No Literal Labyrinth at Knossos

 

Over the course of almost 60 years, I’ve written quite a few poems about labyrinths, first about the mythical Knossos labyrinth in ancient Crete, and later about the real labyrinth my parents built in in the late 1980’s on their property outside Santa Andreas, California. They built the Murray Creek Labyrinth after their visit to Glastonbury Tor, in Somerset, England, inspired by the set of ancient terraces on Glastonbury Tor, which form the pattern of a seven-circuit caerdroia, or turf labyrinth, of a type found in sites all over the world, from paleolithic times on. One of these earlier labyrinth poems can be found at: http://www.murraycreek.net/par50poe.htm

 

I wrote this labyrinth poem after finally visiting the ruins of the real city-palace of Knossos, just south of Heraklion, Crete. There is nothing like actually visiting a place to overturn one’s fantasies about that place.  In it I invert many of the themes of the earlier poems, while exploring the labyrinth as a living archetype of the process of emotional-psychological-spiritual transformation.

 

 

There is no literal labyrinth

at Knossos Palace:

The sun beats down on broken walls;

Arthur Evans’ phantasy reconstructed frescos

Lurk in the shadows of ancient rooms,

While the real stuff sits

In the big museum by the harbor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But the house of the double axe, the labrys,

Is real enough, a sprawling ruin

Of tangled rooms and workshops:

Plenty of maze to get lost in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today, not Mycenaeans

But we barbarian hordes of tourists

Trace the repaired paths,

While the ancient ghosts

Of our imaginings

Process to the central courtyard:

 

Dolphins play in the Queen's chamber

Courtiers strut, each bearing

A single twist of long black curl

In front of their ears;

And bull dancers fly over sharp horns

Like Olympic gymnasts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, deep in the labyrinthine

Caves hidden in the Cretan countryside,

It’s obvious to me

That the snake goddess,

Jacket pushing up

Her bulging, bare breasts,

Is not just a fertility symbol,

But is also sacred to us psychologists:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her upraised arms

And snakes held high

Form the Greek letter psi (Ψ),

Referring to the human mind,

the greatest, most tangled labyrinth of all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No literal labyrinth, then,

But plenty of metaphorical labyrinths:

The many-layered city on a hill,

Many times built, wrecked, and rebuilt;

Four dimensional maze

Of interconnected rooms,

Dancing back and forth through time

On Ariadne’s dance floor.

 

And the seven-circuit Cretan labyrinth

Mirrors our human brains, cortical folds

Of labyrinthine brain tissue,

Defying anyone to find their way through

The miraculous tangle of neuron,

axon, synapse, astrocyte.

 

 

 

Then, too, the labyrinths of our psyches,

As we trace our paths from birth to death,

Full of double-mindedness that cuts both ways.

We are torn on the horns

Of our wavering ambivalence

About the important things in our lives.

 

Here in this labyrinth of our spirits,

There are layers of emotions to be traced,

Patiently and empathically

Following the golden thread,

Dancing the dialectic of head and heart.

 

It is a journey to the centers of our hearts,

Our deepest truths,

Our most essential selves,

Our core pain and its heartfelt needs.

 

And there it sits: sad, lonely minotaur,

Pasiphaë’s abandoned child,

Torn between its two natures,

But waiting for understanding,

Compassion, and love.

 

So: this ancient place

Still lives in us:

We are the labyrinth at Knossos;

We are the sharp-horned sacred bull,

And the dancers somersaulting over its horns.

We are the double-spirited minotaur

Whom we no longer need to fear.

 

We are the open-breasted snake goddess

Arms held high;

We are abandoned Ariadne,

Finally rid of her false lover,

Colonizing Theseus;

We are heart-broken and heart-healed,

Dancing the sevenfold path to freedom.

 

                        -Crete/Athens/Pleasanton, September 2024