Witches. Samhain. The Burning Times. Intuitive wisdom. Magic. Women. Finding our voices. Speaking our truth. Claiming our full potential. Embodying our sacred powers. Embodying our sacred selves. Curious?
With the full moon today and Halloween around the corner, it is time, once again, to remember the witches. It’s a time to honor the dead and all who died during the Burning Times.
This post picks up where Emelie Archer’s left off. It is the next in a provocative act of collaboration and co-creation by five kindred spirits: “Remembering the Witches – Embodying Your Sacred Powers”, a blogging series and Samhain event to take place online on November 13th, the New Moon in Scorpio & Solar Eclipse.
Meeting Hecate – Calling The Goddess Forth From the Shadows
Amy Palko
I’ve met Hecate 3 times, but I have reason to believe she’s been present in my life a whole lot more than that.
The first time was in a dream…
I was in a old ballroom and this tiny woman with coffee coloured skin, black eyes and long dark dreadlocks pulled me up onto the dancefloor. I told her I didn’t know how to dance, and she said that was ok, because she was here to teach me. At first I was terribly awkward, getting the steps wrong and tripping over my feet. But after a while, I found an ease and fluidity to my movement. I was dancing with Hecate.
The second time was in a visualisation.
I had entered into a meditative state before imagining that I was entering an underground tavern through the roots of an ancient tree. I recognised her instantly from the dream as she marched straight up to me, a pair of dance shoes held in her hands. She thrust the shoes into my hands giving me no choice but to take them. I stuttered that she’d already given me dance shoes when we met before. And she snarled, “Yes! But you’re not bloody using them, are you!”
The goddesses, I find, while deeply compassionate and loving, are definitely not all sweetness and light. As my granddad would say, they call a spade a bloody shovel.
The third time was last December when I wanted to write her story.
I had set myself a challenge of writing a goddess story every month in 2011, and in each case, January through to November, the goddess in question had stepped forward willingly. But not Hecate. Every time I sat to write, I drew a blank. I could feel her in the shadows – I knew she was there – and yet, she refused to step forward and make herself known.
I was beginning to consider that she may not step forward at all. That maybe I would need to focus on a different goddess. One a little more forthcoming. Kali, perhaps. I didn’t think she’d be particularly backward in coming forward. And then, in a voice barely above a whisper, I heard Hecate say, “Try a poem.”
Well, I would struggle to tell you just how much this triggered my fear response. My inner critic was having a field day. “A poem!? I can’t write a poem!” I wailed. “Hecate, you are mistaking me for a poet. I’m not a poet – I’m a storyteller.” But still she wouldn’t speak other than to suggest that I try writing her story as a poem.
Hecate, like all goddesses, is used to getting her own way. And in this case, it was no different.
The moment I gave in and wrote the first line of the poem which was to become Hecate’s story, I was seized by the muse. The goddess’ energy rushed through my fingertips, and the whole poem spilled from my keyboard, complete and without need for editing, in the space of just 20 minutes.
It is this story which I will be reading to you during our call on the 13th of November.
Hecate is the goddess who encourages us to connect to our intuition and to share our gifts. She’s a midwife goddess who helps us to birth ourselves into the next stage of our development, and she is the sacred witness. Rarely interfering, but always present.
I have met with Hecate directly three times, but she is a constant companion residing in the shadows. She witnesses every moment of my life, delivering me back to myself when I get lost and initiating me into the ways of womanhood at every stage.
And I think you’ll find once you hear her story, that she’s been with you all along too….
Comment below and tell your own story of where Hecate has shown up in your life in Her secret wondrous ways!