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The Priestess & The Ferret

“They turned her into a deceitful weasel (or polecat), making her live in crannies and gave her a grotesque way of mating. She is mounted through the ears and gives birth by bringing forth her young through the throat. Hekate felt sorry for this transformation of her appearance and appointed her a sacred servant of herself.” ~Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses 29 (accessed online www.theoi.com)

The part Hekate plays in the transformation of a person is often profound, and is a reoccurring theme in ancient literature and the myths surrounding Hekate, some more pleasant than others. The except above, is part of a retelling of the birth of Herakles; the son of Zeus and a mortal woman named Alkmene, Hera in her usual jealous rage for her husbands philandering had persuaded both the Moirai and Eileithyia, (a Cretan Goddess who was adopted into the Greek Pantheon, and later became syncretised with Artemis and possibly even Hekate) to keep the poor woman in perpetual labour. The friend and former childhood play-mate of the afflicted Alkmene contrived to break the concentration of the Goddesses, thus allowing the birth of Herakles, but for her impudence was turned into a polecat. Hekate however took pity and made her a sacred servant.

Aelian, however, claimed that the Polecat was in fact the Sorceress Gale who had angered Hekate; the inference is that it was her “incontinence and abnormal sexual desires” that were the cause of this transformed state; but I do have to query if this was that case, for Hekate is generally the one who takes on unfortunate creatures transformed by other Gods and when you consider the shenanigins that some of her Priestesses get up to, a little bit of a “womans problem” and some unusual appetites seems to have a ring of untruth about it, especially when the Polecat it seems was a sacred servant to the Goddess; whilst of course we cannot always claim to the know the will of the Gods, why on earth would you “punish” a person by elevating them, through transformation, to a position of favour?

This theme of taking the unwanted, ill-favoured and outcast is even further supported by the story of Hekate and Hekabe, who after the fall of Troy murdered a Thracian King and then commited suicide to avoid an unelegant death, but by Hekate’s will was transformed into a hound who was the goddess’ attendant, again when you consider that history is pretty much told by the victors, and the trojan war is one celebrated in the Greek tradgedies, we see Hekate taking the role of adoptress or mother of the underdog heroine or outcast; those whose side of the story will or can never be told.

Even Hekate herself can be considered a victim of transformation in the manner I have discussed, for according to Hesiod, in his catalog of Women, the Maiden Iphigenia, was sacrificed by her own father to appease the Goddess Artemis, but the Goddess felt sympathy for the maid and transformed her into “Hekate”. What Hesiod meant by this is unclear, obviously the knee jerk reaction is to assume that the girl literally became the Goddess Hekate; but I have harboured a small thought in my mind for a while, and I believe it is possibly supported by Euripides version of events portrayed in his two plays “Iphigenia in Aulis” and “Iphigenia in Tauris”. The former play describes the events around the slighting of Artemis and the girls sacrifice to aid her father, and how at the last minute the girl was whisked away by the Goddess and a deer left in her place, the latter then tells how Orestes, the maidens brother is sent by the God Apollo to Tauris to perform a task (again as recompense for a wrong doing) where upon we discover that the Priestess of Artemis is none other than Iphigenia herself.

What if by becoming a Priestess, the girl had in effect become Hekate; I have in my personal practise worked with the concept of “becoming Hekate”; the Chaldeans named Hekate as the world soul, and Theurgists strived to gain union with this divine essence; what if Iphigenias willing act of sacrifice allowed her to achieve, even momentarily, this union, this state of oneness with the divine?

Many Priests and Priestesses I know who name themselves as one of Hekates own, often place an emphasis on service, both to the Goddess and those around them who would strive to become closer and learn more; and her demands are often very precise, works of art and literature are often cited as being “by her command” and what better way to bring a soul closer to the divine than via the mediums which inspire and elevate the human condition.

Our transformations will obviously never be so physically profound as the anti-heroines of old, but that does not preclude them from being as meaningful, and with each little metamorphosis, perhaps, just perhaps, we will step one pace further towards becoming Hekate.

Seeing through different eyes.

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So I did promise you a post about my recent eye surgery and this morning seems like a good time to write it; I woke early, before it was even daylight and sat on my doorstep drinking a coffee, the moon very low and very golden watching over me. I can see her still even though dawn is now upon me, over my shoulder through my office window.

