A World-Wide Minoan "Great Year" Festival?

[Dr. Jack Dempsey]

Here is one vote for a Minoan-style World Great Year Festival Cycle, based in the actual rhythms of Earth, Sun and Moon, and shared by the planet in the spirit of Minoan Crete. As shown in "CALENDAR HOUSE," the present Minoan Great Year ended and began again at New Moon and Winter Solstice 2009, and its countersigns arrived at Full Moon and Summer Solstice 2010. What could the world gain from adding more "Minoan tradition" to The Olympics?

How can we create world-class events that celebrate and teach a central Minoan value---that competition should be PART OF human cooperation across and despite our inevitable differences?

[Dr. Jack Dempsey]

« Reply #1 on: December 05, 2011, 03:41:21 AM »

I feel the Minoan culture as part of my being, and for me all starts in the privacy of the home. We are close to a new winter solstice, and although not the entrance to the Great Year, is one more link in the cycle. The question is how to recreate as far as possible a new year Minoan festival adapted to our time? What information we have available that can guide us?

I apologize for my English, is not my language and I use the google translator to understand the messages and respond to them. I hope this is not a problem.

Melissae

« Reply #2 on: December 15, 2011, 05:58:50 AM »

Hello and Welcome, Melissae! You start with a striking statement---that you feel Minoan culture as "part of your being." Well why not? Minoan cultural traits are part of our inheritance, and the characteristics by which they prospered for so long must be things we also have within us---such as a deep concern and respect for nature and its cycles, belief in the equality and interdependence of female and male, appreciation of all we've received from ancestors, and an irrepressible drive to hold feasts and games that foster and refresh our sense of shared community.

Winter Solstice is the moment when the Sun's yearly journey culminates---the decline of its powers reaches end-point and it's reborn into a new journey toward growth and Summer Solstice's peak. According at least to the evidences in "Calendar House," this is the time and realm of the "threshold twins," Snake (the earthly ancestral father and keeper/teacher of secrets of rebirth), and Griffin (the celestial female who guides creatures through the end of life and returns them to a new one). So I think it's appropriate to make and share "offerings" to such powers of the universe---to ask for their guidance and thus to find their wisdom in ourselves, to have the wisdom to be grateful; and meaning most of all, to draw inward on ourselves, align our spiritual life with this dark phase of the Sun's journey, reflect on what our past year has accomplished (or not), and see where change and rebirth are most called for in our lives.

Then there is also this particular year's relation between Winter Solstice Sun and the Moon, which is in a Waning Crescent or Dark phase on Winter Solstice day. Sun and Moon are eternally bound together in the Great Year's cyclical dance, even when their phases are not exactly alike---which is not a bad way to think of one's central relationships (we are very different and yet always linked and interdependent)....

I think Minoan festivals also had a great deal to do with staying mindful of and remembering/celebrating our ancestors---and I have a feeling that Winter Solstice meant the visiting of their gravesites, recitations of their names and tellings of their stories, giving thanks for all that they bestowed on us, and renewing our bonds with them in empowering new ways.

And finally there should probably be a feast of family and friends, spiral-dances in honor of the Lunar/Solar dance, and games in which enjoyable competitions promote both the striving for excellence and the refreshed realization that "everybody wins" when we affirm each other, challenge each other, and yet hold on centrally to (again) our inevitable interdependence....

These are all things that I think families/households as well as larger communities can share....What do you think? Any further ideas? Thanks for your post, and we look forward to more from you!

Jack Dempsey