I haven’t had a lot to say—what’s to say about the political world, in essays and social media, is being said by other folks.
I’m on the third draft of the next book, which will feature some impassioned Antifa folks and some protests, as well as Hekate and everyone else. In the meantime, this day of the new moon, I watch my apples ripen.
The ancient Celts celebrated Samhain as a weeklong holiday, when ghosts walked and no one made war. I figure I’m just outside the orb of Samhain now—late harvest, time to cull the herds, though around here we only get the occasional mouse.
This is a candle burning for Hekate, my muse and goddess, as I send my second draft to my publisher for review!
Hekate deipnon, last night— I gave her some Fires of Hekate incense. Hekate has a place on my main altar with her key, sitting in front of Cernunnos, who you can see in the background.
The new moon is in Sagittarius. The astrologers I’ve read say it’s a sparkly one, as new moons go, full of hope.
Keep going, Hekate says. I keep going.
Hekate Soteira means Hekate savior. The Neoplatonists saw her as the mediator between the realm of the undying gods and that of mortals. Celestial in this aspect, she forms a boundary between the worlds.
Tonight is the night of the new moon, time of Hekate’s deipnon.
Hekate was said to have saved Byzantium from Philip of Macedon by showing the Byzantines a great light in the sky, so they erected a statue of Hekate Lampadephoros, Hekate Light-Bringer.
It’s a blustery first of November. All morning, the cats have watched out the window as leaves fly by, wondering if the leaves are birds.
Hekate has been calling me back for reconnection. The mother of witches, she’s been with me since I was a young teen.
I didn’t know it then. I drew and painted then as often as I wrote, and one of my first big projects for my seventh-grade art class was a woodblock print. I made a traditional witch’s workroom—skulls, books, candles, cauldron. Out the window was a waning moon. In those days, any time I drew a moon freehand without thinking, it was waning.
I have been dedicated to Hekate for more than fifteen years, and she is the guiding deity of my book series, Tales of the End Times. This is my Hekate altar, in the corner of my writing room. You can see at the right a set of Hekate cards that a witch friend of mine and I made for an event we put on, each card holding an epithet of the goddess. Hekate has dozens.
I just wrote a scene about the goddess for the second book of the series, in which a witch draws down as Hekate and prophesies for her coven. This vision came to my character Alyssa, and she describes it to Joanie and her friend Guy: