The damn full moon.
I am usually pretty stoked with the energy of the waxing moon, but it has never been this intense. Only a few seconds ago I had an illumination as to why it's driving me up the walls.
Perhaps I'm being forced to stay awake all night for a reason. And I think it has to do with Hekate.
When I was doing research for my last blog post about the Dark Night of the Soul, I came upon a hoard of cool, interrelated concepts; John of the Cross' poem and commentary, Jung's idea of "ego death," and the Thelemic concept of the Night of Pan. But the concept that drew me in through a series of links and Google searches was katabasis.
Katabasis is a Greek word that means "descent," or "retreat." It is most commonly used in literary analysis to describe a descent into the Underworld, an archetype that Joseph Campbell extrapolated upon in his analysis of the Hero's Journey. The Journey to the Underworld appears in myths the world over. I'll bullet point a few:
- Ishtar descending to Irkalla to retrieve her husband, Tammuz
- Odysseus' journey to find Tiresias
- Aeneas and the golden branch
- Dante's voyage through the circles of Hell with Virgil
- Orpheus's search for Eurydice
- Persephone's yearly descent to Hades
- Gilgamesh going to Irkalla to find Utnipishtam
- Merlin in the crystal cave
- Gandalf falling with the Balrog in the mines of Moria (hey, it counts!)
- Romeo and Juliet in the Capulet crypt
The instance of katabasis that I am most familiar with is that of Persephone. When I was rereading her story, I was struck by a figure whom I had often pushed to the side or otherwise benignly ignored.
Who is Hekate?
Hekate, who has so many epithets that I don't want to list them, is predominantly referred to as the goddess of the crossroads and the Queen of the Witches. It is she who was the witness to Persephone's abduction by Hades (Helios was there, but he was a dick and didn't do anything about it, he even thought the match was a good idea), she who bears the news to Demeter, and it is she who guides the goddess of springtime to and from the realm of the dead each year. She is often depicted in modern renditions as a crone, but to the Ancient Greeks up until the 20th century she was considered a maiden goddess. Apparently the Church liked to demonize pretty goddesses by making them old (they were idiots to think that was an insult anyway).
Anyway, sleep. Full moon. Hekate.
I have felt for some time that I am at a crossroads in my life. Within the past few months, the word "crossroads" itself has impressed itself in my consciousness like a glaring neon light. I have been using it in conversation to describe what is happening to me. Right now, basically this past year, everything is in flux. My dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer two months ago. My parents are looking to sell my childhood home. I had to drop out of graduate school when I realized that the discipline I chose really didn't suit me and my ambitions. My love life is just depressing, I won't even go there. I have hit so many dead ends trying to find a second job. Bills are piling up and I barely make enough money to buy food and medicine, and I more often than not have to pick between the two. I don't know if I want to be a performer anymore, and I can't stick to a writing project even if I'm being paid.
There are so many paths laid out before me, but I have no idea which one I should tread. And a few paths which I thought were necessary now have been blocked with "DO NOT ENTER" signs. What I need is a light, a torch, a guide through the darkness in which I find myself.
I think I need Hekate.
I have been thinking of her this past week. My therapist even mentioned knowing a guided meditation to Hekate that she thought would be helpful for me, if she can find it (our Google search came up empty).
And weirdest of all, Hekate first came to me three days before her feast day last Saturday, August 13th, which I randomly read about when fiddling around online. I had the opportunity to make her a cake and placed it beneath the old gate that joins my house with my parents' big old Victorian. It was around midnight. I laid the sweet, spicy, rich cake in the dirt as Asteria's stars gazed down upon my odd little ceremony, and I felt the darkness envelop me. It was pretty chill. No big revelation, no voices in the wind, just swatting away moths on a cool-ish summer night as my bare feet got all messy on the dusty brick pathway.
Hekate keeps inviting me to chat with her, but I keep putting it off. I suck at meditating and spiritual communication, so I make up all sorts of excuses not to do it. "My ADD won't let me concentrate!" is the main one. And it is kind of true. It can be scary to shut out external noise and focus inward. Maybe I'm afraid of becoming bored, which would be insulting to whatever facet of Spirit I am communing with.
Tonight, on the full moon (which I learned is called the "Sturgeon Moon"), I have plans with my empath bestie to do some witchy things. I will shove aside my nervousness and just go for it. I'll call up Hekate and see if she wants to have a heart-to-heart. With my recent experiences navigating the dark, I won't expect too much, but hey, maybe it's the breakthrough I need.
Then perhaps I will be able to sleep.
Blessed be, cats and kits.
*****
Sources:
κατάβασις
noun, plural katabases [kuh-tab-uh-seez] (Show IPA)
1.
a march from the interior of a country to the coast, as that of the 10,000 Greeks after their defeat and the death of Cyrus the Younger at Cunaxa.
2.
a retreat, especially a military retreat.
1830-40; < Greek katábasis a going down, descent, equivalent to kataba-(stem of katabaínein to go down) + -sis -sis. See kata-, basis
Lappin, Linda. "Your Journey to Hell and Back."Pokkoli. http://www.pokkoli.org/files/Katabasis_The_Writer.pdf
d'Este, Sorita. "Is She the Crone? Hekate's Profanation?" Patheos, 11 Aug. 2016,
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/adamantinemuse/2016/08/is-she-the-crone-hekates-profanation/
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