Progress is being made

So, a few things. Mostly, things are going okay. I think the shrines have settled down into a configuration I’m happy to work with for the time being, so I’ll get on to the State of the Shrines post this week, just so that’s one less thing I need to worry about.

I’ve been posting my #domagick stuff over at the grimoire, in case anyone wants to read about my daily experiments with fire magic and self-transformation. Also decluttering. It seems to be going well so far. I’ve got about a month left or so until I’m done. It’s the only place I’m doing daily blogging right now, so feel free to head over and see what I’m doing.

I’m still working on the Shedety daybook, though I have now made a book for it, so all I need now is the calendar. I’ve started on the list of Wesir and Aset-Renenutet festivals, and once they’re done, I’ll begin combining them all, and putting the final calendar together. Then it’ll be revisions, and formatting, and once it’s all done, writing it all into my book. I’ll show it off once it’s done.

Finally, the Covenant of Hekate are running another creative project for the next month or two over on FB, and this project is to create art, to draw Hekate as you see Her. I am sorely tempted to attempt to draw, at last, the Isis-Hekate(-Mary) statue I have had stuck in my head for the past four months or so, since I have no other ideas. And it would at least stop nagging at me, so. That’s one other thing that may turn up here, or at the grimoire idk. But we’ll see. I might end up drawing something else entirely.

My Ritual Books

So I originally posted this over on my Dreamwidth journal, just to get it all down, and now I’m posting it here, with a lot more formatting and organisation so it doesn’t just read like a rambly rambly mess about books with a bunch of pictures and videos in it. That, and I missed a couple, so. This is a better version of that post, so apologies if you’ve seen this before.

So. I have *counts* 13 books currently in use that I’m working on. This… seems excessive, I know. Even I’m shocked that it’s that many. But there you go. If I’m being honest, most of them are of the journal/notebook type, rather than Proper Witchy Grimoires or Books Of Shadows. A lot of it is just notes and meditation logs and other boring things. They’re not pretty. They’re not arty. They’re just my terrible handwriting and sometimes, I might use two different coloured pens. I know, right? Radical.

But then I am very practical when it comes to my books. I don’t care for fancy layouts or pretty pens or anything like that for my notebooks and journals. All I care about is getting the information down. Anything more gets in the way of that becoming habit.

Also, this post is going to get Very Long, and there are photos and videos involved, so. Bear with me. And I will post in a lot more detail about two of them over at the Grimoire, so keep an eye out for that. But for now, here are my thirteen ritual books!

Fiction: Waiting For The Night

Since I’m in the mood for posting fiction, I thought I’d finally get around to posting the short story I submitted to Askei Kataskei months ago. I always meant to post it here after AK had come out, but with everything else going on in my life, that sort of didn’t happen. So here, have some more Hekate fic.

This was written for the March creative project, in which we were asked to write a short story choosing one of four scenarios/prompts. I chose the last, which included an opening line (“We will never know what is on the mind of the Goddess Hekate”), and another line (“she tied her red cord from her Covenant of Hekate devotion around her ankle, lit the red candle, recited her hymn and began the ritual as planned”), which we had to include somewhere else in the text. Length was limited to 4 pages, which I just managed to hit.

I don’t know where this world is, or what else might happen here, but maybe I’ll play around with it some more. I met some interesting characters here.

---

“We will never know what is on the mind of the Goddess Hekate,” the Oracle intoned. “Even I, Her Oracle, sees nothing. She reveals nothing of Her mind to me. All I see are Her visions for us.”

“And what do you see?”

The Oracle closed Their eyes, and stirred a finger through the waters in the cauldron, chanting under Their breath. “I see two roads. One leads into the desert. The other leads into the ocean.”

“Does She indicate which we should take?”

The Oracle raised a finger, asking for silence. More incense was thrown on the fire, and a libation of wine poured into the earth. “The red cord will guide us. That is all She says.”

Always with the crossroads

I feel like I should be used to predicting this by now, that whenever Hekate takes over my life (like She has at the moment), I end up at a crossroads period. Which is fine. I always like a chance to stop and figure my shit out, so that’s nice. I just always feel a bit restless when I get there, because all my habits grind to a halt until it’s over, which doesn’t help to keep my ritual habits going, ngl.

Everything’s become a bit complicated at the moment. Apart from my CoH Hekate devotional work, my Kemetic practice has come to a bit of a halt. Also, Hekate is all, study witchcraft for me, and so I’m actually reading books about Wicca in a way I haven’t since I first started out in 2000; I suspect it’s one of those ‘know the rules before you break them’ things, but I’m still not really sure at the moment. I suppose I could’ve done without Sobek suggesting I might open a statue for Him in the middle of all this, leading me to change my shrine around, and my daily rites, again. Also, Isis-Renenutet-Mary-Hekate-Selene can you stop being confusing I am totally done with this.

Also, Ganesh is back on my altar because Reasons??????? *throws hands up* /idek anymore

OH. NOVELS. HERMES. WRITING OIGUBSDUGlfsjygfksygks. Yes. That is another thing I need to talk about idek.

Anyway, have a ramble below the cut about weird religious things, if the tl;dr above isn’t enough for you.

Askei Kataskei is out!

And apart from being an excellent zine, you should also go read it because I wrote a Thing and it is in this issue 4 realz. I think I mentioned ages ago that I’d written this Hekate short story for one of the Covenant of Hekate’s monthly creative projects. Well, once it was done, I had the option of submitting it to AK, and so I did, and it was accepted, and now it is in the zine for all you lovely people to read. ❤

There are actually two short stories from that project in this issue, mine and one by Sara Buastis, as well as a bunch of other great articles and hymns and other things. It is worth your time to read it if you are interested in Hekate and other related things and like reading fiction.

