Disability, service and devotion

This Covenant has been a part of my life since it began. Some periods of time I have invested much time and effort in its growth and some I have been almost absent. The latter due to illness, always. This post is about following the years of my life in service to Hekate just as they have been, inside a body which from age 26 began to acquire a list of chronic disabilities and illnesses. The count stands at 13, a somewhat not magical number in this context. From three which affect my mobility and which are not considered curable by western medicine, to one inherited which may in time lead to blindness eventually; to others which have deeply affected daily life with alarming symptoms like continuous bleeding for weeks on end, fainting, anemia, loss of motor abilities etc. A couple are mild and only worsen in damp, rainy climates like England, where I have lived most of my life. I have two which are often connected to use of psychism and the practice of magick: asthma and migraines.

It won't be a cheerful post, if you yourself are feeling sad and worried about your own disabilities, you may wish to pass me by on this occassion.

It's also a very personal, me-focused post, perhaps later you will read more general, informative posts from me. It's quite impossible to present illness and disability from inside while ignoring the person inside the body and the inevitable feelings and thoughts of undergoing 35 years in worsening conditions.

Now, you may begin to wonder why this post is in this medium, how is it related to Hekate at all, or to this Covenant we have each, individually, trothed ourselves to.

I think I would have disincarnated already if it were not for Hekate and her priesthood. Which would not be a bad thing, don't get me wrong, I have little against death, that great transition from one state of being to another. Perhaps I would only win from leaving behind this particular flesh and bone housing. I would lose, however, this precise set of circumstances and connections and work which I enjoy at present. Foremost, the opportunity to serve in Her name, and to serve with all the experience and knowledge that 40 years of adult life have given me. A trifle, for a Goddess. It begins to be significant for a human. Time-scales are so very different between deities and ourselves, massively different.

So, how has Hekate kept me alive?

Most of us are here because we have had previous contact with Hekate, and been guided by Her in ways we are consciously aware of. I am no exception. She has walked ahead of me for all of my life. I'm not one of those who proclaims being her priestess since birth, or by family inheritance. My godparents (Catholic rites) are also my grandparents, an honest freemason of no public faith, and a Catholic lady who sometimes took me to church with her. Not witches. Neither so far from a life in the Artes Magickal. I received the first part of a classical education from my god-father, on the Roman and Greek empires and their cultures and deities. Hekate was absent, totally absent from those books.

I first heard Hekate's name in the Scottish play, with the 3 witches being berated by Her for doing negative magic. I wrote an essay about that play, aged 16, and won first place in the 6th form in a good Scots academy. I remembered the 3 witches always, I wanted to be one of them. I forgot Hekate quickly enough, such a passing character in the play.

Much more than a decade and a half later, I was seeking a coven to belong to. As a probationer I was given homework related to Hekate and Hermes. I went to Her and she has never let go of me since that full moon night. I had almost my full health then, young, vigorous and still largely untroubled by a couple of inherited illnesses which would disable me later on. On the night I was to become a probationer, I presented myself at the appointed place with a torn ligament and an impossibly swollen ankle. I had been thrown down metal steps while descending an aircraft. The night before, on the point of informing the relevant people that I could not attend, I called the two people who would cross London to follow my instructions, a healer and a brother who had rudimentary skills in healing. I invoked Hekate and Asklepius the healer. I wasn't aware of their connection, but I had visited a Temple of his on the island of Kos. Healing happened and the next day I could walk, and crossed an icy wide stream and then climbed a hill, on the arm of a priest of Hekate, a founding member of this Covenant and a healer. Long before the Covenant existed, the links were being formed. Hekate is far-reaching and well as a far-traveler.

