{"id":8653,"date":"2024-08-12T10:37:27","date_gmt":"2024-08-12T14:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=8653"},"modified":"2024-08-12T10:37:27","modified_gmt":"2024-08-12T14:37:27","slug":"1996-the-feast-of-hecate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=8653","title":{"rendered":"1996: The Feast of Hecate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written on August 14, 1996. \u00a0I was on a retreat with Deena Metzger<\/a> on the south shore of Massachusetts. \u00a0It was the Feast of Hecate<\/a>, and we planned to do a ritual at night. This piece of writing is partly fiction, partly real.<\/p>\n

She woke in the night.\u00a0 <\/span>A hooded figure was standing in the room.\u00a0 <\/span>It was the Feast of Hecate.\u00a0 <\/span>It was time to join her sisters.\u00a0 <\/span>She rose and dressed in dark clothing, purple and blue.<\/p>\n

She took with her a rose hip as an offering, and a tiny bubble of a shell<\/a> that she would plant, after the new moon, as a seed of a new beginning.\u00a0 <\/span>The bubble shell had come to her as she walked along the shore, crying out to god about how difficult this passage was, and when would it be over.\u00a0 <\/span>The voice said \u201cYou will always be doing this work.\u00a0 <\/span>but \u2014 it gets easier.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>At that moment she saw the shell embedded in a drift of seaweed and knew it was to be her seed for the ritual.<\/p>\n

In the dark, her hood over her head, she walked down to the shore.\u00a0 <\/span>The wind was blowing strongly from the north and she could smell the salt.\u00a0 <\/span>A long pier stretched out into the water.\u00a0 <\/span>She could see other hooded women standing and moving along the pier.<\/p>\n

As she walked out its length, the wind blew more strongly, shredding her cape and tearing large patches out of her body.\u00a0 <\/span>She felt pieces of herself ripped out and flying down the wind.\u00a0 <\/span>The clean wind and the salt blew through the holes.<\/p>\n

The sound of a flute brought her back.\u00a0 <\/span>It was playing a song she knew and she began to sing \u201cTis a gift to be simple<\/a> …\u00a0 <\/span>to turn , to turn, it will be our delight til by turning, turning, we come round right.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>And then \u201cI danced in the morning when the world was begun …\u00a0 <\/span>I am the Lord of the Dance<\/a> said she.\u201d<\/p>\n

She moved past the flute to the open space at the end of the pier where women wrapped in blankets and shawls were gathered in a circle.\u00a0 <\/span>Some were sitting , some standing, facing inward to where a candle had once burned but had blown out in the wind, or facing outward to the sea and the strange lights of night.\u00a0 <\/span>The women were singing a wordless chant, voices rising, falling, overlapping.\u00a0 <\/span>Sometimes a melody or a word would emerge clearly and then fade back into the continuous sound.\u00a0 <\/span>Nika moved to the far side, her back to the sea, and joined her voice to those of her sisters.\u00a0 <\/span>After a while she felt the need to go down on her knees.\u00a0 <\/span>Across the circle a chant was taking form, almost Native American in shape.\u00a0 <\/span>Nika picked it up softly, allowing her body to move back and forth.\u00a0 <\/span>The chant grew in her throat to a repeated cry\u00a0 <\/span>Eeeee \u2014 ah \u2014 oooo, o \u2014 o \u2014 way, o \u2014 o \u2014 way…\u00a0 <\/span>Others joined her.\u00a0 <\/span>The chant flared and faded and was done.\u00a0 <\/span>The soft voices continued, calling the names of god.<\/p>\n

Nika bowed her head down to the boards.\u00a0 <\/span>She prayed for healing, for herself and for the planet.\u00a0 <\/span>She prayed for help, that she might more completely embody gentleness, patience, and reverence in her life.\u00a0 <\/span>She prayed for the energy of her vision to fill the bubble shell seed \u2014 a vision of a small green world, where people cared for each other and for the natural world with patience, gentleness, and reverence.\u00a0 <\/span>Then she stood and turned outward to the sea.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cHere is my offering, Hecate\u201d she said and tossed the rose hip outward.\u00a0 <\/span>She could hear the tiny splash over the voices of the wind and the sea and the women who were still chanting and felt that her offering had been accepted.<\/p>\n

She walked back to the shore and down to the sand facing north into the wind.\u00a0 <\/span>She chanted the names of the goddess: Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, Inanna, over and over.\u00a0 <\/span>She had thought to toss the bubble-shell-seed onto the water, but feared for the dissolving and loss and drowning of her vision.\u00a0 <\/span>She thought of planting it in the sand, but that seemed too cold and sterile an environment for something so fragile.\u00a0 <\/span>So she walked back toward the house and went to the garden.<\/p>\n

She walked in through the arched gate and bowed to the pool.\u00a0 <\/span>It was dark and no stars could be seen.\u00a0 <\/span>It took her a moment to orient to the directions.\u00a0 <\/span>She decided to plant the seed in the east, the place of new beginnings.\u00a0 <\/span>She walked across the grass to the flower bed and crouched down.\u00a0 <\/span>Stretching out her hand she felt low leaves and tall thin flowers.\u00a0 <\/span>She reached down to touch the soil and felt soft rich crumbly earth.\u00a0 <\/span>Digging in her fingers, she scooped up a handful, placed the tiny fragile shell in the hole, covered it and patted it down.\u00a0 <\/span>A safe nest, a soft bed.\u00a0 <\/span>Be well, my tiny fragile hope.\u00a0 <\/span>Carry my vision through this dark time and bring it to flower in some other world.\u00a0 <\/span>She stood up to find the touch of leaves against her face.\u00a0 <\/span>Lifting her hands, she stands in prayer while the tree traces a sacred symbol on her forehead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written on August 14, 1996. \u00a0I was on a retreat with Deena Metzger on the south shore of Massachusetts. \u00a0It was the Feast of Hecate, and we planned to do a ritual at night. This piece of writing is partly … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","category-spirit","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}