Dark Moon, Dark Offering

The dark moon is a liminal time for Hekatean witches, the darkness signaling the end and the beginning of a lunar month. The ancients celebrated this time by leaving offerings at the crossroads to Hekate, but as a modern practitioner I choose to recognize that I am made up of the same crossroads. I am born of it, I am liminal, and I am her child. The best offering is one in which I offer up those personal ways of being that stand between me and my own wholeness, sovereignty, and my ability to stand in my power.

The Work of the Witch

I do the work of the Witch. It never ends. I am ignited by the internal alignment and realignment, the awakening, the reclaiming, and I have been working at honoring my own sacredness in the darkness as it rises into my consciousness. Honoring my sacredness also honors Hekate, my Dark Mother, and where I meet my own darkness is the womb from which great things are born.

The Darkness

Over the last month leading up to the dark moon, I became aware of this weight upon my soul. It appeared first in my shoulder and my back. It was painful and tight and heavy. It was like an invisible presence. This presence of something that did not belong took me longer to figure out because it had manifested at first with a physical pain before I became of aware of it within my internal dialogue.

Sneaky sneaky, right?

This was something I was physically feeling, but not saying out loud. I had been unconsciously carrying it while saying it to myself. Extracting it further, I noticed my outward actions in the last few years are also a sign. Once it was revealed to me, I felt the full weight of it upon me. It felt like a 3-ton rock I have been carrying around on my back forever and I knew I needed to give it as my offering for the dark moon.

Should

That word is so heavy. ‘Should’. That has been an ever-present, dark, deep, and binding word for me. It has kept me chained up to ideals that do not serve me. I am over here carrying this ‘should’ like it is my greatest feat of this lifetime because it carries with it the learned beliefs from my entire sphere of influence.

You know, all the people that I want to be proud of me. To say I was the one in my family that did something with her life.

All the ‘should’ and none of the actual, authentic, and true heartspace passion I already carry within. It is the “what I am is not good enough because I ‘should’ be __________.” Dark, right?  It is not enough to just offer up my 3-ton rock of ‘should’. That is not how this work of the witch works. I need to examine it. Find the source of where and how it got so heavy.

Go Deeper

I learned all of these ‘shoulds’ and somewhere along the way I consented to believing in them. From my parents, my friends, societal norms, the ‘should’ is everywhere. It drives both my internal dialogue and my actions. Going deeper into the layers of this rock, chipping away at it, I find more darkness. ‘Should’ implies that whatever is here ‘should’ be something else. Something better. Something more. That what I should be doing, what and who I should be, the direction my life should be taking, is not here. ‘Should’ is when my focus is not now, my focus is where I should be, what I should be doing, and what I should be grateful for.

Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to be grateful, I mean deep in the joyous, humbling, loving, connected, and exasperating feeling of pure gratitude when it comes from a place of ‘should’?

The Center of the Stone

‘Should’ is found when I give away my power and the ability to experience fulfillment in any form. I give the power and feeling of fulfillment over to the expectations of what I perceive to ‘not be’ where I desire it. This is based on the beliefs that I have been programmed with. Not reaching those perceived ‘shoulds’ leave me feeling:

• Shame
• Guilt
• Less than
• Powerless
• Caged
• Lost
• Frustrated
• Burnt out
• Unavailable
• Resentful
• Angry

What do all of these feelings have in common? They are effective at keeping us all paralyzed and stuck, doing everything in our power to find fulfillment, the meaning of our lives, success, and happiness but it comes from an untruth. It is coming from the expectations of others, what success looks like for others, what fulfillment and happiness looks like to others, the dreams of others, and I recognize how I have spun my wheels in a thousand ways for thousands of days on what all of those things ‘should’ look like. No wonder it is so heavy!

The Offering

When I journeyed to my inner temple to lay this ‘Rock of Should’ at the altar as the offering, I took a dragon ally with me. In this journey, Hekate picked this rock up and placed it back in my hands while calling my dragon to her and advising my dragon that should I choose to not put this down on the altar entirely, with everything involved in its creation, that is considered my consent to be burnt to ash where I stand. And she walked away.

Wait, what?

Later that night I dreamt of Lachesis, in my office, pointing to a specific place on the thread of what I assume to be my life. This specific point began to weave into a beautiful spiral reaching outwardly and she laughed and told me to be aware this was coming. To be prepared. I saw myself sitting at my desk, frantically typing, creating spreadsheets, but I was so full of my own desire to create and to be. My eyes were glowing, the fiery rose of creation coming through them. It was the most beautiful experience of becoming after the threat of being turned to ash. To be honest, it was the fire that I needed to make some changes in my own life so here and now are fulfilling, happy, and I continue to be full of gratitude for what already is.

What are you prepared to offer for your life of passion and truth?

A candle and a key,

Kaycee

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