At important forks in the road in ancient Greece, one would come across a statue of a woman. She had three faces: one facing the direction you had come in from, and the two others facing two paths ahead you might choose.
This was, is, Hecate, the goddess of the crossroads, the goddess of twilight, the crone; the bringer of knowing through dreams. As a ‘dark’ goddess, Hecate is always clothed in black, usually depicted in Greek vase painting as a woman holding up two flaming torches.
In ancient times, crossroads were believed to be special ‘thin’ places, where the veil between the worlds was easily bridged; places where we could communicate with the goddess and learn from her.
I chose to write this piece on Hecate after a dream:
Late one evening, passing by a T-junction road near my home - which does in fact exist, and which on waking does appear like a fork in the road - a car crunches over what seems to be a small ceramic bowl. I turn around, and obey a strong impulse to pick it up, surprised it isn’t too damaged. Planning to stick back two small broken off pieces, I pick up the bowl and the fragments and I place them in my bag. When I get back home, I am stunned to see the bowl is whole again, and is actually, when I turn it over, a woman with three faces. In my dream, I place the magically repaired little statue on my ‘sacred ledge’ above my desk, among other meaningful objects.
Here, at a time of my life when many things have recently changed, and I was at a crossroads moment in my mid 50s, fumblingly learning also to accept the new responsibilities, powers, freedoms and gifts of crone-hood, Hecate appeared - to teach, support and guide.
Hecate is actually an ancient Titan goddess from an earlier, pre-Greek period of myth. It is believed she was so powerful and respected by her followers that she continued being represented as having great powers even after the Titan gods were replaced by Olympian ones. Even Zeus, as the main god of Olympus, was shown as retaining for Hecate the ancient power of giving or denying to mortals any desired gift, he alone among the other gods having this same power. She had dominion over sky, earth and the underworld, and initially at least, over all three phases of the moon.
While the other primary gods and goddesses chose to live on Mount Olympus, Hecate preferred to live in the Underworld. An older woman, accompanied by her hound, sometimes depicted as three-headed too, appearing at dark times in dark places; thought to be invisible, or appearing as just ‘luminous light’, Hecate’s aspect can be disconcerting, even scary.
But it helps to remember that in the world of myth, there is no such thing as a good goddess and a less good, or bad one. Each is an aspect of reality, and to balance out portrayals of a benevolent, maternal deities, fostering life, we have a strong, often fierce manifestations, standing for death, rupture, separation, endings.
Hecate is referred to as one of the virgin goddesses, and it is important to know that to the Ancient Greeks the word virgin did not always mean a girl uninitiated into sexual intercourse; it denoted a self-possessed woman, not beholden to any man.
I knew that one aspect of the Triple Goddess in later Greek myth was that of Persephone as maiden; Demeter, mother; and Hecate, crone. For such a powerful goddess, Hecate, unlike most female figures, even minor ones, of Greek mythology, does not seem to have any stand-alone stories of her own, her most significant appearance being as a character in the Demeter story.
In the mother-daughter myth, Hekate, we learn, had heard though not seen Persephone being abducted, and in studying the myth, we see she did not rush to help [I will later post another piece on the Demeter/Persephone myth as I understand it], wisely knowing it was in the ‘rightness’ of things that the girl separated from the mother, however painful to them both. Later she assisted Demeter in her search for Persephone, guiding her through the night with her blazing torches. And still later, after the mother-daughter reunion, she became she Persephone's guide and support in the lower dark realms of the underworld.
Hecate is said to appear “when the ebony moon shines.” I learnt that the new moon is also called the dark moon, or ebony moon, as in this phase there is no illumination on the earth's side. For some – when two new moons occur in any single month, the second is called the ebony moon.
The next New Moon this year: June 1, 2011, 21:03. For India: June 2, 2011, 02:33
Familiar with the process of death and dying as well as that of new birth and new life, the goddess Hecate was wise in all of earth's mysteries. Ever present to life’s cyclic rhythms, she presides over change and death – rather, over many deaths - as life is filled with many deaths and rebirths, many endings and beginnings. She is also believed to have a role in helping the elderly make a smooth passage into the next life and staying with them, if need be, in the otherworld to help prepare them for their eventual return to the earth in their next life.
Her special ability to see into the Underworld, or the Otherworld of the sleeping and the dead, made her comfortable in the company of those most would shun out of fear. In her role as Queen of the Night, sometimes traveling with a following of ghosts and other social outcasts, she was both honored and feared as the protectress of the oppressed and of those who lived ‘on the edge’. This is one reason she and her followers had often been feared and reviled; they stand with at least one foot outside of the conventional world.
Hecate was often accompanied on her travels by an owl, a symbol of wisdom, though she is not really known as a goddess of wisdom, but is recognized for a special type of knowledge and is considered to be the goddess of trivia, or small details. Yet, other writers feel this is a distortion of the idea that she was worshipped at places where three roads met and was therefore known as Hecate Trevia or Tri-via; Hecate of the Three ways, connected with the moon's three phases and ruling over the three regions of heaven, earth and the underworld.
