Hekate, and Aiming Above Morality

Tonight is the Dark of the Moon. It is Hekate's time.

I work with Hekate tonight. She has called me to that. Her call is unmistakable to me, like the time at Winter Solstice 2011 when I stood outside at the crossroads, the liminal space where all is possible and ghosts dwell. Here in Salem, there was an odd winter thunderstorm, and the thunder clapped and boomed, and lightning flashed. Hekate blew the wind through my damp hair, lovingly hissing that yes, change is coming, yes it is. Use your power. Do not pull punches now. Curse, elbow, cut, hex, do what you have to. I'm counting on you to find your way.

The Sun stood still.

And then the Son was born during the night, amid the thunder and wind and rain. And I, one person among billions in the world, felt the awesome power of this difficult birth. Hecate, goddess overseeing childbirth, merged with the Black Madonna for me. The Dark Goddess as One, they were, we were, the Night giving birth to the Divine Child.

We are all the Dark. We are all the Divine Child. We are always both, and contain both within.

The Dark Moon is tonight.Hekate's time.

 The dark moon is a perfect time for divination. And so I pulled a card from the Dion Fortune deck. It was the Ace of Wands, "ROOT OF THE POWERS OF FIRE". The caduceus is shining, with the Sun sitting on top. The card is inspiration and creativity, of living spontaneously and owning power. It is a symbol of psychopomp Mercury, who, like Hekate, is a liminal divinity.

I think of trickster Maude's statement in the 70's cult movie Harold and Maude, " Vice, Virtue. It's best not to be too moral. You cheat yourself out of too much life. Aim above morality. If you apply that to life, then you're bound to live life fully.".

I will go and be with this Goddess tonight. I like Her darkness, and Her liminality. I shall accept change, I own my power, and I aim above morality, so I may live more fully.

I leave you with this video by Hekate devotee Jade Sol Luna, called "Witch Moon". I appear in it as Hekate several times, dancing.




Hail Hekate!

“F” is for Forest Witch

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

John Muir

I am a Shamanic Witch, and my love is the Forest. 

The Forest is symbolic of the unconscious and its mysteries. It is an entryway into the Lower world, the world of shadow and transformation. In fairytales, the heroic Princess often has to travel the forest to transform herself. She meets here the Baba Yaga, the challenging Hag, the Evil Queen, the Dark Goddess, The Black Madonna, Our Lady of the Dark Forest, Our Lady of the Great Place Below…

As I continue to explore in life, I am the naïve Princess, still. And, as an initiate of the Mysteries of the Descent, I am the dark challenging Witch as well. Both sides of me roam the Wood, in the daytime and the Night, under the New Moon, the full, and the Dark. 

 I am Raven totem; the photos posted here by Pamela Joye show a ritual done in the Salem Woods under the influence of the Crow Moon. I wear a skirt by Wings of Sin depicting the Full Moon with the Black Corvid Goddess. I am The Morrigan.

 The Moon that day was in Virgo. Virgo is Virgin, “whole unto the self”. I am the Black Madonna, Our Lady of the Black Woods. She is "black, but comely", as in the Song of Songs. The unknown one. 

Spirit of Wind blesses and clears

Calling the Quarters

Bowing to the Black Madonna

I chose this time to do Magick that protects and heals, that clears away that which no longer serves, that purifies. To this end, the Great Wind Spirits, element of air, blew with mighty force, clearing away all that was destructive to this Wood. 

 The Witch of the East pulled off my hair ornaments and blew them away, challenging my vanity. 

I walk the Forest; I hold my hands in prayer for the dispossessed, the ones who can’t speak for themselves. The Coyotes who live in this Woods, raising families and hunting for food. They are vilified, but they are here because they belong; they take the place of the Wolf who once lived here. It is the absence of the Wolf that has caused the debilitating Lyme’s disease; the Wood has its lessons, if we but listen. It is the Black Madonna that holds the Coyote and Wolf close in Her arms, protecting, respecting, cherishing.

I speak with the Spirits of the Invisisbles, the Ancestors who lived in this Forest as Natives to this land. I can only guess at and envision your powerful magic and medicine.

Also to the Fae, who live and play in this Wood.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
~William Butler Yeats, "The Stolen Child"

The Dark Lady is also Mother to the Swans and Geese at the Forest Estuary. She protects and provides for them. And the singing birds in the trees. And the trees themselves; it is said that those who understand the trees, understands herself.  Here is where the World Tree lives. All of us ARE the World Tree, and we do best to protect and love the Forest and Her gifts, to love ourselves in our complexity. 

The Forest is a kind of sanctuary, a place to become whole again. Entry in the Online Etymology Dictionary: sanctuary 

mid-14c., "...set apart for holy worship," from Anglo-Fr. sentuarie, from O.Fr. sainctuarie, from L.L. sanctuarium "a sacred place, shrine"... . General (non-ecclesiastical) sense of "place of refuge or protection" is attested from 1560s; as "land set aside for wild plants or animals to breed and live" 

Many Blessings on you, O Great Forest!

E is for Eris

Eris is known in mythology as Goddess of Strife and Discord. She opposes Harmonia (harmony) and stirs things up, making gods and humans alike very...well...upset.

But Eris does not show up for no reason. She is a goddess, after all, and therefore Her functions are sacred. But she is dark, and She could be thought of as the darkest goddess of all.

