The Moon and the Darkness

(This is a post I wrote quite a few months ago, around March. I had just finished this book, and it had made quite an impression on me. As I had experienced the passing of a loved one, my beloved grandmother, I wanted to delve more into understanding death from a Pagan perspective. Her sudden passing was very hard on me as I had never experienced death or dying before in my life. This book helped me cope with the aftermath of her passing and my grief. It also introduced me to a Goddess I had never had a connection to before- the Queen of the Night herself, Hekate.)


A few weeks ago I finally finished reading a book that I had felt drawn to for some time.
Its quite popular in our pagan circles, so I've heard, and many have read the book and garnered much healing and self-discovery from it.

"Mysteries of the Dark Moon" by Demetra George was a very profound read for me. Now it was my time to work through my own inner understanding of darkness/death in it's many forms.

Having not explored or worked with the "dark" Goddesses before, I was not fully educated on, nor aware of, the deep-rooted connection our path of spirituality has to the crone/death/end-of-cycle aspects of life and the wheel of the year.

Perhaps it is my tendency of liking the so-called "fluffy" side of Paganism that made me unable to completely appreciate and know my true perspective on the aspect of death and ending.

Throughout my learning of Wicca and witchcraft there has been much emphasis on the "new" and "full" aspects of the cyclic patterns life takes form in.

But when you reach past the beginning stages of learning about Wicca and paganism- when one begins to transition from the neophyte to a true practitioner, then you see the need and benefit of learning from the dark moon.

The dark moon, in my very humble opinion, tends to get overlooked in the practice of Wicca and witchcraft.
Perhaps it is because so many of us fear and loathe the stereotypical labels of "devil worshipper", "black magician" and "wicked witch", that Neo-Pagans unconsciously distance themselves from these "unconventional" aspects of their practice.

Now it was my time to do the same, and work through my own inner understanding of darkness/death in it's many forms.
So in order to learn and further my spiritual progress, I decided to hold an esbat honoring the dark moon.

It was a very, very intense experience, and I have had a few of those to date. This experience, however, just blew me away. The energy was very raw, and very pure, and my mind went on a very interesting journey which I will blog about very soon, but not today.
The least I will say about the entire experience is that in my meditation I met with Hekate and became one of her initiates, and for the record, I did not expect to do that at all.

Hekate, by the way, was awesome.