It was a gorgeous day yesterday, balmy, the blossom is out on my Damson tree in the garden its delicate white petals literally just sprang forth over night and the birds have all gone twitter-pated as my dad used to call it. Spring has definitely sprung. But the spirits of winter cling albeit deperately on for a few more weeks and beautiful clear days are followed by bitterly cold nights and last night was one of those nights, the grass is covered in a freezing glistening coating of very heavy dew, almost frost.

On a morning such as this I would normally have stepped out from my cozy kitchen and instantly steamed up; it would have taken much polishing of glasses to afford me a clear view of the moon above me, removing them would have been pointless for I would not have even been able to make out the step at my feet let alone a solitary satellite orbiting above. But this morning there I sat shivering just a little in my dressing gown and pyjamas staring in wonder. Even now nearly two months after my surgery little things such as this, something many take for granted, delight me.

It not all a bed of roses though, one eye didn’t take the surgery as well as the other and as a result I have some ghosting/double vision in that eye, but combined my binocular vision is 20:20 so my jury is still out as to whether I will take the surgeon up on the offer to have a 2nd surgery to try and correct it. Life after all is not perfect, its all about tolerances. Look at any machine or gadget in your home, it functions, serves it purpose, as a complete unit you could say it is an item of perfection, yet its component parts may be far from perfect, all manfactured to a specification plus or minus a certain degree of tolerance. The natural world operates in the same manner, the seasons, the weather, when the flowers bloom and when the animals breed happen to a timetable but that timetable again has more than a little bit of flexibility in it and it happens in its own sweet time and its own sweet way, but it does happen, it works, a perfect item.

I’ve pondered long and hard as to why so many people purporting to lead magickal or spiritual lives seem so dissatisfied with thier lives, their constant striving for perfection (however they define it) leads to naught. And I think the problem comes down to understanding the tolerances involved, the balance that is required to take these imperfect things we are given and make them a working whole. We are all given a bunch of pegs and a board full of holes, and if peg A is just a little too large to fit in hole A, we shouldn’t sit down and moan that we have no sandpaper to make it fit, first we should try and see if peg A fits in holes B, C, D or E first, we may find that all the pegs fit in a hole somewhere even if it isn’t in the order we imagined and no sandpaper is required.

Somebody asked me about spellwork and Hekate the other day, and seemed quite disgusted when I suggested that Hekate was not generally the Goddess to approach for everyday spells. “Why is she known as the Witches Goddess then?” I was asked. And it is an interesting question. And I think it comes down to perception of what a witch is and what a witch does. And in my opinion a witch does what works! Let me explain; I was for over a decade an Engineer and a large part of that time I worked in Quality Assurance, I could look at a circuit board under a microscope and tell within a thousanth of an inch if the tracks printed on it were too close together, too thin, too thick, too raised or any number of other criteria given by the designers. If you place tracks too close together wierd stuff happens, odd harmonics can be created by the signals running down these little strips of metal affecting the operation of the device, shorts can happen, tracks that heat up can buckle causing catastrophic failure, those boards are rejected, or sometimes sent back for rework; the witch does the same, s/he takes what they are given they inspect it and accept or reject it, and unlike the clear cut function of a circuit board which is either fit for purpose or it isn’t, a witch can take what they are given and find a purpose for it. They have to look at things with different eyes, Witches are in short the Quality Assurance of the natural world.

And Hekate is the Project Manager, you can tell her you need more pegs, (or boards to inspect – pick your metaphor), but she rules the work flow. She knows what needs doing and when, she will present you with something, but it might not be the something you were expecting, or even specifically asking for, but it will be a something you can use. After all what is it Hesiod said?

By Whomever she chooses, she comes and stands in full presence and helps him.

The Faith of the Wise

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I wanted my next post to be about my experiences of sight and sound; having recently undergone LASIK surgery a whole new world was for a time tantalisingly dangled in front and yet hidden from me but persistance showed the way and experiences I had never dreamed of came shining through; but something else happened, or maybe it happened as a result I am not sure which; during the many quiet hours I’ve had away from the computer and reading and for a short while even light many things from my past came swimming to the fore and I laughed at the irony of it as a friend had asked me just a mere few days before if I ever just sat and did nothing, my reply was, well not very satisfactory.

But this time of “altered” sight which was physically neither clear nor perfect showed me in great detail things I had not seen before; some of which is still happily swimming round and bopping me on the nose days and weeks later.

