Anybody who has done even the smallest amount of research regarding the goddess Hekate will have heard about the Deipna Hekate or Hekates Suppers. Too often however the date for these is cited as being the 30th of the month.

The problem is that the ancient greeks did not have the same calendar as we did, in fact they didn’t have the same calendar as each other, which makes working out dates and times more than a little awkward. For example, the Attic calendar (which is the most complete version we have) started on the first day of the new moon after the summer solstice, the Boetian year didn’t start until the new moon after the winter solstice 6 months later.

The sighting of the new moon was of course subjective as well, so different areas at any point in time might be out by one or two days. So this leads to the question, if we would like to offer a Deipna Hekate, when would be the best time to do it?

Well, whilst I am a big advocate of research, I am not a reconstructionist, so in the first instance I would say leave out this offering on the night of the dark moon where you live. If you want to be a little more precise than just taking a look up into the sky at moonrise, then there are a number of excellent calculators online which will be a tad more specific,this is one I have used and you can even added to your FaceBook profile if you have an account. iPhone even has “an App for that”, or so my husband tells me.

And finally I would like to share is this excellent resource, which is being created and developed by a very dedicated group of Hellenic reconstructionists, Ive actually bookmarked it on my browser toolbar, so useful is it as a ready reckoner. You can find it here. And with that I shall wish you a very good last day of Puanepsion or first day of Maimakterion, depending of course where you live 😀