Tag Archives: Sacred Fires

And in the absence of facts…..Modern Festivals to Hekate

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If there is one subject that is guaranteed to get some folks hot under the collar it has to be the trend of celebrating thoroughly modern and historically inaccurate festivals. It is a practise that until just a few years ago I disagreed with quite vehemently. Looking back now it is fair to say that in the early days of writing Temple of Hekate I felt that it was very important that people understood how the ancient Attic calendar really worked and wrote upon it at some length. Although those pages didn’t make the editorial cuts I felt strongly enough about it that at a later date I posted a blog entry so the details were available for all to see. This opinion hasn’t been a passing fad either, but as I stated when I discussed the Deipnon way back in 2009 and is worthy of repeating, I am not a reconstructionist, far from it. But I was and still am very heavily invested in debunking some of the more common “myths” that I had stumbled over myself in my early days of research and practise, so I tended to shy away from the modern, the unverified, and the inaccurate.

I’ve done some perspective changing since that time, quite surprisingly so. I think the first inkling of the change was when we realised that Her Sacred Fires was here to stay. Now hurtling towards its 7th anniversary and showing no signs of slowing down we appear to have created a thoroughly modern festival enjoyed by thousands. And this isn’t the only one. August the 13th is another, a modern date fixed as the result of a mis-understanding of how the Attic calendar worked, but it has grown and swollen and truly become a thing, a world-wide thing. A thing that people can get behind, work together with, create and share and laugh and love. How can this thing be bad?

Furthermore we have literally just celebrated Hekate’s Day on the 16th of November in The Sanctuary of Hekate Enodia. When Mima, my friend and CoH Torchbearer who co-runs the Sanctuary with me suggested we do something to mark the date I nearly fell off my chair. This festival doesn’t even have the dubious honour of being a festival that once existed and got dumped into a modern calendar. This festival has, as far as I am aware, no historical precedence whatsoever. In fact it is the epitome of everything I hate about modern practise, a new thing pretending to be something old. And then it hit me, it’s not the celebration that I hate, in fact I love a good excuse for our Sanctuary to come together and do work. It is the belief that it dates back to some long ago historical practise that fills me with dread.

So we put up some information regarding the provenance of the festival and ahead we went. And all I can say was that the connection between some of the group was quite startling. We were all working remotely but the imagery shared was so similar. So similar that I had to feel that we were getting nothing less than a resounding stamp of approval for our actions and the work and effort we have all been putting in recently. We certainly shall be celebrating this date again, along with Her Sacred Fires and August 13th (which traditionally is the Roman festival Nemoralia and the ill dated Festival of Kourotrophos, Artemis and Hekate – which should actually be celebrated on 16 Metageitnion but let’s not split hairs). At the end of the day the religion of the Greeks and Romans and many others was fluid, it grew and changed and was subject to regional variations. Somethings were adopted, others allowed to pass into memory only, some lost to the ages. If we fail to recognise that then we fall into dogma and fundamentalism. An ethos I decided I did not agree with a long long time ago.

So we shall celebrate these rites, knowing their true nature we shall perform them anyway. We shall lift our heads proudly and say, we created this in honour of the Goddess Hekate, we honour you just as our ancestors did but in times and climes appropriate to us.

En Erebos Phos!

 

 

 

Well Ive gone and done it now haven’t I?

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I know I’ve been quiet over the last few months, basically since the Hekate: Her Sacred Fires rite, but Hekate has been keeping me very busy, just when I think that I might get a break for a while something new comes up. You get the distinct impression sometimes that no matter how much you do the response is going to be like the proverbial school report of; bright girl but could try harder.

There are two reasons why Ive been so quiet, firstly, and I have alluded to it before, a writing project that has been in the works on and off for some time has been coming to fruition, but seeing as it is now in black and white on the Avalonia web-site under their forthcoming titles see here I cannot shy away from it any longer; this peice of work is a magickal obligation made several years ago, and I had rather hoped I had found a loop hole by contributing to Sacred Fires, but no, apparently I am not going to get away with it that easily, so “Liber Hekate” is currently undergoing severe labour pains. The end however is in sight so watch this space for more information.

Secondly, I’ve been in cahoots with the wonderful author and priestess Sorita d’Este, far too many late night discussions have ensued since the launch of Hekate: Her Sacred Fires, most of them revolving around how the ever growing community of priests, priestesses and devotees of Hekate can best be supported and served. Lovely lady that she is, she has spent many hours deliberating and I think has come up with a wonderful solution, needless to say I can only wholeheartedly support this venture in any way I can, especially as I suspect it is partially my fault anyway. It’s in its early infancy and membership applications will not be open for a few weeks yet, but go and have a look at Covenant of Hekate and have a read about it yourself.

Never underestimate the Power of Hekate

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So, the post man arrived yesterday morning and in his bag of goodies was my contirbutor copy of Hekate: Sacred Fires. I ripped open the cardboard packaging like a child on christmas morning and greedily flicked through.

I wanted so desperately to sit down and read right there and then but events an obligations conspired against me, patience was never my strong point, but eventually late afternoon I sat down to read.

I finally finished it some 24hrs later, I am wrung out both intellectually and emotionally, my full review can be found here.

I just want to use this post not only to point out the review, which I hope will be of use to those that read this blog, but to thank my long suffering family; my husband in particular, who has reminded me to eat, and plied me with rich red wine and chocolate in the intervening period between opening and closing this book, suffice to say, her presence is pretty damn strong, and the secret little promise to myself to take a break for a while from all things Hekate, might, just might, have to go on hold, there is still so much more to learn, do and experience.