Hekate and The Sacred Landscape

Recently I was kindly invited to give a small talk in Sorita's space, Meeting in the Circle.

This was a fantastic discussion with very insightful questions and thoughts from the company present and I am inclined to bring the topic to the wider community.

Where is Hekate "based" ?

Painting by Pavel Skepevski

This is a question that often comes up in the minds, in one way or another, of devotees and experienced priesthood alike.

Our devotion starts with a single epithet sometimes, trying to reach some facet of the Goddess, maybe as a deity of a particular festival (samhain/hallowmass comes to mind, Hekate as queen of Witches and only that. The "dark mother", quintessential Goddess of The Goths ) or even as a psicological archetype, a tool for "a working".

On the other side of that proverbial coin, we have the rigourous, historical, reconstruction. Rigid, corsetted, while the Goddess herself is famously unbriddled (as per Orphic hymn).

I'm here to challenge both those visions.

While theyre valid in personal practice, I would like to speak about relationship and service.

Knowing Her, her cult and history is fundamental but Hekate is not a relic nor an arquetype, she is a living deity, present in the world and as transcendent and relevant as ever. So, why are we so obsessed with worshipping her in a historical context that we ourselves are foreign to?

Why do our offerings are sometimes looking ourwards (Kalamata olives when Spanish olives are fantastic, Feta cheese in Venezuela when we have Queso Guayanès) instead of connecting our devotion to the sacred land that is alive with numinity because of our very presence in it?

Why, also, are we treating our Goddess and our relationship to her as a "work"?

Rooting your cult in the particular land you stand on is important, because if honours your history, your local spirits and you particular context. In antiquity, the Goddess travelled with her devotees, adapted and changed with them. Hekate in Thrace is not "the same" Hekate as in Athens and she should not be.

Devotion and Tradition is not a monolith, it grows and adapts with each of the practitioners, and this is its relevancy and strenghts.

Devotion should be about thoughtful connection, while maintaining our cult in a basis of historical knowledge, to honour and worship Hekate we need to find a delicate balance, deep respect for the presend and mindfulness of our own sacred present. Pharmakeia will be helpful with your local plans and Enodia will guard the crossroads in Spain as in Brazil.

Every prayer you whisper or even shout, every offering you place, every ritual you craft breathes new life into her worship. This is what it means to become her priests, her priestesses, her devotees.

Worship is not just placing Hekate within a foreign framework and trying to replicate it or treating our Goddess as a facet of our practice.

it is daily practice, research, and reverence.

Curiously enough, I've never seen a christian devotee asking themselves if Jesus would hear them in a foreign land outside of Jerusalem! This speaks of our deep love for our Goddess but also about our need to recenter our own sacredness where we stand. You have yourself, your land and your voice, and need nothing else but your service and devotion for Hekate to hear you.

Gio