It barely seems more than a month or two ago that I travelled through an ever darkening sky from my home in Cheshire to the Brecon Beacons. Unlike other magickal journey’s I have undertaken in the past, this inclement weather bore no omen for me other than a sense of familiarity, more than a few wild and drunken weekends of my misspent youth were passed in the Black Mountains and their temperamental weather systems; so in many ways the journey felt a little like “coming home”.

The journey this time was for a different purpose; I was to spend the weekend with the enchanting Sorita d’Este and her lovely husband David Rankine, with the intention of participating in the inaugural performance of The Rite of Her Sacred Fires, a rite which was initially concieved as a celebration of the release of a unique collection of essays written by Hekate devotees from across the world.

We already knew in our hearts the potential enormity of what we were doing, after all when Hekate has a hand in something it far from inconsequential and she’s been nadgering a lot of folks for a lot of years, myself included. But quite how large, this rite would become had yet to be revealed; thousands of people from across the world working together in harmony for a common purpose, to show devotion to the Goddess Hekate!

Within hours of the final performances of the rites which had been rippling across the globe during the 24 hour time span given, people were asking if it could be repeated again the following year, a new festival for Hekate. It certainly seemed like a good idea, but that was a long time away, a whole 12 months, I had much work to do in the intervening time; even just a fortnight ago it still seemed like an age away, even when fellow Devotee’s & Torchbearers of The Covenant of Hekate started talking about their plans, and how to publicise the event this year it still hadn’t quite sunk in how quickly the time had passed.

On that stormy night we had decorated the altar with Cherry blossom, and it was only this weekend whilst collecting blossom for my newly constructed outdoor shrine that I stopped dead, flowers in hand, the blossoms were out again, it was nearly time, on the 16th / 17th of May 2011 we will again join together across the world to celebrate her mysteries and dance in the light of her sacred flames.