Hecate’s Role as Harbinger of Death and Life: A Guide to the Ancient Goddess
I recently attended a wisewoman event where we connected with 6 archetypes: Spider Woman, Cailleach, Hecate, IX Chel, Baba Yaga, and Morrigan. Each Goddess had a dedicated area in the space where we could go and sit, be with, and reflect. Hecate is a Goddess that I have been connecting to for a number of years. She is associated with crossroads, doorways, cronehood, and underworld journeys. She travels with torches to guide others through darkness along with keys for transitioning thresholds and dogs for protection. Hecate supported Demeter, Goddess of Harvest, to find her daughter, Persephone. Persephone had been abducted to the underworld by Hades. With Demeter in grief, the world withered, crops died, and the land became barren and hard. Hecate supported Demeter to find her daughter and became Persephone’s companion on her journey to and from the underworld, supporting the life, death, and rebirth process as a psychopomp.
Within Hecate’s space lay a coffin. I spent some time laying in the coffin reflecting on the cycles of life and death. It was truly an honour and privilege to have had the opportunity to lie down in what will be, for many of us, our final resting place. It struck me that many of us do not know what it feels like to lie in a coffin and yet dying is an event that will happen to all of us. My grandmother shares the story of an uncle within my ancestry who was a Carpenter and Undertaker. He made his own coffin which he kept in his workshop and his children would help to wash and dress the bodies of the deceased. It feels like a culture so far removed from our modern-day relationship with death. What would life be like if we nurtured the dead in such an intimate way? If we created our own final resting place? If we created our coffin, shroud, or casket as a ritual and honouring of this life and this vessel that allows us to experience it?
The chattering of folk echoed around me as I lay there which enabled me to experience what it might be like at my own funeral. This brought me closer to questions around how do I want to live? How do I want to be remembered? Who will be at my funeral? Am I living the life I want to live and what really matters to me? Am I at peace with who I am? But ultimately, not to take it all too seriously, don’t forget to love, to laugh, and let life in. The coffin brought me closer to my humour, as I laid there, I argued to myself at the injustice of not having a cushion for my skull and how I will ensure that in death I am comfy and have a cushion!
Listening to death and tending to my grief has brought me closer to life. Closer to the humbling acceptance that we are all in the same boat, every being on this earth will cease to exist and that we all have in common. There is no status, role, salary, or religion that can change that. Since attending the wisewoman event I have started attending a bereavement and loss group, a grief circle, and I have started putting plans together for my own funeral. Some things are important to me, such as no embalming which is highly toxic and eco-friendly coffins…who knows, maybe I’ll make my own. Ultimately, I want to return to the earth without poisoning her. She has graced my life abundantly and my body is my final gift to her.
🌙 Embracing life’s cycles - birth, death, and rebirth - calls for deep presence and compassion with ourselves.
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Counselling, Psychotherapy, Supervision & Breathwork in Huddersfield & Online UK
By Melissa Rose Spencer | Creative & Somatic Counsellor, Psychotherapist, Supervisor & Breathwork Coach in Huddersfield | Online UK & Internationally
Photo: Cali White