Hectate

I know Nancy signed her name to this blog, but mind you she wouldn’t be speaking today if it wasn’t for me—Hectate. I’ve been at her side all her life, but she didn’t notice me. She was sweet, nice and very helpful.

A few years ago I took hold of her ovaries, woke her up and she’s been rising every since.

Let me introduce myself. Straight-laced as Nancy was, she always had her little flare so she messed with my real name. When she first noticed me, she thought I was Hestia, the goddess of the home and the sacred fires. Nope. I was Hecate, wild goddess of crossroads like birth and death—those big paradoxes that make most humans quake in their boots. As much as her Texas roots have embarrassed Nancy, she was clear that I was the sort of strong-willed woman she recognized, like Sue Tipps Mathys, her native Texan mother. And, good as she is with words, she’s a lousy speller. My Greek name is Hecate. Nancy called me “Hectate.”

That works for me. All I wanted to do was to wake up good girl Nancy, light the flame of her heart and send her strong and clear into the world. Women have been on the sidelines for far too long. These midnight times for our Earth—the planet, people and creatures—are hopeless without the rising of feminine wisdom. Nancy’s always had that, but it was tamed and flimsy.

I like women who stand up and take charge. Women who lasso the lies of our culture and fan the flames of clarity. You women have been fed a pack of lies that now bounce around in your head. Quit hating your body, trying to fit into an airbrushed ideal. Life is too short and you are too beautiful.

Start thinking with your heart and your gut. All of that good head learning you got in school is still there, but balance it with your body’s smarts. Quit limping around with just part of your clarity.

Life isn’t a forced march. Quit trying to do everything all at once. Listen for what is yours to do next, then do it. Simple as pie.

Smash any box that tries to contain you or your thinking. Life is always bigger, broader, deeper. Keep the boundary of your heart soft and subtle so it can grow and grow and grow.

Remember what we are all here for—to live justly, joyfully and equitably—to build a world for ourselves today and generations yet to come. Keep your focus there.

Let your emotions flow. Anger. Delight. Sadness. Joy. Grief. Disappointment. They all have something to tell you. Ride their waves; dive deeply underneath to see the treasures they hold. Then let them go and act from the wisdom they gave you.

Pay attention. Quit being disrespectful in your words and stop tolerating disrespect from others. Check out your assumptions. Honor yourself and the others enough to treat everyone with respect.

Drop those scales over your eyes. Your experience isn’t everyone’s experience. Jump outside your own skin regularly and listen carefully. We can learn from the world’s diversity.

Be too much. Too loud. Too excited. We need to be respectful of those around us, but holding it in all the time leads to a constipated life.

Know who you are—the stuff you love about yourself—and do well. Your questions. Your burps. Your “good” and “bad” habits. Wrap your arms around the whole shebang. Then there is no need to be reactive or offended when someone says something about you. Either it is true or not true. You know. Quit quaking in your boots.

Sometimes you say or do something that looks like the messed up behavior in our crumbling world. We have millennium of crazy behaviors around stuff like money, skin color, genitalia, brain smarts and religion that has seeped into us all. When you get caught, notice it then change. When it just looks familiar to that smelly stuff, but isn’t, know the difference and keep moving forward.

Maybe you weren’t as far gone as Nancy was. Either way, I hope my little tidbits were helpful.

Now I’ll let Nancy say a few words.

Hectate came and never left. In my wildest imagination, I’ve always wanted to stand with billions rising for justice. Hectate stepped in and used her kick-ass ways to teach me how to do that in every cell in my body. Thank you, Hectate.

I am grateful to Hedgebrook for posting this blog on their website in February 2014. I love their byline– “Hedgebrook supports visionary women writers whose stories and ideas shape our culture now and for generations to come.” It is what our world needs now.

I’ve already come out of the closet as someone who listens for the voices of my ancestors, the moon, rocks and water, and then writes down what I hear. So I suspect you won’t be surprised to find out that I take dictation from other voices, too.

The process of listening for truths that lie within and underneath historical facts has taught me to value a different, feminine kind of knowing—one that can’t be documented or diagrammed or proved. One that doesn’t need to be. What a relief! What a joy!

In the middle of a hot August week, I decided to apply this process to myself and listen for what might be underneath the facts and figures of my own life.

I didn’t have to wait long. Silenced parts of myself bubbled right up in the language of myth.

Lordy, here we go again. I squirmed in my chair, thinking of all my laundry that really needed to be washed right now, and the dishes …

But since I’d been here before, this time I knew what to do:

Ignore my distracting chore list.

Shut up my protesting that this was crazy.

Lie down on my couch.

Listen.

Then dash to my computer and begin to write.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, a wild girl was born onto this planet. She was made of flesh and blood all right, but she was also made of fire and water.

I laughed. Maybe blasting through life with the power of a steam locomotive wasn’t the worst thing in the world. My myth continued.

Men drilled through the earth’s crust, through the hard shale and into the gas-filled rock. Black oil and bubbly gas burst through the earth’s surface, into the wild girl’s feet. Scorching, fiery black gold, red blood and shimmering gas bursting with the power of the Spirit shot through her from toe to head.

The Beverly Hillbillies TV show of my childhood had called oil “Texas tea,” and here it was flowing right through me. While I’d resisted my Texan origins in my fact-based life, in this story, being born on Texas soil sounded mighty fine. No wonder I’d struggled with feeling boiling mad—the miracle was that I hadn’t burnt to a crisp.

Luckily, however, as the earth’s flaming blood pumped into her veins, cool water fell into her eyes from the heavens above. This same water once filled the ancient seas. These rains filled her body, mixing with the earth’s oily blood in her veins. It was not a gentle mixing as steam poured out of her ears.

Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to soaking in the tub when I need to center myself. Or part of the reason Community Wholeness Venture’s foot washing ritual was so powerful for me. And why I loved the process of anointing the land with a different sort of oil and imagined it combining with the living water of Jesus.

As my myth unfolded, so did the extraordinary qualities of my steam girl self—I had eight eyes and was born riding high in my little red boat.

While she loves her own legend, this steamy, many-eyed girl wants to know about you. Not the boring resume stuff. Something juicy, too real for mere facts. A good story, a deep myth.

You think you don’t have one?

Nonsense.

Tell your skeptical mind to go outside to play and start listening.

Have your pen and notebook or keyboard ready, and hold on. It’s quite a ride to see yourself this way.

You just might discover some parts of yourself that you’ve tried so hard to change are the very parts that give you character. Within myth, quirks and foibles spice up life rather than spoil it.

As you explore, don’t forget to dive deeply into the mystery that is you. Let the fun begin.

I tell more of her/my fantastical story in Big Topics at Midnight. Or, if you want to other tasty morsels about this wild ride of waking up and more deeply engaging in life, explore, poke around my website. She’ll be there, along with Hectate and some ancestors showing up with words, videos and pictures.

Tag: Hectate

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Eight-Eyed Steam Girl—That’s Me