She causes discord when She is left out, uninvited, or scorned. She is an aspect of the sacred feminine that is mistrusted by patriarchy. Daughter of Nyx (Night), it is Her job to bring out the dark raw sexy taboo bad-assness in any situation. She is likened to the 13th fairy of the Sleeping Beauty story, the Wise-Woman who is pissed because she was not invited to the party to give her blessings. She then instead curses Sleeping Beauty with a coma-death at age 15, when she is to prick her finger (and bleed) and fall asleep. As in the Persephone story, Beauty is pulled into the dark Underworld at the moment of her sexual awakening. The unconscious (night, dark, underworld) is to become conscious through crisis and strife.

Eris also deals with Libran themes of beauty/ugliness, vanity/humility, peace/justice. She appears wherever there in disingenuousness and bullshit. She is often depicted as ugly or course, but She is also associated by some with seductively sexy Dark Goddesses like Lilith. Her personage is demonic, hot, fiery.

Wikipedia has the following passage about Eris’s vengeful role in the Iliad:

“She therefore …tossed into the party the Apple of Discord, a golden apple inscribed  Kallisti – "For the most beautiful one", or "To the Fairest One" – provoking the goddesses to begin quarreling about the appropriate recipient. The hapless Paris, Prince of Troy, was appointed to select the most beautiful by Zeus. Each of the three goddesses immediately attempted to bribe Paris to choose her. Hera offered political power; Athena promised skill in battle; and Aphrodite tempted him with the most beautiful woman in the world: Helen, wife of Menelaus of Sparta. While Greek culture placed a greater emphasis on prowess and power, Paris chose to award the apple to Aphrodite, thereby dooming his city, which was destroyed in the war that ensued.”

Eris can also be a catalyst for women standing up for themselves. Her original name as an astrological body was "Xena", as in the warrior princess played by Lucy Lawless. An active Eris archetype denotes the ability to tell the truth, to stand up and fight for what is just, without needing to please or keep peace. She could be heard to say Libra’s mantra “No Justice, No Peace!” Eris, with all her sexuality and psychic power, will not be ignored. It is sometimes through strife that equilibrium is established.

 I believe that we need to welcome some Eris energy now, considering the current political climate towards women. My friend and fellow astrologer Thomas Canfield, author of Yankee Doodle Discord

A Walk with Eris though US History, has the following prediction for the upcoming Vernal Equinox on Mar 21:

“In the chart for the Vernal Equinox, Eris, the dwarf planet of discord, is going to be exactly conjuct Ceres, the dwarf planet of motherhood and fertility. My interpretation is that this is going to be "Pearl Harbor" day for the war against women. Events may finally galvanize millions of non-political women, awakening them to the fact that they may be relegated to the status of second-class citizens unless they take a stand. March 20 is the day of the Illinois primary, and the rhetoric may be especially harsh since it is Obama's home state. Watch for some heavy Freudian slips.”

Wherever Eris is, it is sure to be exciting.

Aepril wrote this blog today as a participant in the Pagan Blog project, in which participating authors post on Fridays with an agreed upon theme. This Friday's theme is "E". 

Skeleton Woman: Solar Eclipse July 1, 2011

 Solar eclipses are wildcards. I happen to love wildcards (maybe because I have Uranus strong in my chart). One never knows exactly when the power of the solar eclipse is going to strike. It can happen days before during or after the eclipse event. To me this is part of its shadowy beauty.

 The chart for this Solar Eclipse shows a grand cross involving some very serious characters: Saturn, Lord of Time, Pluto, Lord of Death, Uranus, Lord of Change in the Sun and the Moon themselves. This is serious karmic business, almost apocalyptic in nature. Something will be born; something will have to die.

 The Sabian symbol for Friday's solar eclipse at 9° Cancer is: "A Small Naked Girl Bends Over A Pond Trying To Catch A Fish". Cancer rules the emotions; ruled by the Moon, she is a nighttime spirit. Perhaps the small girl is trying to catch a fish by moonlight? What kind of fish is she trying to catch and how deep is the pond?

 One of my favorite books in the world is one by Clarissa Pinkola Estes entitled Women Who Run with the Wolves. In her chapter "When the Heart is a Lonely Hunter", she tells us the story of Skeleton Woman, the girl who was thrown into the sea by her father. Rejected and discarded she rots at the bottom of the pond, becoming a fearsome thing of bone and hair. One day, a Fisherman comes along hoping to catch the biggest fish ever. He instead catches Skeleton Woman, and, seeing her bald head rise above the water as he pulls on his fishing pole, attempts to throw her back and run away as fast as he can. But, having been pulled from the water, Skeleton Woman seems to chase him wherever he goes. She's actually still attached to his fishing line which he still has attached himself. Eventually, the frightened Fisherman has an intuitive flash and heart opening and realizes that maybe the best thing to do would be to sing to Skeleton Woman instead of running away. As he does so her heart begins to beat again and she becomes the beautiful flesh and blood woman of his dreams.

Estes interprets the story to be about the Life/Death/Life nature of love; that though we may be out to catch the biggest fish ever, to find the pond that yields fish after fish forever, in order to find real sustenance and Love one has to sing to Skeleton Woman. In order to have Life, one has to also accept Death. And She is beautiful.

The naked young girl is the Fisherman but she is also the fish. She is a yet to be developed part of our own souls that wishes to retrieve herself. So, who is the naked young girl inside of us? What have we rejected about ourselves and/or what vulnerable part of ourselves do we put aside in order to catch the biggest fish?

Somewhere in our lives a new era is waiting to Dawn. But these are the rules: Experience things as deeply as you can. Recognize what your real needs are and own them. Love yourself madly, ESPECIALLY your "ugly" parts. Dance in the Moonlight. Know that "beautiful" doesn't necessarily mean “pretty” (and vice versa). And be willing to sing gently and lovingly to Skeleton Woman if her bald head emerges from the waves.