The Celts	The Minoans
Digital Sketeches © Sage Starwalker. All rights reserved.

Cycle III Activities Select another Matricentric culture and study it in the same way you did the culture in Cycle II. Compare and contrast the characteristics of this culture with the one you studied in Cycle II. Be able to articulate or demonstrate what this comparison means in terms of creating Matricentric Religion.

Defining "matricentric" culture
Comparing/Contrasting Minoan and Celtic Cultures
Creating Matricentric Religion
The "Celts" (cycle III) ~ The "Minoans" (cycle II)

Cycle II Activities Do an in-depth study of a Matricentric Culture and its religion, language, traditions and culture.

The "Minoans"

Cycle I Activities Participate in a regular discussion group or class about Matricentric culture, mythology, or folklore or read three books (or watch nine hours of video presentations or any combination of the above or equivalent activities) which include a combination of both traditional and women's myths

• video
  • 6 hours -- Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, Bill Moyers
    • I have watched this 6-part series of one-hour videos many times since it was released in 1989, and at least twice while I was doing this Cycle I work. Published a year after Campbell's death, these videos landed in fertile soil prepared, to some degree, by 100 years of publication of The National Geographic and its photo and narrative documentation of the cultures and features of our world, frequently be academics -- anthropologers, life scientists, geologists, astronomers, and others.
      There isn't a better introduction to the study of culture, mythology and comparative religions, and to the concept of "world-mythologies-as-living-religions" than these tapes and the research, teaching and writing that informed them. Joseph Campbell was a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College from 1934 to 1972. His academic work escaped the bounds of the academy and, through his writings and particularly this video series, exposed the American public to
      • world mythologies
      • the pervasiveness and proliferation of religious belief and practice
      • comparative religions, the study of religious diversity and religious common ground, especially the concepts, characters and circumstances appearing universally in world mythologies
      • the possibility of "mythology as living religion" (and in some of us, this took....)
        
    • However, Joseph Campbell's work
      • predates the work of Marija Gimbutas (and others) on matricentric and goddess cultures,
      • and likewise predates a feminist philosophy, maturely enough established in the academy, to have taken root in other domains of "formal" thought and study, such as philosophy, literature, history, mythology, botany, biology, medicine, anthropology, geology, sociology, psychology, mythology and folklore
    • therefore overlooking, for the most part, "prehistoric" matrifocal culture
  • "During the last few years of his life, Joseph Campbell spoke frequently of Marija Gimbutas, profoundly regretting that her research on the Neolithic cultures of Europe was not available during the 1960's when he was writing The Masks of God. Otherwise, he would have 'revised everything.' Campbell compared the importance of Marija's work to Champollion's decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics. He was not alone in this appreciation. According to anthropologist Ashley Montagu, 'Marija Gimbutas has given us a veritable Rosetta Stone of the greatest heuristic value for future work in the hermeneutics of archaeology and anthropology.' "
    Source: Marija Gimbutas -- Life and Work
  • 3 hours -- Women and Spirituality Trilogy: Goddess Remembered, The Burning Times, Full Circle, Donna Reads
    • I watched this series at least three times while doing this work.
  • 6 hours -- Rise Up and Call Her Name, Elizabeth Fisher (Unitarian Universalist Curriculum)
    • I watched this several times (and taught from it). It explores earth- and goddess-based spiritual traditions from around the world.
      
• books
  • I read many, among them:
    • The Masks of God, Joseph Campbell
    • The Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology (Chancellor Press)
    • The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, Barbara Walker
    • When God Was a Woman, Merlin Stone
    • Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood, Merlin Stone
    • The Lady of the Beasts, Buffie Johnson.
    • Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, Charlene Spretnak
      
• Additionally, I watched numerous other videos on the Discovery channel, read numerous other books, and attended several relevant presentations.