I saw Her on Keros island.
Lying within the Aegean, Her breasts rising like mountains and hills.
A body of earth.
A Great Mother who seems to be sleeping within time.
I saw Her in the dark passages of Britomartis, as Mother–Womb, a place of descent, guidance and initiation.
And the more I search for Her, the more I feel that She has always been here.
Her names change.
Her forms transform.
And yet, She remains.
She emerges through time, again and again, as the New Moon is born unseen from within the darkness.
Since the most ancient of times, throughout the lands of Greece and far beyond, the Great Mother has been worshipped under a thousand names and in countless forms.
She is the Circle, the primordial symbol of the Womb.
She is the compassionate companion of the dead, the one who knows the mystery of descent and return, the initiation into death and life.
She is the young Maiden dancing joyfully through the meadows as they awaken from winter, her feet barely touching the earth.
And then I hear within me those ancient women of Crete, still dancing around the altar, their tender feet softly touching the grass.
As if that dance were still continuing.
As if it had never ceased.
She is Diktynna of Crete.
Demeter of Eleusis.
The Virgin Maiden.
Athena, the Virgin Mind and luminous Wisdom.
Pan-Gaia, the All-Earth.
The All-Merciful.
Panagia.
The Sacred Mother of Light.
And I feel that an ancient memory still connects us to Her.
To a Greece–Mother, primordial and eternal, changing faces and names through the centuries, yet always remaining here.
Within the earth.
Within our bodies.
Within memory itself.
Reminding us.
Carrying us within Her womb.
Guiding us, again and again,
from Darkness into Light.
Apostolia