Go read it here and share it around if you like it plz and thank you. ❤

Also, I have been messing about with my Hekate shrine, and added a bull/cow skull. I’ll do a separate post for that, and maybe go over why it’s become a Hekate shrine at the expense of pretty much everything else. But in the meantime, go read AK, if you like, and enjoy. Otherwise, have a good day. ❤

Hekate’s Deipnon July 2016

It has been a very intense Deipnon this month. For the first time, I could feel things other than the gods around when I went to meditate, and fought one of them with my knife. I warded the grove where I usually meet Hekate, and once that was done, we could talk. I am grossly oversimplifying this, but it’s late, and I don’t have the time to write about it now.

The restless dead were very present, and that’s a new experience for me. I wasn’t afraid, just weirded out. But then I was with Hekate, and it was okay. It was then that I became aware that some of the dead were those killed in Orlando, and through Hekate, they helped me figure out the last little pieces I needed to do ritual for them, which I do owe them. So they’ll get offerings tomorrow for noumenia, then a proper ritual later in the week. I’ll also do the 70 day prayers for them.

Which makes me think it might be time to bring back the 6th Day Ritual, and begin monthly offerings to the ancestors. I might rejig the ritual I used to use, because it never really felt complete enough. I’ll set it for the sixth day after noumenia. I’ll start with the queer ancestors, and see where we go from there.

Anyway, have a video of my shrine from tonight’s deipnon. IDK why I’ve felt drawn to video my shrines now when I’ve never done that before, but okay, sure. This seems to be my thing for the moment. Apologies for the shakycam, didn’t have time to correct/redo because it’s late and I have work tomorrow, so.

Happy Solstice!

I had a lovely ritual tonight with Hekate Kourotrophos to mark the winter solstice. I’m beginning to understand why the blade is important to me, but it’s just niggling thoughts at the moment. Hekate Kourotrophos is very … blunt. But I like Her. And I do volunteer for Save the Children here in Australia, which is right up Her alley. So donations in Her name were suggested, which makes sense to me. I’ll write up the ritual on my DP blog later, but for now, have a little dodgy phone camera video of my shrine from tonight’s ritual.

I wish you a blessed and peaceful Solstice. May the gods be with you. ❤

Hekate’s Rite of Her Sacred Fires 2016

The centre, with Hekate standing proud. I added horns to echo Her bull symbolism, and the horns of the crescent moon, and gave it a bit more breathing room.

Isis’ side of the shrine, with a bunch of assorted bits and pieces, and a tree.

Hestia’s candle is just to the right of the tower incense burner, and Gaia is hiding behind there as well. There is never enough light over here.

A full view of the shrine for the Rite of Her Sacred Fires.

It’s that time of year again. The May full moon brings us the Rite of Her Sacred Fires, and I’ve had a lovely hour of ritual with Her, as well as some good meditation, and a bit of a re-dedication to Her. I had planned to do some artz during meditation, but it didn’t work out. I will do some sketching later tomorrow, though, just to see if this idea works out or not.

This year, a magical petition to Hekate to help war refugees was put together, rather at the last minute, in time for the rite this year, and I began my rites with this. I turned it into a libation rite, offering water after each of the nine petitions. The water will be poured out tomorrow. I also dedicated another red cord, for my own personal reasons, and we chatted about deepening our relationship further, since it’s been four years now, and it feels like the right time.

Overall, it went well, and I’m very happy with it. It’s been a good night. Io Hekate!

Sometimes, inspiration fails you

I swear, I’ve been trying all week to write something up here, but it hasn’t happened. I’ve had thoughts about all sorts of things, but they’ve come to nothing. It’s not a huge issue, it’s not like I have a set posting schedule, but I am trying to keep the posting as regular as I can, just to keep things ticking over.

But things have happened. I have spent the past month working on a short story about Hekate for one of the Covenant of Hekate’s creative projects, and there was the option once it was done to submit it to Askei Kataskei, which I did. And apparently it is good, so there’s that. I’ll let you know more on that later when I have a firm idea of what’s happening with that.

I’ve caught up on my DP High Day stuff. I had fallen behind on my essays and such, and at least I now have all my High Day essays and ritual notes done. Check out my DP blog if you’re interested in following along. I will, at some point, sit down and redraft them into proper essays, and not just collections of notes, but that’s for later. The liturgies I used have also been posted, as well as the essay notes for the May High Day, because if I do it now, then I don’t have to worry about it when the Mysteries of Wesir are taking over my life. All I will have to do is write up the ritual, and then it’s done, and I can worry about Wesir.

The first Deipnon

Shrine set up for Hekate’s deipnon. Sans offerings and such as this was taken after I’d disposed of everything because I forgot to photograph it before then. Black bowl on the left was for libations, the orange/gold bowl was for the deipnon itself.

So I finally got over that mental thing in my head that was all, ‘how can you do deipnon without a crossroad wtf’, and have again tried to follow the advice of both Isis and Hekate, and that is to just turn up at shrine and do ritual and be there with them, and stop worrying about the details. So that is what I did.

I decided to dispose of my deipnon into the compost bin outside, because recycling bad stuff into compost to feed the garden seems appropriate for deipnon. So I did that instead of leaving it at a crossroad. Which solves my ‘I don’t want to leave food out in a public place’ issues that had stopped me doing deipnon before.