





minoan woman dancing


 prince of the lilies



Could Asasara be the name of the Snake Goddess?

snake goddess blue background




Mount Ida from Phaistos



Labrys. Double wings, a symbol of the bird Goddess.










Carol P. Christ  is is dreaming of the fall Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete which she will lead through Ariadne Institute.  It is not too late to join the fall pilgrimage, nor too early to sign up for spring 2014.  Carol can be heard on a WATER TeleconferenceHer books include and Rebirth of the Goddess and the widely-used anthologies Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions.


Categories: Archaeology, Art, Earth-based spirituality, General, Goddess, Herstory, Matriarchy, Pilgrimage


14 replies

  1. Yes! Thank you for this wonderful glossary. From the first time I explored the archeological museum in Heraklion, nothing that I had learned about so called Minoan Crete made sense. Maria Gimbutas and Riane Eisler helped me understand the proper context to view them in, but creating a glossary and encouraging people to change the way we discuss this culture is long overdo. The Ariadnian sacred centers with their amazing architecture, wonderfully creative frescoes and intriguing artifacts shall continue to inspire us all as we deepen our understanding of how they were different from patriarchal cultures and what a perfect model they are for what ails us today.


  2. Brava! Yes, we do see history through the words we use or are taught to use. Your definitions and redefinitions are useful. I hope they find wide and scholarly usage……..though, if what keeps happening and happening in our patriarchal academe is any example, it’ll be a struggle to break out of the old walls of kingly language. Is the information in this blog going to be in a book?


  3. Definitions and descriptions are the key to keeping womens’ minds powerful and alive. I’d say that the idea of a matriarchal society exists within lesbian subcultures and contexts, where we do rule our own worlds, where men don’t exist. We may not own countries as lesbians, but we do own islands. I don’t use patriarchal measuring sticks to determine if my life is matriarchal or not, it is! And I dream of a large part of the world, where all women can live without the dominators at all. Those women who want to negotiate with the rapists, dominators and oppressors can do so, but I look to that beautiful woman who lept over bulls, and that is real power to me!

    Love this article, and its inventive creative power.


  4. When I did my own research, and took off the mansplaining lens that male museum controllers use, a whole new world opened. The lesbians, amazons and powerful women were everywhere in the frescos and ancient walls. The statues came alive, because men erase women from HIS-tory, and we have to find the truth. Malestream life tries everything in its power to destroy lesbian herstory, and our great achievements, and in learning to decode the anti-patriarchal work of women who don’t submit to men ever, well, it is the hidden power. It is the ancient lesbian communities, the marriage resisters, the women who never ever had sex with men, and who thrived and created–this I celebrate, the rest is collaboration with the dominators.


    • I’m not lesbian, and I admit that I live in daily compromise (and dialogue) in a world dominated by men, many of whom I love. That is the way I was born into and the way I choose. But I am very grateful that there are women like you who stand so fiercely in a world outside male-defined culture. My experiences with lesbian feminists in the goddess movement have opened my eyes and my world. I celebrate you and thank you. I just ask that you respect my choice as much as I respect yours.


  5. Love this new glossary! I’ve always wondered if the sacred horns of the milk-giving cow were metaphorically linked by the Ariadnians with the horns of the sickle or crescent moon, and the lovely wash of the Milky Way across the sky. I ask because periodically the crescent moon appears with the “horns” pointing up, like this beautiful, clear photo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2012/03/25/Health-Environment-Science/Images/Planetary_Lineup_0fe62-2344.jpg


  6. We hardly know the power of words, especially when they are gendered, until we hear something new and different, opposite gendered or gender neutral. We need to pay attention to these new words and own them for ourselves because they empower us with a strength to give us a new understanding of who we are, historically as women and help put us on equal standing with all others. We must insert these words into our vocabularies and invoke them whenever we have the chance, like a new mantra of I AM WOMAN! Thanks, Carol


  7. Asphodel Long pointed out that the root ‘archy” is usually interpreted to mean ‘rule’ but has an older meaning of ‘primacy’, ‘coming first’. As in the Greek versions of the bible, where ‘en arche’ means ‘in the beginning”. So matriarchy could (and should) mean regarding mothers as primary, rather than rule by mothers.

    She also said once that the Matriarchy Study Group in the United Kingdom were quite clear that matriarchy was not just ‘patriarchy with an m’, but that it was difficult to get this point across, and so she had stopped using the term. This was twenty or thirty years ago, and I think understandings have moved on since then.

    And Keith Motherson used ‘fratriarchy’ rather than ‘patriarchy’ as a way of pointing out that male bonding among the bosses is an important factor that is not obvious when we refer to ‘patriarchy’. I think that is a useful innovation, though probably not so useful as to replace the more common word.


  8. I don’t remember ever using the word in the past, Gimbutas avoided it. But Goettner-Abendroth gave me courage to use it. I think of arche as first principle, based on how it is used in modern Greek.


  9. Thank you, Carol, for another enlightening article.



  1. WAR, WAR, WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING FOR? by Carol P. Christ | Feminism and Religion
  2. Mysteria Misc. Maxima: September 27th, 2013 | Invocatio
  3. Mysteria Misc. Maxima: September 27th, 2013 | Blau Stern Schwarz Schlonge

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