The itch to travel forever

Nothing novel in associating travel with the Goddess of the roads and crossroads, of liminal ways and of discoveries and mysteries. Nothing novel at all, so this may make for a rather bland blog post. But something makes me put thoughts to paper. Even in these inkless days, it feels right. Bear in mind that this entry in my blog is a mix of history and of personal work. Even treat it as a small story, if you like. Don't mistake it for historical facts from an academic. I don't wish to mislead you, neither to hide the reality of mystical life.

When I first became aware of a Greek Goddess, not with my mind as that had begun its classical training rather young in a household of teachers and scholars, but with my spirit and with the then untrained psychic senses that came as a family inheritance, it wasn't formally Hekate. It was the beautiful and wild Artemis in Her aspect of the Goddess of the hunt in all her freedom and majesty roaming mountains and ravines with hunting dogs and maidens. It was some few years after the onset of menarche, living alone with no family support and no partner, Still a student, time was plentiful and unmarked by clocks and the two friends I had made were innate travellers who did have families to sustain them and cover the means to any wishes. I was among their wishes and began to travel frequently as their guest. My mind expanded in knowledge of Mediterranean cultures and religions and languages.

I used some of my time to volunteer at a women's centre in London. There, I came across a catalyst which opened my psychism so much more and stopped my doubts as to the link between my visions and some type of reality. The tall and muscular Goddess surrounded by golden sunlight and at night by strong silvery rays soon manifested as Diana/Artemis. It took decades to find out there was a third name that had been linked for different periods and in different places to those: Hekate/Hecate. At the time, back in the early 80s, I undertook a year and a day of self dedication to Artemis. That was when my visions and dreams were at their strongest, so much information coming through almost every day as I dedicated minimum one hour of devotional contact and two hours of reading and research, which wasn't so easy in pre-internet days.

Soon it became obvious to me that my source was too personal, too close, and I needed some objectivity even within such a free form setting to learn. I began to have sessions in past life recall then later to train as a past life therapy counsellor. Hekate and Artemis appeared in ever evolving forms. Although devolving might be a better description, as I saw them in older and older forms and further away from present day Greece and its islands. Finally after three or four years of monthly sessions, I found my memories settling in the city and main Temple of Ephesus (in present day Turkey) which was dedicated to Artemis Ephesia and is reported to have had also a Temple dedicated to Hekate. While some think this more primeval Artemis, so unlike the Greek maiden of the moon, to have been the one described as the Great Mother and some think this gracious and dreadful Goddess is also Hekate herself in a primeval aspect, I saw them as separate. I had recurrent visions of one of Hekate's altars being in the outer entry hall to the main Temple and that everyone allowed entry must first render homage at that altar and give their offerings to Hekate to her attending priestesses there. Only Hekate could purify them and allow entry into the Temple of Artemis. This is entirely UPG (unconfirmed personal gnosis), of course. I know priestesses who have described the same altar to me, in different periods and in differing circumstances. This makes it no more or less solid as information goes.

The other constant information gained was that behind and to the right of the main entrance, set in a green patch of ground with mild hills behind, there was a Temple few visited, except for priestesses. This was solely dedicated to Hekate and was built of older stone, which was time and weather worn. Not like the elegant marble and stone Temple of the Great Mother, in form nor function. A place of profound worship more than public ceremony or formal connection between city and its Matron Goddess. A place of Mysteries also, older ones with very different customs to the Hellenic ones. In a sense more like Persian rites and where life and death were seen to walk hand in hand, completing a cycle of worship.

I felt as if I was constantly travelling between my day time existence in 20th century London and the far past well before the Ottoman empire in the Graeco-Roman period which was also marked by Hekate in her Matron and Saviour role in Byzantium, and the time her Lagina Temple was a major cult centre. Often I found myself in dream scapes I could not name, Her presence the only constant for brief moments, as if something were signposting where I must go. It was the following decade that I finally went physically to the place of my strongest calling: Ephesus, holy city where the wonders of the Goddess called and fascinated so many. Being in the place iself, and sleeping under the full moon at a pansyon which was on part of Temple grounds next to the Swiss foundation of Hellenic research, was a very intense experience. It was the month of my birth, a very hot month, and so my hosts kindly allowed me to sleep on the roof terrace rather than in my room. I lay and gazed at the single column of the Temple left standing then and saw so much unfold around it. I took prolific notes. There I found, or was given, the techniques that I would use ever since to travel astrally and to go from liminal space to spaces well defined and guarded. The Goddess is benevolent and gracious in Her generosity of spirit.

There are so many ways of travelling with Her as guide or as the map which contains the many fold lands where She is worshipped in an eternal now. I hope the few experiences I recount serve as encouragement to look with one's own gaze while at the same time keeping some objectivity and some way back to mundane reality.