Thirty Days of Hecate

Hecate ~ Universal Goddess Tarot

The daylight is dwindling down as the balance between light and night begins to weigh in favor of the darkness. I have come to experience this time of year as restrictive, emotionally dark and in recent years challenging. The weeks in this dark season lead up to two of the most important days in my life, the day I became a mother immediately followed by the day I lost my mother. From the portal of life to the portal of death in about 24 hrs. Thankfully my mom's passing occurred six years after my son was born so she was able to experience the anticipation and joy of his birth and the excitement of several of his birthdays.

Since her passing though it seems that something majorly impactful comes up either for me individually or for my family around this time of year. As the days shorten I feel myself moving through the weeks tense, anxious and wary. The contraction I feel is palpable as though I'm just trying to lay low and get through to the other side, Solstice. For me the New Year begins on that day, not on January 1st and not on Samhain but on the Winter Solstice when the dwindling light begins to widen, when that luminous portal opens itself up to us again.

Goddess Hecate

This year though I want to embody a different way of being with the darkness, to bring more awareness to it, engagement with it. As such I've signed up for Joanna Powell's Thirty Days of Hecate focus which begins on Oct. 26th. Through Joanna's offerings I'm hoping to open to this fear and anxiety a little within the sacred temenos of Hecate's guidance and wisdom and the womb of darkness itself. My aspiration is modest, to kindle the light of interest within this period of lengthening shadows and to do so actively and creatively. I'm curious to see how different I might feel being manifest and intentional rather than contracted and invisible, to see what fruit that kind of embodiment might yield.

"It’s about connecting more deeply with the rhythms of nature as you enter the fallow, dreaming time, follow the light of Hecate’s torches into the underworld, and honor your Beloved Dead."

I already feel a sense of anticipation and curiosity about this journey. Joanna's course won't take me all the way through to the Solstice but I'm hopeful it will seed roots in such a way that I'll be able to continue to hold that container, the dark womb, the chthonic ground. With Hecate as wisdom-guide and following my intuitive body where it needs to go I'm feeling led by something larger than myself. I have little sense of how it will be or look beyond my showing up as best I can through journaling, tarot and oracle work, drumming, painting, dancing, meditation and ritual. I'm planning some time at our local japanese-inspired women's spa on either end of the journey, a time to cleanse, soak, sweat and purify in the company of other women. I'm aware of a lot of my blog friends who are embarking on or in the midst of similar journeys and there is comfort in knowing that we are, each of us, finding our own way uniquely through Hecate's sacred darkness.

Hecate by Hrana Janto