Sunday 20 March 2011

The Full Moon Rite

Last night, under the yellow light of the rising Super Moon, I carried out the first Full Moon Rite from the Covenant of Hekate (CoH). The Rite itself, whilst simple in its structure, is completely felxible to suit the needs of any who would carry it out, also enabling people who are away from home for instance to mark the occasion.

In a similar vein to the Rite of Her Sacred Fires, carried out globally on May 27th 2010, the Lunar energies seek to connect all us Hekateans the world over. The outcome of the Rite is to connect with those energies whilst creating some creative votive offering to Hekate - which can be as simple or elaborate as ones imagination and means allow.

As I have recently moved into the smaller room in the house with my shrines and books, the first thing I had to do was set up my worship area. I decided to employ a deep, built-in cupbaord for this which I lined with simple black fabric. Once I'd fumigated the cupboard with frankincense, myrrh and a mix I had commissioned called "Grecian Temple", I began to assemble the shrine.

I've sort of unconsciously decided that the cupboard space is primarily going to be my Hekate shrine, with slight alterations and move around to accomodate larger festival and ritual celebrations. Currently Dionysos seems perfectly contect with his smaller space and I am looking into how both He and Pan would mind if they had to become "shrine buddies" - I'll be divining on this more in the future for some answers. For the main Hekate shrine though, I included all my usual items:

~My 3 Hekate statues
~Libation bowl and jug
~Incense burner
~Red central CoH ritual candle
~Red Cord (CoH devotee ritual item)
~Ritual knife and wand
~Hekate's Wheel plaque
~Small ornaments of a skull, key and owl

I also added, my Selenite sphere as I found this to be a fitting addition for the occasion. So once I had the shrine ready, I left a stick of Hekate incense burning and went for my pre-ritual shower. Once again, stepping into the shower (just before turning the water on) my ears were met by three, deep barks from a dog outside - something I'm encountering a lot recently prior to all my Hekatean workings. Once showered, I doned my robes and stephanos (decorated for the Spring Equinox) and got ready to start the Rite.

I played Jade Sol Luna's "Hekate Nyctipolus" in the background, set myrrh resin smouldering on the burner and began. I had decided that as this was the first time I have done this particular Full Moon Rite that I would stick to it almost to the letter, only adding in the offering of a small libation of wine, but in time I'm sure I'll adapt and customise as I feel the urge and necessity. As it was, I found the whole thing to be rewarding. With the light of the moon pouring in through the window, offset only by the flicker of candles I invoked My Lady and then prepared to create my votive offering.

Two nights previous I had finally decided on which of a few ideas I would go with, and that was a decorative mask. Having all the pieces I needed to hand, I set to work. Sipping Cianti and absent-mindedly chanting along to Jade's CD I completed all the base painting and started picking out detail. Feeling that I wouldn't complete the project in a single sitting, I closed the ritual and changed out of my robes. However, with the moonlight still emmanating from high above and the warmth of the wine starting to flow in my veins, I felt compelled to continue - and so I did.

In little over 4 hours, completed the mask and hung it as a focal point at the back of the shrine, thus:

I was more than over the moon with the outcome, even though it was completely removed from the initial idea I'd had going into the ritual. The time seemed to flow really well and I didn't make hardly any mistakes. If I had to put a name to my creation then the title "Key-Bearing Queen of the Whole Cosmos" does keep springing to mind, what with the silver crescent moons in the headress, jewels and veil with accents like stars, the silver key central on the forehead and the colours of black and night blue.

May Hekate be as pleased with my offering to Her as I am to have crafted it for Her!

O Hekate Luna! Ego Reginum Triviarum Honoro!

3 comments:

  1. Hi Kenn,

    Thank you for sharing your ritual. My husband and I are also members of the covenant of Hekate. We too, were very aware of the energy that night, not only in our temple but overall with regard to the other devotees. Our votive offering was in the shape of individual prose.

    Your mask is absolutely fabulous!

    Blessings on your path.

    Dancing in Her Fires under the Stars,
    Aurora & Maponos

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  2. Thank you so much for sharing this. your mask gave me chills as I looked at and felt her pressence, beautiful! We also participated in this first full moon ritual of CoH. Like you my partner and I stuck pretty closely to the ritual as outlined. We open(cast)with a Trad circle casting, and substitute Bucca for Hekate when performing her rituals. We set out to see the moon rise over the mountain near where live prior to Hekate's ritual. It was beautiful, except that I wished I had pulled in back of another car that was there instead of in front, as they did not turn their head lights off, which prompted me to all sorts of configurations of my mirrors, well you get the picture. Anyway, We have heard the sounds of hounds at different points along our path to Hekate. Alas, not this time, but the rite while with its first time awkwardness brought us closer to our Goddess and we both recited our intial hymns used in our dedications as devotees within Coh as well as new poems we had wriiten for this devotion. Nice to know we are not alone...

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  3. Thank you both for your comments and kind words - it is so thrilling to know how CoH is bringing Hekate devotees closer together across the world!

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