"The ecstasy of being" in Minoan Crete
 

Jack Dempsey's "Shapes of Minoan Desire" points out that, in pre-historic Minoan art, "erotic attention seems to be displaced from the female body onto just about every other facet of life" (Graeber / Wengrow's summary, 438)
 
Dempsey: Minoan scenes depict the "ritually induced release from individuality, and an ecstasy of being that is overtly erotic and spiritual at the same time (ek-stasis, 'standing beyond oneself')--a cosmos that both nurtures and ignores the individual, that vibrates with inseparable sexual energies and spiritual epiphanies"
 
"in Minoan frescoes everything merges"

> from David Graeber and David Wengrow's Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021)

> tagged with #prehistory, #greece, #spirituality, #sexuality, #attention, #eroticism, #art, #ritual

> created May 14, 2026 at 4:23:33 PM


> part of unfinished everything


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unfinished everything is an original work / ongoing project (1997-present) by jeremy p. bushnell

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