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Lesson #39

Samhain: The Great Sabbat

Cycle of the Gods and Goddesses

At Samhain, the three main God-forms — Horned God, Green Man, and Sun God — are gone from this world.

They are dead, and yet They are sleeping and gestating within the Mother... awaiting their rebirth. If you celebrate Gods in this season at all, they are the Gods of the Underworld — Hades, Pluto, Osiris, Anubis.

This is the season of the Goddess, alone.¹

¹ Another reason Samhain is feared in patriarchal cultures, no doubt.

All Crone Goddesses can be honoured at Samhain: Ereshkigal (along with Inanna/Ishtar, who descended to the Underworld), Persephone, Koré, Hel, Elli, Rhiannon, the Cailleach, Baba Yaga, Grandmother Spider, Sedna, XochiQuetzal, and especially Cerridwyn with Her Cauldron of Rebirth.

And the Goddess of this season is indisputably the Queen of Witches Herself: Hecate!

Season of the Reaper: Hecate

The end of October: the last of the harvest has come in, and the herds and flocks have been culled for winter now that the feed is limited and the weather is cold enough to keep the meat in storage.

I think of this time of year as the Season of the Wolf, clearing out the weak, injured, and ill, making the herds stronger to survive the winter... and also making those who hunt (and their families) stronger to survive the winter.

² Pronounced HECK-a-tay.

³ Another name for Witch, or herbal healer.

⁴ Remember, literally derived from the word for hedge, "hag" meant "one who sits on the hedge" — ie, one who straddles the boundaries between worlds, one who crosses between the worlds with ease... in other words, a Witch.

⁵ The Deities (at least our perception of them) evolve over time.

Hecate, for example, was once a Great Goddess, a Mother Goddess — and later Hecate was the name for the Moon in all phases.

But with time (and patriarchy), She became cut down to a fraction of Her power.

⁶ In Wicca, age is honoured and the elderly are revered for their great experience and deeper perception of life, the wisdom and compassion that the years bestow.

Of course not all older people are wise, and that wisdom must be earned year by year if you wish to be one of the Wise Ones.

However, there is the potential for wisdom in age that does not exist in youth.

This is not denigrating youth — youth has its own Powers and abilities. But perceptive insight into the way of life is something that must be gained through long experience on the Earth.

In a culture that worships only youth and fears or despises age, to honour our Crones is a revolutionary act!

It not only benefits and fulfills the elderly (whom you will one day count yourself among, if you live) to do so, it's liberating to everyone to know that their wisdom and power will be honoured, when the juicy freshness of youth passes away.

I've seen this in my sister-in-law who was raised in Denmark. All her life she's been eager to be an old woman!

Even as a child, she couldn't wait to become the wise, peaceful, kind, strong person she expected elderly people to be.

Hard to imagine, in this culture, isn't it?

It's a North American value to denigrate the elderly, unfortunately spreading these warped ideas with their mass media around the world.

But as Wiccans, we can choose our own values! And toss out those that are untrue or not beneficial.

⁷ So when working with Hecate you must be careful — you may get less than you ask for, more than you expect... or what you really deserve!

Yes, there is death here, but as always in Nature, the death is in service to life.

This is the time of Hecate,² the Reaper, who is called Queen of the Witches — the matron Goddess of magick and the power of the Crone, the Wise Woman,³ the Hag⁴ — She who lives without boundaries and beyond restrictions.

Hecate is the Crone Goddess of Wicca, the third phase of the Moon Goddess, ⁵ the most powerful of the stages of womanhood.⁶

Hecate is wise and steady and strong; She knows Herself and all Mysteries. She sees through illusion and deception as if the Truth were a blazing torch.

She is Goddess of the wilderness, the Queen of Magick and the Night, and thus the Queen of Witches. Her time of greatest power is Midnight.

She is also a Karmic Goddess — She upholds the Laws of the Universe, the one who doesn't let you get away with anything, who won't allow you to avoid the consequences of your actions. ⁷

Hecate represents the inexorable tides of time; She is the pitiless Mother who takes Her children back into Herself.

The Waning Crescent Moon is Her sickle — the hand-held, razor-sharp arc of the knife that is used for harvesting.

As part of the cycle of the Moon, Hecate is also the Reaper, the Goddess of Death — there must always be the death of the old, in order for the new to be born, and Hecate clears the way for it.

She is the Goddess of Doorways, Gates, and the Triple Crossroads where life decisions must be made — wherever you must surrender your other options in order to follow your choices.

She is the Goddess of the Gateway between the worlds, likewise, present when we come into this life as well as when we leave it.

And though She is implacable, She is not without mercy, generosity, and tenderness of heart.

Hecate is as virgin as the Maiden, having no consort, complete in Herself.

She is the Grandmother, whose scope of concern goes far beyond the immediate family of spouse and children — the well-being of all humanity, present as well as future, is Her domain.

Owls, ravens, dragons, snakes, and dogs (particularly female dogs, and especially black female dogs) are Her familiars. Bats, frogs, bears, wolves, lions, and horses are also sacred to Her.

Her symbols are torches and lanterns, knives and sickles, ropes, keys, labyrinths and mazes, and pomegranates — all tokens of finding wisdom, moving between the worlds, making choices.

Continue with Samhain: The Great Sabbat:

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