Minoan Honey was a project from 2009-11 to make connection with the Minoan civilisation of Bronze Age Crete, and envisage the spiritual and visionary practices of that culture with the aim of bringing the authentic Voice of these ancient, experientially-focussed people since I believe it has some important and profound teachings which are relevant to many of the problems we face today. Judging by both mythological and archaeological evidence, the Minoans were largely a creative, goddess-oriented people whose society was arranged along partnership lines (ie: linking, not ranking) and who appear to have been much more interested in such activities as the flow of trade, the manufacture of fine ceramics, the gaining of religious experience through community-focussed festivals and pilgrimages than engaging in warfare or promulgating moral law.
:: EPIPHANIES ::
Mandalas of Minoan Sacred Experience
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Looking across the whole of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean, the beauty of their society (which in many ways represented a survival of the older and fairer Neolithic social order on an isolated order) seemed to have genuinely charmed everyone who they came into contact with, even the usually xenophobic Egyptians. Their gold-worked jewelry was highliy valued from Syria to Sicily, and such was the attractiveness of their way of life that they may have even been mythologised into the utopia that was Atlantis. Their society came to a sudden, and somewhat mysterious end, but the Greek-speaking Cretan societies (Mycenaean, Dorian) that followed them were generally hierarchically-focussed warrior societies, and so it does seem that the Minoans represented, to paraphrase Terence McKenna, 'the last time that the West was sane'.
Click on an image to view the work and read about each piece.
This project, then, makes use of extensive archaeological research, mythological explorations, and experiential recreations of rituals and dances to re-envisage mandalas of Minoan sacred experience, from the original conception of the labyrinth as a transformative spiral dance to an epiphany of the unraped Europa presiding with watchful eye as the Goddess of Trade and Fertility. Further works outlining episodes of Minoan daily life are also seen, and a number of essays to accompany the artworks are planned, completed or in the process of writing.
:: RING SEALS ::
Expressions of beauty in everyday Cretan life
Click on an image to view the work and read about each piece.
Click here to view a short series called 'Iconotropies'
