Hekate's Hearth - Puerto Rico

Dear Blacky,

My sister, Rosie, and I sent 3 bags of food to Puerto Rico in the wake of the hurricane.  Below is a picture of the bags of food, along with my toes and the bottom third of our spinning stripper pole.

Giving away food.

No, I don't mean "dance pole, used for exercising".  I mean my sister was a stripper and it's for stripping exercises.  I've used it too.  It's for stripping.  Some dancing is involved.  Mostly the removal of clothing in a slow and sensual manner.  Stripping.

We also sent 5 bags of clothing.

We're generous, right?  Yes, we are.

Sort of.

You see, we had these clothes already in the hall ready to give away.  They don't fit or, in my sister's case, are stained and she no longer wanted them.  In my case, they were old hat from a time when I had just moved into this state, having fled the oppression of the South, and was finally allowed to buy clothing for myself.  I've come to not really like what I bought.  Back then it was fine, but now not so much.

As for the food, it was mostly leftover cans of stuff from the food bank that we have had sitting around for well over a year and had not eaten.  A holy f*ck ton of kidney beans, cranberry sauce, tomatoes of all kinds, and boxes of pasta that a co-worker gave me but that I will honestly never eat now that I know how to make it from scratch.

I'd have sent bags and bags of pasta too if I had not already opened them and resealed them into jars and mylar bags.

You see, this was the remains of my emergency backstock.  Herein lies the giving part, at least on my end:

I had been keeping this food around for emergencies.  It's been sitting on my shelf waiting to be made into gooey baked pasta dishes, or hearty chilies, or as a random dressed up side.  Eventually, it would all have been eaten.  I collected and kept it all from a food bank in town that I stopped going to when I wound up with way more canned and jarred goods than I had room for on the shelves.

The problem arose when I moved into a place that was too small to hold all of this excess food AND store all of my other items.  So I stopped going to the food bank and started just eating it.  My grocery trips have been short and small on the budget because of how much flour, rice, beans, and canned meats I still had at home.  I didn't eat a lot of fresh vegetables, but I almost always got fresh fruits.

Then it turns out I still wasn't going through it fast enough.  My sister moved back in and took half the space that was already too small.  So the food wound up in the drawers of my captain's bed, and on the shelves of my closet.  Originally it had all been on the shelves of the guest closet (her room now) so it all had to move.

Going to sleep with 10 tins of tomatoe paste, 3 jars of cranberry sauce and 23 cans of kidney beans smiling down on you is as weird as having a toilet located 10 feet from your bed.

En suit bathrooms are a no-go for me in the future.  It's too strange that the steam can only vent into your bedroom after you leave the shower.  That much water has no business being that close to my bed, and the toilet (as mentioned) is far-far too close to me at all times.

Anyway.

I started planning to just get rid of the food by regifting it to co-workers.  Occasionally someone brings some things, like the boxes of Roni in the pictures, and gives it away.  My plan was to take a bag full of food to work and leave it there till it's all gone, and then bring another bag once it's empty.

The part of this that has anything to do with being a Hearth Witch is my connection to Hekate.  Hekate is a Titan, not a Goddess, and She is the matron of the downtrodden.  Those on the fringes of society who need help and usually arn't getting it.  Homeless.  Wanderers.  Vagabonds.  Oftentimes Me.

Years ago, after recieving a dream from Hekate, I came to an understanding that I should help those who need help more.  I played around with the idea of a charity that I'd call 'Hekate's Hearth' where those exact people who live on the edges of society could come and get some help.  Sometimes it would be a bed, sometimes food, sometimes an ear to listen.  Nothing formal.  Nothing official.  Just a helping hand.  Maybe even some repair work.

The idea is that there are not enough Pagan charities out there.  Not ones that are actively pagan, who have a Matron they honor, and whose community and recipients know it's in honor of a non-patriarchal deity.  Not in the same way as some charities are just named after or in honor of a deity, but who actually honor a deity, with an altar where people can leave offerings and everything.

Hekate is a deity who rules in the dark half of the year.  Yes, She can rule anytime and is in all times, but She and Her dog like to be out when it's dark and thus They are associated with the dark half.  That being said, this is the time of the year when people are instructed to be given anyway.  I've never thought of pseudo-Christian holidays as instilling a sense of giving in anyone as they tend to be all about receiving, receiving, receiving.

Yet since the year of that dream, I am having more and more urges to donate and give to charity in the name of Hekate.  To honor Her.  To in some way make Her Hearth a thing that brings any type of warmth to those seeking light and shelter or any type from any type of cold.  To spread the love and light around a bit.

To polish my corner of the world.

Or in this case Puerto Rico.

So while my sister may have been giving these bags of food to her office to put with the rest being shipped down, they were actually all from me and all in the name of Hekate and to honor Her as matron of those who are destitute and in need.  The clothing was half hers, but the half that was mine was all in very wearable condition and most only 2-3 years old.

Today I honored Hekate by spreading the light and love of Her heart out around the world.  May every can of beans light a will to rise above in all who consume it and may every skirt be worn to dance the joy of seeing the situation inprove every day.

