Myth and Magic

History may be accurate. But archaeology is precise. – Doug Scott

In the early part of the 1970s, I went to Greece with a group of friends. I’m the woman in the black jacket, holding my trusty camera, ready to see the wonders of ancient Greece up close. With the man standing next to me also in black, I ventured to see the Palace of Knossos on the island of Crete. We were a group of nine friends but only my friend Richie shared my curiosity about Greek mythology and archeological sites. So, while our friends stayed in Heraklion and went to the bars and beaches, we traveled by taxi inland to the gates of the Palace at Knossos. Once there we faced a locked gate and a sign that said the site was closed that day. I was beyond disappointed. The great Greek and Roman myths had been a subject of study in college but my love of mythology went back to my childhood. The budding writer in me saw the power of allegory and metaphor, long before I would write myself.

An elderly man came up to the gate to speak with us. He had to be in his eighties with a beautiful face weathered by the sun and a great crop of white hair on his head. Best of all, he spoke English as our Greek was limited to Kalimera (Good Morning) and Parakalo (Thank you and Please). I told him how disappointed I was not to be able to see the ruins as we were only on Crete until the evening. That’s when the magic of personal connection took hold and he opened the gates to give us a personal tour of the site. Even more magical was the fact that he was part of the dig that Sir Arthur Evans undertook that spanned three decades from 1900 to 1931. Our guide, and new friend, had participated on the digs in the mid-1910s and throughout the 1920s which were the ones where many of the famous frescoes were uncovered and restored, where the system of underground plumbing was unearthed, where what Evans called The Customs House - an edifice with huge pilloried columns was brought to light.

Most fascinating, according to our guide, was the imagery of bulls and bull-riding that decorated the walls, the pottery and even a now-famous museum piece, a drinking cup. As we walked around we would stop and our guide would tell us the story of what it was like the day a particular discovery was made and the grueling and backbreaking work to carefully move away almost 4,000 years of soil and sediment to find what was beneath. My day at Knossos remains one of the most amazing experiences of my life. As I stood and watched water flow through 4,000 year-old pipes and learned that the olive oil preserved 4,000 years ago revealed a dietary staple and key ingredient for daily life that carried echoes of a vanished civilization to the Mediterranean cultures of today, I was enraptured.

And of course we had to talk about the Minotaur and the Labyrinth - the mythology that rose from the discoveries at Knossos and captivated a school girl of thirteen. At that age I read Mary Renault’s book, The King Must Die, and my love-affair with all things Minoan began. To have the opportunity to stand at the archeological dig with someone who had been there for the discoveries exceeded any dream I might have had of what I would learn there. Our guide would wink when talking about the legend of the minotaur and say, “But who is to say what is real and what is myth?” Who indeed. When we parted to return to Heraklion and our group, I hugged our guide, deeply grateful for the magic of his presence and the time he gave us to share his story. My tears as I left caught me by surprise. Ahead were visits to Delphi, Poseidon’s Temple, the Parthenon, and many more wonders of the ancient world. But I had already been to the crown jewel of what my Greek journey would yield - a moment of connection across age and time that was a soul meeting of love and grace.

I believe it was my day at Knossos that was the catalyst for a different kind of archeology that began to fascinate me as I moved into my late twenties, and both my parents had died. The archeology of the soul began to call to me, moving me through discoveries in therapy and in dreams, of what was underneath the life I was living. The facade crumbled more than once and each time I unearthed long-buried truths, emotional tsunamis, and new perspectives. A deepening wisdom emerged. A new knowingness. And, I continue to ask, “What is real and what is myth?”

With love,

Cathleen