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.