Hekate has accompanied me and guided me on many travels seeking holy places and I could tell anecdotes for two or three nights without stopping. But here, for this post, it is Her work in silence and within my home and my Temple which I remember. She is the eminent companion for those who seek Her Mysteries, and I have seen Her lead in the most adverse conditions. I don't know why She isn't more mentioned as the Goddess of health and of overcoming disability. In my opinion, health begins within, it isn't even something we are born with (many too many, are born already ill, already disabled). Health is a valuable state that we aspire to and cannot take for granted. The equilibrium between fate and choice isn't often explored even by alternative healers, but I think it's fair of me to suppose we all know some conditions come with the incarnation and will be permanent companions, although they will vary in intensity. These Hekate ameliorates, improves, helps to manage their effects. To an extent which isn't available to humans alone. I access this through ritual and also more simply, by requests at Her altar and appropriate offerings. Sometimes She requests precise things to facilitate, Often She tells me of changes I must make to my routine and to my food intake. A very practical deity. Sometimes She has told me to be in certain places at certain times. Places previously unknown to me.

The more critical periods of illness, often are a result of four major illnesses I have, She sends companions and also medical staff who are just right. Like the Greek surgeon in a London hospital who approved an operation in full, to ameliorate my mobility. I have waited six years, falling off the waiting list again and again, but the financial permission which was almost impossible, was granted within 4 months and all the medical tests in the interim are passed without difficulty. Like many nurses who are Greek, or even recite Greek poetry to me to distract me from pain, or provide extra medication to stave off sharp pain in spite of money saving regulations. Always when I am desperate and cry out for Her help, very physical events happen. Many things are arranged before I even think of them, though. I always know when something is really serious, because every kind of causality begins and keeps on avoiding the worst results, finding new venues, and always the right person to give support.

Above, near the beginning, I said Hekate and her priesthood. Because I have been blessed, literally and figuratively by priestesses and priests of Hekate's. I give thanks here for the significant investment of love, aid, support of all kinds, and for believing that I have a purpose and must keep and improve what health I have. The compassion and also the links of faith and of magick which are expressed in such intangible and in such practical ways, I have come to view as a trait of those who dedicate our lives to Her work. It's one of the reasons when I have had no strength and even no mind to do anything else of my usual responsibilities, I keep on contributing to the Covenant, this body of work and devotion which unites so many of us. It's a way of honouring those who honour me with their help and care.

This support can make huge differences when the body is so weak and frail that the mind also falters and one can become radically out of love with living inside such a broken vessel and begins to love the notion of no longer being encumbered, of being a totally free spirit now instead of later. Community and being held when one can no longer walk alone, yet is very alone in daily realities, can make all the difference. Or even enough difference on a given day, a given process which seems too much, which overwhelms with pain and distress. The level of solidarity given in Hekate's name is an almost invisible part of the Covenant and often happens spontaneously from different people who may not even know of the situation they are responding to. I think it's Hekate inspiring, alerting, making sure we receive what we need, and also giving us opportunities to be of significant service. We are not a therapeutic community, yet many of us are healers, formally or informally. It is a natural and ancient link in Hekate's energies and plans.

I believe -and this is a very personal observation- that Hekate draws us to her by a process of above, so below. In the sense that Her great qualities are often matched by humanly diluted versions of the same and this draws us to Her. In contact with Her we become refined and polished. We are drawn to what She is because we are little sparks of those same qualities and distinguishing facets of personality. If illness can be seen as imperfection, instead of a natural part of being in this human experience in incarnation, subject to the decay processes of a fleshly envelope, then finding ways to better the experience can lead to a greater understanding of ourselves. Just as great athletes undergo great discomfort and pain in bettering their bodies, so do we also have the opportunity of bettering aspects of self, in enduring what we must in the best possible circumstances and in seeking to change what we can? I think it's one way of perceiving disability which may be useful. In seeking and finding Hekate in our quest, we also find parts of ourselves we were unaware of. Boundaries and barriers, whether material, physical, emotional, spiritual or of mental health can be unavoidable. Yet I believe they are the cloth of which great transfomation may be cut. Each in our own styles and within our own possibilities, knowing that Hekate is a resource which, by Her own grace, can be right beside us, enfolding us in an energy and an amount of change which can ameliorate just about any human condition or make it bearable within new contexts and new visions of self. A journey I am continuously undertaking.