I’m not a newbie to the craft and the world of the Occult, but I wouldn’t call myself a learned master either, I’ve been on this road only slightly over a decade there are many twists and turns left to explore, I travelled for a while alone, but something made me seek out others to learn from them and thier experiences. A determined soul I searched and found, in fact I keep searching and I keep finding; the point is I found what I was looking for and needed then!

I remember somebody telling me I was an “old crafter” and the sooner I got comfortable with that the better but I had to go away and look to find out what that meant, the closest thing I could find to define this concept of “old craft” was the concepts of Gwyddon, Coven of the Scales and The Clan of Tubal Cain; none of which have a huge public presence that is for sure. I picked up the Bob Clay Edgerton Book published by Ignotus Press, and I picked up The Robert Cochrane Letters and The Roebuck in the Thicket by Capall Bann. I’ve picked up many other books along the way too, thousands of pounds worth actually on just about every subject imaginable, to the point we are seriously considering cataloging my books within the household insurance as we are not sure they would be covered under the general contents.

Yet despite all these wonderful tomes, these 3 little books not one of them priced above £12.99 are the most loved, treasured and refered to books in my collection; sorry things they are, backs all broken and torn, pages filled with highlighter pen and post it notes, pages all sellotaped together, and still they endure and call to me, perhaps less now than before, but even now 10yrs later I would say there is less than 6 months goes by without me referring to these books or working from them in some way.

A chance conversation happened this evening a fellow insomniac was bemoaning thier fate and I told them to take up spinning as it was very relaxing and was capable or putting any person into an alpha state within minutes with the right practise, I quipped that as a result of my spinning addiction I was more qualified to sign off FFF&F than many I know that have used it. And that took me aback because for many years I refused to use that as a sign off on my correspondence, to me, it should be used by only those who understood the concept of each and every one of those “F’s”.

And it got me thinking again, as a non pagan friend asked me a month or so back if I was a witch and I said categorically that no I really wasn’t one, well not in the way she was thinking anyway. But there it was shouting at me in the back of my head, The Ritual of the Castle, was I really one of the quick and the dead and maybe sadly or maybe other wise the answer was no I wasn’t. I am other, I am what Cochrane defines as witch. I personally think it is an entirely human condition and far from supernatural, its rather mundane actually when you get to the bare bones of it, but to be a member of her darling crew isn’t so much a doing but a being and I think this is where people who want lables fall down drastically.

Ghosts in the Machine?

The True meaning of Human Sacrifice

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If you haven’t already read my post on Devotion, you might like to read it before continuing on DEVOTION.

I thought I might expand a little bit on the subject today as recently I’ve seen a lot of “want it quick, want it easy, want it now” attitude happening. I’d been advised that putting anything on my blog from my book before it was published was probably a little unwise, but I felt it necessary to make an exception in this case, here is a little of what I write about sacrifice in the ancient world.

in general it appears that even in ancient society there was worth in expensive or difficult to obtain items, a value that perhaps has been forgotten, sacrifice as a ritual device was not and should not necessarily be all about blood offerings and immolation, but about providing the Gods with items worthy of their notice and devotion over and above everyday religious activity. – From the forthcoming book Liber Hekate by Tara Sanchez

Devotion and sacrifice to what ever deity you venerate is not just about lighting candles, burning incense, doing ritual, reading holy books, even going to church or other sacred sanctuary; it is about sacrifice, real human sacrifice; and in our modern world where everything IS bigger, better, faster, more, what is more precious than our time and our effort.

My daily devotion currently consists of sitting at this computer, sometimes upwards of twelve hours a day, I write, I write about Hekate, agonising over the content and the details, hoping that what I provide is worthy of notice. And its not the first time my devotional work has been, to the outsider, apparently entirely mundane and time consuming, I’ve spent whole weekends up to my elbows in clay creating images, hours with superglue and hundreds of glass beads, creating, when I would rather have been out with my friends or family instead. And I’ve smashed those lovingly, hard worked for items, into a million smithereens, burnt them on open fires, gifted them to others, thrown things in running water, launched them into the sea. I think you get the idea, I made a sacrifce, just as I sacrificed my time, I sacrificed the item itself.

Oh I could have bought many of the items I have created from the shops or other artisans. Got them quick, got them easy; but that isn’t the point. I had to put the effort and energy and intent into it, if I hadn’t, then the sacrifice would have meant nothing to me, or her for that matter!