving the content over here in an effort to consolidate my writing on a single platform. All my new Minoan Path blog posts can be found here.

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Most modern Pagans are familiar with the eightfold Wheel of the Year: the solstices and equinoxes, plus the points halfway in between (often referred to as Beltane, Lammas, Samhain, and Imbolc).

The thing is, the eightfold Wheel is a modern construct, pieced together from multiple different ancient calendars. It’s perfectly valid for spiritual practice, of course, and it’s beautifully symmetrical, but it’s not historical. No such thing existed in the Bronze Age Mediterranean, the time and place the Minoans lived.

The eightfold wheel also fails to match the seasons in the Mediterranean. It’s adapted to the seasonal cycles in northwestern Europe — the northern temperate zone. But the Mediterranean climate is very different from that. And given that paganism is, at least in part, a nature religion, it’s important to have your sacred calendar match up with the seasons.

So in Ariadne's Tribe, we've worked out a sacred calendar based on the Mediterranean seasonal cycle. We've combined information from Minoan artifacts and ruins, archaeoastronomy, dance ethnology, and the few fragments of myth that made it down to us via the Greeks, then filled in the blanks with shared gnosis. We performed the entire process, from research to gnosis, in relationship with our deities, always listening for their advice and suggestions; Ariadne’s Tribe is a spirit-led tradition.

The final result is a set of festivals that work for us as modern pagans but that also reflect how we think the Minoans viewed the world.

I suspect the Minoans' sacred calendar was really full, like the Greek and Roman calendars. The Minoans probably had lots of local festivals as well as the big ones that were celebrated across Crete, and possibly all over the Aegean. What we have thus far in our modern version keeps us busy throughout the year but isn't so full that we can't manage to squeeze them in between our nine-to-five jobs and other obligations.

Before I get to the actual calendar, let’s take a brief tour of the Mediterranean climate. As I mentioned above, the Mediterranean climate has its own unique seasonal cycle. Instead of spring-summer-autumn-winter, it has two seasons: rainy and dry. This cycle affects the whole Mediterranean basin. There a few other areas that have Mediterranean climates, too: southern California, South Africa, and parts of Australia, for instance.

In these places, the "dead time" is the summer, the dry season. The rains stop, the weather gets really hot, plants turn brown and crispy, and water evaporates: lowland creeks dry up entirely and rivers slow to a trickle. Then the rains come again in the autumn, softening the soil so farmers can plow their fields and plant their crops. The crops grow throughout the mild, rainy winter and are harvested in the spring.

This is the opposite of what most people in the northern hemisphere are used to, but that's how it works in the Mediterranean.

So our modern Minoan sacred calendar includes an agricultural new year in the autumn. Like the farmers in medieval Europe who celebrated the new year in the spring, the Minoans appear to have started their agricultural year at the beginning of planting and growing season, which for them was the autumn. We think they may have had a multi-week-long "holiday season" around that time, and we've built that into our modern calendar.

They also had a sort of new year at the beginning of the sailing season. Crete is an island, and a large number of Minoans probably went to sea every year in the late spring, either to travel and trade or to fish. So the sailors had their own subculture with their own set of festivals based on the seasonal cycles of their activities.

There was a third cultural group in Minoan Crete as well: goat herders. They were transhumant, meaning they moved their herds between high-mountain summer pastures and lowland winter pastures. They probably had their own set of celebrations, their own calendar that matched with their yearly activities.

All three of these subcultures are still evident in modern Crete.

So really, there are three overlapping cycles in our calendar, one based on the sea and two based on the land. All were probably celebrated by different groups of people in ancient Crete, with a set of seasons that interlocked and united them. I’ll share more details about the seasons and the individual sacred festivals in future posts.

The dates in our sacred calendar are based on the seasonal cycles in the Mediterranean, so people in other areas sometimes shift some of the festivals to fit the seasons where they live. In the northern temperate zone, some of us celebrate the agricultural new year in the spring and the harvest in the autumn. In the southern hemisphere, some of us switch the dates of the Summer and Winter Solstice to match the local seasons.

So here you go, the sacred year of Ariadne's Tribe:

The Blessing of the Ships: Third Monday in May, roughly the time when the Pleiades would have had their heliacal rising in the late Bronze Age. Crete is an island, so boats and ships were important to the Minoans, from tiny fishing boats to enormous trading ships. The heliacal rise of the Pleiades signals the beginning of sailing season (the winter winds have stopped by that point) so it's the time to ask Posidaeja to bless your ship/boat, your sailors/fishers, and your voyage, even if you'll just be going out on the local lake to do a little fishing. We also use this festival to bless other vehicles for journeys in the modern world.

