I do try to make my blog entries a bit related to what is going on at Covenant. This week it’s about what’s NOT happening at Covenant, yet. The Dark Moon group. We had really started to get into a rhythm of sharing before Covid. Candle rituals, tarot cards, wishes and spells sealed with flash paper, shared rituals and the grand Inanna Ereshkigal ritual made for interesting and shared spiritual gatherings. I’ve been missing the purple lights and Heckate’s torches. I’ve been missing all of you.
If you haven’t been here and you are thinking “Dark Moon”, I thought it was called New Moon. For my practice, there is a time when the moon is completely dark, neither waning nor waxing. It is a time of potential, it is the cusp, of what only you know.. And then, there is a tiny sliver of a moon, the New Moon, that signals the beginning of the new lunar cycle and the time to act.
So let’s just do it. November 4th at the Hall, the post Covid Dark Moon group will begin. Let’s say 7:00pm. If that’s too early or late, and you want to come/plan to come, let me know. Helios runs behind the foothills earlier and earlier so we should have a nice amount of darkness. If no one comes, I’ll light candles and continue my relationship with my divination cards and I’ll try again in December. Come with ideas. Bring your own candle if you want. We’ll figure out something. It is the group’s Dark Moon, what’s left of the year is when we imagine our future.
That said, I decided that perhaps I would try to tell you about how I became the keeper, the priestess, if you like, of the Dark Moon. There are so many ways to look at the Dark Moon, things to do or not do, Goddesses to get to know, or at least know about. And most of all, for me, the facing of fears in the Dark that has created me. Probably a boring auto-biography but you will know more about me and how the Dark Moon became a strong part of my practice. I came to the Dark Moon slowly. It is a little daunting to be a solitary practitioner in a small-lot suburban neighborhood of two story houses. My backyard is visible to anyone who wants to look and a full moon shines so brightly that my various cats could join me because I could see them. Without anyone to share the joy and energy of a full moon with, my life encouraged me to find Dark Moon power.
For most of my adult life I have dealt with undiagnosed Bipolar disorder. (Three cheers of Mountain Crest and Lithium) Who knew why I was energetic and happy and suddenly in a paralyzing pit of despair. The downs were far more intense than the short lived ups. Too often I found myself in a place I came to call The Abyss, a lonely and deadly place of inescapable darkness. And one day I thought to myself something along the lines, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” by looking at living a new way.
Stop trying to be the sun, stop being the day, stop doing rituals in the bright moon light that hampered my ability to relax. “Turn and face the strange” as David Bowie once sang. So I turned and I found the Dark Moon standing there waiting to embrace me and show me a different kind of darkness. Because if you want to be there, in the Darkness, it’s a whole different story. Sure it still hurt but there was so much to do with the darkness. If I was in it, I needed to understand how to live there, not just exist. I started going on walks after 10pm at night. And the first thing I felt was an enormous easing of my stress level. There were less cars, less noise. But more than that, I had not realized that without the people, the cloud of feelings and energy that bombard sensitive people would lessen.
I found Lilith and she made me brave and strong. My practice became stronger, my intentions clearer, and my faith in the powers of the universe intensified. I had/have a miniature set of tools – a cauldron, a 2 inch athame, a chalice fit for a hamster, and stones a plenty. This is great for anytime work and in the house work when it is cold or raining on Dark Moon night. Spells brought results more frequently. I found more peace and learned to face fears and perhaps hide from them and feel good about being safe.
I don’t mean I hid from the fear as in avoiding it or not looking at it. I mean walking through the fear with enough protection to feel safe. And here comes the black clothes. When I walked at night away from my neighborhood I was constantly aware that I was a vulnerable prey animal. I trusted the darkness to hide me but trust is something that asks something from you so I wore black head to toe. This meant being aware of not only potential threats, but that I was invisible and to stay away from cars.
I liked it, the shield of darkness and I began to use the same powers of protection in my clothing to keep the emotional and psychological influences on me in a lesser state. Shields up, so to speak. Which helped me be more relaxed in casual situations.
Now I have walked into the gentle darkness of the moon, a darkness more powerful and helpful than the darkness of the Abyss that I used to live in, against my will, in danger of death. Going outside at night to sit or practice is a sensation like easing into a hot bath, like being held by the universe or a caring goddess of the night.
My love of the Dark Moon and the Goddesses that call it home was sealed under a starry sky, during a shooting star night of the Perseid meteor shower in August 2018. My mom used to get sick a lot and what she got always seemed to last forever. I felt like she was always coming down with something, being sick, and making a slow recovery that impaired her life. My mom can be a thorn in my side but I worried. I began a project under the full moon (see, I live my lunar life backwards sometimes) of harvesting herbs or buying herbs associated with healing. It seemed like a crazy idea. I didn’t want to make her sick with some untested potion, I couldn’t let her know that what I made for her was laced with magic, so I decided on a candle.
The herbs dried, then I put them in wax and under the waning quarter moon I cast a circle and did a ritual as the wax and herbs boiled over a small fire. (I kinda felt like a MacBeth witch), all the while seeking Lilith’s power. And the wax potion, a small thing like starter sourdough, sat in it’s magic for a week. At the Dark Moon, it was time. I took it all outside, the wax, the jar, the wick, the herbal magic. And I thought, “No offense Lilith, but this needs to be big, who else can come? Hekate fell out of some book. I guess she wasn’t worried that this was our first date. I surely did not know what a regal and powerful queen I had summoned.
And all the neighbors were outside. Lanterns and fires and grills, and dogs. But I realized they were all there to watch the meteor shower. It’s funny but I think the energy those seekers of falling stars put out over the backyards perhaps joined the magic. It took awhile to melt the wax which gave me time to do a longer ritual and then sit and watch the meteors. Lilith and Heckate, and you have to think that Perseus energy (slayed Medusa) was also there. Melted wax mixes with magic herbal wax. Candle is poured into a used glass candle holder that had a silver cross on it. And after all was said and done, I told my mom to light the candle and pray for herself, not just other people, which was a novel idea for her. I have often thought that there is a great deal in common between a prayer and a spell. So it burned sparsely and I think she got to a place of believing just having it lit was like a prayer for herself.
My mom got sick this week. She can’t seem to kick it. But she never got Covid. She never got sick again until this week. August 2018 to October 2021. I do not doubt the incredible power of Hekate, keeper of the keys of the three realms, bearer of torches to protect and light the way. The only person who travels even into the underworld and out again without the help of Zeus. A goddess of the dark lower realms who visits Persephone but is powerful enough to leave. She, I imagine, was the power in the darkness which welcomed me when I first turned and decided to find life in the darkness.
I am not Morticia Adaams, but perhaps a grown up Wednesday, finding strange, dark things to be interesting and not frightening, who is curious why anyone would find the life which has a dark tinge to be weird. It just is. The darkness of the Abyss is often blotted out by the more powerful and positive darkness that, for me, is symbolized by all the things the Dark Moon has to offer. So when you see me in black or watch me enjoy ritual under a dark sky you will know it is the most positive magic I have ever brought into my life.
See you November 4th.
In the meantime I’ll be collecting herbs and getting ready to make a candle with Hekate!
Blessings!
