Excerpt from Ode to Minoa

Initiation

It was morning when Metha woke me up for my third and final ritual. I had been fasting for two days. She brought me a cup of mint tea. I felt its warm liquid glide through my empty body. She led me to the ritual bath. Pouring water over my head, out of a dark shell this time, she chanted:

Great Goddess guide her

Through the darkness

Toward the light
Into wisdom

A black robe was placed upon me, a black blindfold was tied around my head. I could see nothing from under this blindfold, not even shades of light and dark. Metha walked me out of the temple and again out of the Center walls. We walked for a short distance and then she stopped and turned me around several times, disorienting me. She led me on farther. We had not traveled far.

“Stand before the Goddess as She created you,” Metha said to me, for a third and final time. She removed all my clothing except for the blindfold. Before removing that she led me farther. I could feel that I had entered a doorway. There was stone beneath my feet. She removed my blindfold but it did no good because the place where I was had no light. I could not even see Metha, though I knew that she was standing right in front of me. Her hands found mine and held them. “In order to become, one must pass through the darkness alone. Take this for your journey,” she said, handing me a small cloth bag. “In it you will find all the things that you need.” I took the bag to me.

“Now, be on your way,” she instructed.

I stood in an absolute daze. “My way?” I said. “What could possibly be my way?”

“Shhh—absolutely no talking,” she whispered, and then she was gone.

I tried to follow after her, but bumped into a wall hard with the end of my nose. There was nowhere to go but the other way. I turned and began to walk. Stretching my arms out, I could feel walls on either side of me as though I were in a narrow hallway. The hallway would suddenly end and I would have to feel around for what seemed like far more than four directions before I had found another path that led somewhere. I would follow that for a while until I bumped into another wall. This continued for a long time, me walking and twirling and feeling and turning. I was very tired. I sat down and took a few deep breaths, releasing deeply. The cool stone against my naked body chilled me. I pulled my knees up to my chest and fell asleep. I don’t know how long I was asleep. I awoke suddenly from a dream.

There was a white dove soaring over the open plains leading from the Center toward Moon Mountain and Her sacred caves. As she soared and glided I could hear the wind against her sailing wings. It was very peaceful. It was as though I was flying with her. She was pure gentleness.

I sat for a while trying to orient myself inside the darkness. I began to feel around in the cloth bag that Metha had given me. I put my hand upon something that felt like a small loaf of bread. I confirmed this by holding it up to my nose and smelling it. That was when my fingers felt a marking, a sort of design imprinted upon it. I moved my fingers upon it to try and read it. They traced a circle within a circle within another circle. A labyrinth. I stood up swiftly, not being able to contain the fierceness of my heartbeat in a seated position. The realization that I was inside the sacred labyrinth of the Center that I had heard so many tell of sent shock waves through me. Panic overwhelmed me at the thought of being trapped inside it for days, turning around inside the same hallway over and over thinking I was getting somewhere. I began to walk nervously this way and that, bumping my head into one wall, turning and bumping into another, and then another. I reached out in front of me and could only feel wall around me. I was boxed into the smallest possible square, surrounded by cold, hard stone. I spun and spun and in my spinning I dropped my bag and heard the contents of it spilling and rolling away. I jumped quickly to the ground to try to recover them, feeling around upon the stone floor on my hands and knees. I could not breathe. Never in my life had I known such darkness. I foolishly kept my eyes open trying desperately to see. Defeated, I lay down upon the floor. That was when I heard it: a voice or a sound, seeming to come up from below the stone, from the earth itself. I turned my head so that my ear was upon the stone, to better hear the sound that was muffled as it made its way through the stone.

“All wisdom lies in darkness,” it said. “In the closing of eyes one is able to see.”

I closed my eyes. I breathed the dolphin breath. I reached forward and found the opening. The only way out of this corner I was stuck in was to crawl out on my hands and knees. I could feel the stone above me brushing against the top of my back. I crawled along, finding first my empty bag, then the loaf of bread, which I tucked into the bag, deciding to save because I may need it more desperately later. Next, on the floor was a tiny goatskin full of perfectly cold, clear water of which I took one sip and saved the rest for later: a small labrys which felt to be carved out of ivory; and a tiny vial of olive oil, for what I knew not. These I returned to my bag. I put the bag around my neck and slung it over my back.

I crawled along the floor, feeling my knees and the palms of my hands begin to bleed. I was finding my way much more easily on the ground. I crawled and crawled. In some places the ceiling got so low above me that I had to lie down flat and slither along like a snake. In these places I could feel that the surface beneath by breasts, belly and legs was a polished, smooth, sensuous marbled stone. Lying there like that, slithering along, I was more completely in touch with my senses than I ever had been before. I could feel everything that came into contact with my body, even a slight change in the temperature around me. I could smell the bread in my bag and the scent of my body as they met the air. I could hear the minutest piece of dust falling off the ceiling above me. When I reached an opening, I let myself stand up and stretch. I ate my bread and drank my water. I spread the olive oil upon my sore knees and palms. I sat down, resting my head against the stone before moving on again. Then I heard the chirping of what seemed to be an enormous number of birds; a frenzied series of chirping, whistling, clicking and fluttering of wings. I had never heard such a thing. As I crawled toward the noise they turned into words and phrases, all at the same time, all speaking to me at once. I shook my head to hear better. I was able to distinguish some of the phrases being repeated:

Listen to me

Look to the light and you shall see

In the darkness

Lean on me

Look with your listening
With your listening hear

I followed the voices until they turned into screams when, as though from nowhere, a white more bright than a light, a light more bright than white came shining down upon me like rain. Above me was a wide opening through which light came pouring in. Around me spread a wide circle, a shrine, at one end of which stood an altar. The altar was full of small, carved labryses like the one Metha had given me inside my cloth bag. They stood tall and proud—a testament to the many who had passed here before me. I took mine out of my bag. Indeed it was ivory as I had thought it was. I placed it in one of the holes on the top of the table. I raised my arms above me triumphantly. I had arrived.

See the other two excerpts:

Introduction Birth