Associated with being 'between', with her connection with crossroads, borders, city walls, doorways and thresholds, and by extension, with realms outside or beyond the world of the living - she is characterized as a ‘liminal’ goddess. She understands the grey areas between black and white, right and wrong, good and bad.
The Dark of the Moon, a time of endings and beginnings, when what was is no more, and what will be has yet to become, that in-between, liminal time, is understandably her time.
Hekate guards the limenoskopos, the doorstep, for she is a goddess of being on, as well as crossing over, boundaries. It means not only the boundary between life and death, but any boundaries, such as those between nature and city, waking and sleep, sanity and madness, self and other, the conscious and the subconscious minds.
As goddess of the crossroads, Hecate appears at every major fork in the road where transition decisions are made, reminding us of the importance of change, helping us to release the past, especially those things that are hindering our growth. New beginnings, whether spiritual or mundane, aren't always easy, and she sometimes asks us to let go of what is familiar, safe and secure, and to travel to the scary places of the soul that will ultimately make us whole.
She grants the gift of discernment and farsightedness to see what lies deeply forgotten or even hidden, often shining her torches to guide you through dreams or reverie.
Hekate is also associated with an interesting wheel-shaped design, known as Hekate's Wheel, the Strophalos of Hekate, a circle around a serpentine maze with three main flanges, that in turn are situated around a central, fiery spiral. The three main arms of the maze correspond with her being a triple goddess, as well as goddess of the three ways. The design also refers to the serpent's power of rebirth, and to the labyrinth of knowledge through which Hekate could lead us, and to the flame of life itself.
Hecate in this way can be understood too as the archetype for the Healer. Or Therapist. These are her teachings to those of us who claim to practice healing and therapy, as I do -- accepting all; respecting ‘what is’ even as we work with what ‘might be’; shining a light; offering the knowing that there is more than one way to see or to act; being invisible most of the time yet very, very present; encouraging people to see things in a new/different light; helping release the old, familiar ways and find one’s way through new beginnings; supporting a greater understanding of our selves, our dreams, our connections, and of relationships and others.
Although one of her many appellations is The Distant One, Hecate can be close at hand. Whether we encounter her in waking hours - through people and events that take on her role, or through dreams gifted us while we sleep -she can lead us to see things differently, to be comfortable with dark places, dark emotions.
In this way, we can consider Hekate as the goddess of psychological transformation, her underworld the dark recesses of the human subconscious. By the light of her twin torches Hekate reveals what is already there. These are things a person needs to see in order to heal and renew.
The crone is the third and final aspect of the three-fold Goddess. She is the dark moon, wintertime, old age and knower of mysteries.
Oh my! Decidedly not nice!
Acceptance of our aging is tough enough without society seeming to conspire to hold up all the negatives of this stage. And we could get swept along with the incomplete meanings. It follows then, that this aspect of the Triple Goddess is the most frightening and misunderstood of the three, as she calls up ideas of our aging, change, destruction, decay and death.
Traditional societies however, view death as part of a natural cycle, essential for change, for continuity.
In her positive aspect the crone is seen as Grandmother, a wise woman, or a midwife, helping birth new selves; as wisdom keeper, seer and healer, whose knowledge is sought out to guide others during life's hardships and transitions.
And our challenge is to own this side of her, this side of us.
The crone is a teacher or wise one, sometimes called the 'way-shower' as she shines the light of wisdom for all to see. She teaches that we cannot make things happen to suit our timing; things will happen when they need to - even as she teaches her followers the paths of freedom and power, she brings the gift and strength of patience.
The crone brings us an understanding also of the power of silence and of solitude. She reminds us that every spiritual journey teaches this as a necessary discipline, and includes periods of renewing silence. And she leads us to understand there is a place we reach in solitude when we no longer feel isolated or lonely, that real power can be attained in solitude because we have found our connection to all beings.
As knower of mysteries, secrets of existence, or hidden things, the crone presides in the dream worlds, guiding us through the unconscious labyrinths of our deep minds. She teaches us the symbolism of our dreams and helps us to understand and shape them to our choosing. The goddess gives us dreams and visions, which if interpreted patiently and wisely, led to greater clarity.
Hecate is particularly a force and teacher for women in their 50s and 60s. We accept and invite in fullness the crone that we have evolved into, reaping the accumulated benefits of all that we have learned so far, through experiences good and bad, happy and sad. And now - powerfully and wisely knowing when to withhold, knowing when to extend – we are encouraged to share our hard won wisdom with others.
Australian Aborigines say that the big stories -
the stories worth telling and retelling,
the ones in which you may find the meaning of your life -
are forever stalking the right teller,
sniffing and tracking like predators hunting their prey in the bush.
~ Robert Moss, Dreamgates