Summer Weaving: May 24 to Solstice Eve. This is the sacred season leading up to the Summer Solstice. Summer Weaving reminds us of the interconnectedness of all of existence and helps us prepare for the solstice, when the worlds intertwine. This is an excellent time for walking the labyrinth and for doing weaving/spinning magic and spirit work.

The Height of Summer: Summer Solstice, approx. June 21. We celebrate the Summer Solstice by honoring both the Sun Goddess Therasia, who is at the height of her power at this time of year, and the connection of all the Worlds via the Confluence of Ariadne and Dionysus.

The Summer Serpent Days: Days between Summer Solstice and the Water Mirror. This in-between time varies in length from one year to the next as the solar and lunar cycles dance around each other. These are intercalary days, between the ending of one half-year and the beginning of the next, a time for divination and for continued contemplation of the interconnectedness of all things.

The Water Mirror: First Full Moon after Summer Solstice. This is a rite of reflection and thanksgiving, focusing on the Sun. We make a water mirror and use it to give an offering to the Sun-Mother.

Feast of Grapes: August 31. The grape harvest happens at the end of summer, though the actual date would have varied in ancient times (and can vary for you if you grow grapes). This is a time for honoring Dionysus, who dies with the grape harvest and descends to the Underworld at this time. It's a good time for scrying in wine as well.

The Mysteries: September 1-10. The Eleusinian Mysteries appear to have had a precursor in Minoan Crete. For the Minoans, the story involved not Demeter and Persephone, but Rhea and Ariadne. Charlene Spretnak's book Lost Goddesses of Early Greece offers a beautiful, inspired version of this tale in which Ariadne descends to the Underworld willingly, no abduction involved. We used her story as the beginning of the cycle of Mysteries that we have created.

The Agricultural New Year: Autumn Equinox. In the Mediterranean, at this time of year, the rains come and the farmers plow their fields and plant their crops. Everything that was dead and dry springs to life again. In Tribe mythos, Ariadne returns from the Underworld with the first green sprouts in the fields; she is the embodiment of the grain crop, a gift to humanity from her mother Rhea.

Harbor Home: Third Monday in October. This festival celebrates the end of the sailing season on a date that would have been the time of the heliacal setting of the Pleiades during the late Bronze Age. This is the time when all the sailors and traders would have returned home and the ships were put in storage, awaiting repair for the next year's sailing season. We also use this festival to give thanks for the safe return from journeys in the modern world and to "decommission" cars, boats, and other modes of transportation.

Therasia's Labor: November 16 to Solstice Eve. This is the sacred season that leads up to the Winter Solstice, the time during which we prepare ourselves for the birth and rebirth celebrations of Midwinter Day. Therasia's Labor helps us focus not just on the way the days shorten leading up to the Solstice, but also on the way the energy builds toward that day around which the year hinges.

The Depths of Winter: Winter Solstice. This sacred festival celebrates both the self-rebirth of the Sun Goddess Therasia as well as the birth of the Divine Child Dionysus to the Mother Goddess Rhea. Both of these births take place in sacred caves, which are both womb-symbolic and gateways to the Underworld.

The Winter Serpent Days: Days between Winter Solstice and the Blessing of the Waters. This "slithery" time varies in length from one year to the next as the solar and lunar cycles dance around each other. These are intercalary days, between the ending of one half-year and the beginning of the next, an excellent time for divination and contemplation.

The Blessing of the Waters: First Full Moon after Winter Solstice. This is a rite to connect you with your local water, preferably fresh water but the ocean works, too — ultimately, all the water on Earth is part of a single cycle. This festival can also be used to celebrate the coming-of-age of young men or to choose a particular man for a sacred position.

The Harvest: Spring Equinox. This is the end of the growing season in the Mediterranean, time for all the field crops to be harvested. The famous Mediterranean circle dances, as well as the Crane Dance that's associated with Ariadne and the Labyrinth, probably began on the ancient threshing floors of Crete, where grain was processed before being stored. This is a time for thanking the ancestors and dining with them, something the Minoans appear to have done at the tombs near their cities. It's also the time when Ariadne returns to the Underworld to take care of the spirits of the dead for the summer.

The Blooming Time: Days between Spring Equinox and The Blessing of the Ships. This short season is a time when life and death intertwine, with flowers blooming all over Crete while the grain is cut down and herds are culled in preparation for the hot, dry summer. At this time we contemplate the relationship between life and death.

We’ve rounded the wheel of the year as the sacred calendars of the sailors, the farmers, and the herders intertwined with each other.

May your year be filled with joy!

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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 across several different subjects and genres. My Minoan entry in the Moon Books Pantheons series is now available for pre-order and will be released on 26 August 2025. While that process percolates along, I’m working on an illustrated book of modern Minoan myths. I’m also an avid herb and vegetable gardener and living history demonstrator.