Hecate symbolizes the potency of the Night.

Magic and mystery?... oh yes.

Liminal spaces between realms?....definitely.

Hecate embodies the power that arises in darkness.

The dark.

A loaded concept reminiscent of night light necessity. Even as full fledged graawn ups, we are still afraid of the dark.

This deep seated fear spirals out in many conscious and unconscious ways. Turning on the aforementioned night light takes the edge off the plunge into the dark, so does watching your series in bed on your laptop, so does scrolling IG hard into the wee hours. Fear or what we can’t see, and addiction to stimulation are two sides of the same coin.

Here’s the deal though, our bodies need the dark. The day, with all of its demands and stimulation needs a counterbalance of night, darkness and turning inward.

Circadian rhythm: the rhythm of our trip around the sun.

Our hormones- as in the messengers that see to all the business in our bods (not just sexual function!) are are taking major cues from the forces of the sun and the moon. Go against the cosmic tide, and you’re little messengers get frazzled. If we are looking at our phones or laptops into the late evening, the blue light of our devices suppress the sleep inducing hormone melatonin, which keeps our activating hormone, cortisol, chugging away.

When we don’t honor our need for the dark we are instead, unknowingly stoking the fires of stress in our bods.

Darkness is what allows us to sleep in a way that repairs us; darkness let’s our bodies and our minds process. We can even be awake in the dark and receive her benefits. Shut down that screen a couple hours before bed as an offering to the goddess.

Our invocation of Hecate is a prayer for counterbalance of the perpetual, electronic light that keeps us from the deep dark states we need to access our magic.

For some assistance….

The potency and efficacy of Lavender is unfortunately underrated and underappreciated. Often, it is the things which are in plain site that come to be the most profound teachers... such is mos definitely the case with Lavender.

Lavender, a plant who supports relaxation and calmness in the physiological sense, also holds some keys to the dark state of magic and mystery. Lavender is a non-binary plant, spacious and dynamic enough to contain what seems to be opposite. Lavender calms by making spaaaaaaaace, cosmic endless space, full of room to simply be.

So how’s this?.....FIRST, POWER DOWN THAT DE-VICE- phew....

Drink a cup of lavender and chamomile (another underrated badass gramama plant) tea an hour before bed, while soaking in a warm tub with a few drops of Lavender essential oil. Once emerged from the bath, get yourself cozy, write down some intentions for your dreamtime, spritz a few mists of Dream Weaver, hit the lights and descend into darkness.