Long Nights and the Gifts of Darkness

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The night often comes unexpectedly these days. One moment it’s sunny and the next the sun has begun it’s descent below the horizon. I also wake in the dark. Six-thirty feels like more sleep. It just doesn’t feel right to rise before the sun.  ‘Tis the season of darkness.

I’m not complaining. I kind of like the dark. I was once afraid of it. I suppose we all are at some point, afraid of the uncertainty, of the unknown. But now, I love the feeling of restfulness it brings. I also see it as the mother of potential and possibility. There is nothing to fear there except our inability to be open.

The bright light of day is a breath of fresh air, but the darkness also brings its own kind of refreshment. It’s a place of restoration. The brilliant sun sheds light all around, expanding our view. The dark has its own way of expanding us. It opens us to the imagination and all that is possible for it’s the place from which all rises including the sun.

Recently, I did a guided meditation to meet my goddess. I’m not sure exactly who I met. She was in the form of a woman, but there were no details and she had no face. When you looked at her all you saw was the vastness of the Universe. She was the cosmos itself. She was the depth of all being. She held both the dark and the light. She was the mother of all. I don’t know that she was a particular goddess. She was mystery itself. And I’m okay with being in the dark as to her identity. Maybe I’ve already named her above.

She stalked me in the vision, almost as though I were her prey. It wasn’t frightening. It was the tension of life, of creativity. I met darkness, depth, the cosmos, and I am Hers.

Night descends. Darkness falls. The goddess awakens within, and all is well.

Coming Home to the Witch in Me

She is mystery itself and has called to me since I was 13 and maybe all my life. I didn’t know her name, nor was I aware I was being called. I only knew reading that little booklet about white magic fascinated me. No, it enchanted me into practicing a few spells. My thirteenth year was when metaphor and magic awakened in me.

Only recently has her name begun to emerge. It’s just like when I realized Ma’at, the Ancient Egyptian goddess of truth, justice and balance, had always been with me even before I knew her name. As a young child I was always walking the fence to practice balance and had a deep awareness of what was just and unjust. Ma’at was always there and now I believe it was Hekate calling to me all those years ago, too. Even in my earliest years I had a fascination for the paranormal and spirit world, the realms of Hekate.

About two years ago, I began the process of fully accepting I am a witch. I joined a witch Facebook group and found others. I had been a Pagan for over 20 years but didn’t call myself a witch. One Facebook group dedicated to witches and witchcraft was run by a Hekatean witch. This witch was from the province where I grew up and lived nearly 30 years. That’s what caught my attention at first. I stayed on the periphery and took it all in. I slowly began to spend more time at my altar and mark the phases of the moon. Only recently did I feel called to practice magick again.

My spiritual community’s building had experienced a series of break-ins, and I found myself wanting to protect it. Hekate came to mind. In my search for a protection spell, I came upon one that invoked her. I had to do it quickly and forgot to bring a gratitude offering. I decided to offer myself. It was time.

As I step into my 50s and on the path to becoming a crone, it seems fitting that Hekate only now fully shows herself. I wasn’t ready before and I’m not sure I am now. I’m in that in-between phase of growth and change, the liminal space where things mix and mingle, brought together to become something else. Wisdom rises from this blending and reflection on our experience. We are always in process, never arriving, always becoming.

Revelations on a Mist-filled Day

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Every morning I stand in Mountain Pose, a foundational yoga position, and think of the San Gabriel Mountains across the valley. I draw on their steady presence. I feel their power; their gravitas binds me to them.

Today those mountains are shrouded in fog. Still they ground me. They are earth rising to the heavens and yet deeply present. They are silent messengers of the Divine. Where their namesake’s messages came with trumpets and bright lights, these mountains reach out to us with their quiet presence, their message no less important. Even behind a veil of thick, moist air, they call to us body and soul to be here and now.

It’s funny how the mountains seem more prevalent on a day they are hidden. That which is secreted allows the imagination to pass through the mists and wander into Avalon or Shangri-La, some mythic world that exists on the edge of time, space and psyche.

The past is one of those magical places. It is grounded in memory and yet shrouded by it as the fog grows thicker over time. But the past is ever with us. A looming presence built more of feeling than an exact replay of events. The mountains I look to every day, over time, change. My memories, though powerful, shift through the years, become more made thing than recording.

It’s dusk, and the fog has not lifted to reveal the San Gabriels. I suppose today they will remain hidden as darkness makes its way over the valley. Some days the past remains hidden, too. And that’s okay. Just as I know the mountains are there, I know the past stands forever in my memory whether I can recall it or not. Those I’ve lost are always there. Those moments we had together are just beyond the veil.

The sun has broken through the clouds illuminating the houses across the street. A day without sunlight ends in revelation, not of mountains or memory, but of a moment before memory. It’s the now the mountains remind us to be in. The sun becomes brighter just before it slips below the horizon. This moment is as bright as it will ever be. Tomorrow it will be a memory and the mists will slowly cover it. But like the mountains, this memory, this feeling will always be ever present with me.

In this Moment

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I let the wind take away my thoughts. Only the palm fronds moved by Santa Ana breezes remain. Lit by sun, they gently wave back and forth, rocking my mind into a poetic trance.

The wind's fierceness now calmed, no longer gusts raging through valleys, whipping up dust and fire. This spirit of the desert named for the mother of the mother of compassion holds my attention by what it touches. In this moment all is well and yet beneath the surface of this calm, sorrow rests.

The sun is setting and the tree casts its shadow over the terrace just as smog or smoke veil the mountains that were bright in this morning’s sun.  Everything moves or is moved. The morning drifts into evening. The winds die to breezes to stillness.

But right now the wind picks up a little as the air passes over the heated land. There is still life in the world. Life still beats my heart and the wings of mourning doves. Though ashes may ride on the wind from some not so distant fire, though smoke may hide the mountains, the sun will still set and rise. And because of the wind and fires and smoke and ash, the sun will be more beautiful as it slips below the horizon.

A Stirring Season

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Restless. Unfocused. Spinning. Drifting. I feel stirred up inside. Sometimes I can reach the calm center, but just beyond this place my thoughts are scattered and in a swirl. Maybe this is just a reordering process. Maybe I should just go with it for bit. I keep it stirred up by worrying about it. What if I relax and let it settle on its own?

The whole world feels stirred up and our fear keeps it that way. Things are changing. They have to, but our fear gets in the way of the process of order to chaos to order again. We need to become the calm center at the eye of the storm and wait until we know what is ours to do. We need to float and not tread. Life will support us if we let it. And when we’re calm enough, we’ll know what to do.

As I focused on writing this, I came to the conclusions I needed. I’ll relax and keep things as simple as possible. I’ll float and listen. Maybe what I needed was at the bottom and the only way to find it was for things to get stirred up. And with a calm, focused mind I’ll more easily see it.