Between Heaven and Earth: The Dance of the Cretan Priestess

Between Heaven and Earth: The Dance of the Cretan Priestess

In the cradle of antiquity where the warm Mediterranean laps against the shores of time, there lies a sepulchral mystery—a sanctuary sculpted from the very bones of history at Pigadhes in North Cyprus. The ruins whisper through the ages, from 1600 B.C., but let the soul of this tale take flight around 1300 B.C., a time of tumult as ferocious as the churning seas: the age of the People of the Sea.

These vagabond conquerors, known to the Egyptians as the Peleset, to the holy scriptures as Philistines, carved a swath of despair through North Africa, Crete, Asia Minor, and the Levant. Like a relentless storm, they raged, leaving only Egypt unyielding to their tempestuous might.

Within these very walls where I stand—where once the sacred beat of life thrummed—Cretan refugees, among whom I count myself, sought haven bearing the Horns of Consecration, an emblem of our forsaken motherland, a symbol of our strife and survival.

In our modern day—a spectator to the vestiges of bygone sanctity—you might tread the same hallowed ground, amongst the once living altars and wells. The altar, its stones grey and weary with age, still looms twelve feet tall, its spires reaching up like hands grasping for salvation, crowned with those same Horns, now hauntingly silent.

Permit me to serve as the medium for one such voice, a Cretan priestess, a vestige of a forgotten epoch, as she swathes herself in the sacred garments of festival and remembrance.

We are but shadows in these strange lands, far adrift from the familiar embrace of our Cretan groves. Our arrival here was not heralded by fanfare or joy, but by the desperate tears of refugees. Clad in nothing more than vestments veiled with loss, we fled from tyrants that now desecrate the hallowed palaces of Knossos. Our chorus of escape was a lamentation, binding us in the shared fear that the dark tide of the People of the Sea may yet surge upon our newfound shores of Cyprus, this makeshift sanctuary.

Yet, amidst this ceaseless uncertainty, life insists upon itself—the scarlet poppies flaunt their defiant blooms against fields that glory in the sun's caress. Gifted, or perhaps resigned to us, this plot of land, revered long before our haunted memories began, has become the cradle for our exile's hopes. A communion of stones and earth now our shrine, dormitory, school, and, most sacred of all, a dancing ground.

Here does our past breathe life unto this consecrated earth, encircled by a modest barricade of stones—where watchers may look upon our fervent prayer, but only the trued heart may cross its threshold. A well offers its cool reprieve to parched lips, a bench to rest the wearied bones of the faithful. Scattered amongst these, tokens of reposing souls whisper their final homage to the Great Goddess we serve.

The heart of our haven lies yonder, where surges a tower—a pillar of strength, housing the mighty horns that once crowned Cretan altars.

The touch of our customs seems to rile the denizens of Cyprus. Their mistrustful glances speak volumes of their trepidation; they imagine us atop their hillocks, signaling to some distant marauder to come pillage their tranquility. They know not of our abhorrence for gilded palaces and the vainglory of priests. We yearn not for the trappings of the old world, but instead seek to break bread with simplicity and to share our gifts of healing, of ancient script, and the divinity of the Great Goddess.

The night of the festival beckons us unto the dance—a ritual slower than the passage of stars, a gyre centering upon the altar. We partake of the wine, the earth's sanguine gift, surrendering ourselves to the rhythm, each movement a sermon sung in silence but felt throughout the cosmos.

Our adornments, rich with the glitter of the earth's toil, mandate the bearing of dignity—we rise our gaze not to the path beneath but to the welkin above. The drum's tempo evolves, agonizingly deliberate, tantalizing our spirit with the promise of ecstasy.

As the day meanders into twilight, drink in hand, we wade through the alternating currents of light and shadow, our practiced feet immune to the peril of misstep.

And in the crescendo of drums and pipes, we take flight—temporal vessels to the numinous embrace of the Goddess who appears amidst us, a beacon in the maelstrom of our fervor, the still heart of all creation.

The beat relents. We are cast from celestial heights, back to the dust from whence we sprang. Did we soar? Did the visage of divinity truly grace our eyes?

In the aftermath of transcendence, lying prostrate upon the earth, the sweat upon our brows is the testament to our dance between heaven and earth—a dance of eternal seeking, of loss, of finding. And with every repetition of this ancient rite, we seek solace, we seek redemption, and we find fragments of ourselves among the remnants of a world that both was and will ever be.