In Hekate's honor,
Sesh
Priestess of the Hearth

Learning From and About Deities through Dreams

Dear Neophyte,

I vowed to try to find out more about my personal pantheon yesterday, starting again with Hecate. I think it's very important every once in a while to go back over the legends and such just to remember why you fell in love with Them in the first place. Hecate came into my life several time but I never understood the symbols till recently. As a child I had black dogs appearing in my dreams every now and again, which I now associate with Hecate, though Her dog is female and I get the distinct impression the one from my dream was male.

He smells Beggon-Strips!

I could just be wrong about either the gender or the association as well. One even told me it's name, though I won't repeat that hear for obvious reasons. The internet has nill to say about the name (it's a corporation name, but nothing in mythology). I still had all these pages pulled up when I shut down my computer yesterday (Ubuntu/firefox is wonderful that way!).

"It's called studying.  Trying it sometime!"

Thoth is the real reason for this resurgence in Deity research, as I promised Him an altar if certain circumstances are met and they were met so now I have an altar to a Neteru that I only know smatterings of lore about. Not to say I'm lazy but when praying for smarts one goes to a intelectual deity in the pantheon you are most familiar with so I went Egyptian > Brain Power > Thoth. He also helped come through on helping me get job in exchange for certain things which I am unable to provide at this time. I don't know if His role is temporary or permanent in my personal pantheon but once I get to learning about Him (and introducing myself formally) I intend to ask.

Fun dream to detail!

1st part:

I was at a New Seasons in Tennessee. An older homeless man (filling out every stereotype of the kind) had a pit bull puppy on a 2 foot long chain. In my mind I knew the puppy was going to spend the rest of it's life on the end of the chain unless someone got it away form the homeless man. I also though that the only reason the man wanted it was because it was a pit bull. Even though I was going to leave it alone I felt like I was being watched and judged for how I would react to seeing this obvious wrong.

Hecate loved your first, ingrate!

I go into the market and find a manager to inform of the situation. After telling her what is going on she acts like it's no big deal. So I detail the laws in Tennessee saying you can't chain a dog up unless it's on your own front lawn (which I don't know if I was making that up or believed it in the dream). The woman then walks outside to do something about the situation. As she walks away I hear a voice, which I don't know if it's my subconscious or the woman or the “narrator” say, “I'll go do what you should have done.”

Then the cat starts yowling outside my door, in reality.

It's 10:00 on the dot, feed meeEEEEEeeee!

As I'm waking up I hear a voice tell me, “Menet, the Everyday Woman's (tm) mouse goodess!” My immediate first semi-conscious though is, “I wonder what Renennutet has to say about that...” Seeing as Ren is the snake goddess of Egypt who is worshiped for protecting the harvest from mice. My second fully conscious though is to wonder if goddesses ever squabble because their earthly familiars eat each other.

Dream interpretation time!

Menet, Necklace Sacred to Hathor

So I looked up “menet”, “Mouse goddess of egypt” (and every variation of that phrase), “renenutet” and the like. From what I can see “menet” is not the name of a Goddess, but is the name of the necklace that is sacred to Hathor (who is a cow/lion headed goddess instead of a mouse). There is no internet information about any mouse-headed deities in Egypt, though I could have sworn I saw one mentioned somewhere and even remember seeing one pictured somewhere.

Honor me with wine, for I keep the harvest safe.

Renenutet is, of course, the snake goddess associated with protecting the harvest from mice. Her alternate form is also the Goddess Sakmet, who has a lion's head. Not sure what any of this has to do with each other but I'm still on the search.

Sakmet, Hathor when She's Pissed

Hathor, With Cow Ears

 

Dogs are Sacred to Hecate

While I was opening up loads of tabs for this search I started closing tabs from the previous days searching about Hecate and in doing so I remembered reading that She is the protector of those who live on the fringe of society... who's sacred animal are dogs. The realization that the first part of the dream, about the homeless man with a dog, may have been from Hecate shocked me. My judgmental attitude (even in my dream thinking this man fit the stereotype of homeless animal abuser too well) may have been being called into check. Perhaps Hecate was telling me that I cannot offer thanks to Her and insult those under Her protection in the same day. I've been encountering a lot of homeless people in Portalnd lately but I don't give them anything because even in Nashville they are able to take care of their entire homeless population so well that they now put out signs saying, “Don't feed the homeless, they already eat better than you!”

Don't look down on someone unless your helping them up.  Don't look back at someone unless you're guiding them.

Perhaps this is Hecate's call to me to be more charitable to those in need. I've been feeling rather greedy lately and I catch myself and though my greed doesn't escape outward, I do little to quell the feeling internally as well. This has lead to a greed deal of unbalance inside. I think but I don't say. I say what I don't believe. This has to stop. If I know something is imbalanced, and my job is to uphold Ma'at, then I need to internalize that understanding, not just have a superficial, outwardly showing. I think perhaps Hecate is telling me to reevaluate my greed and stereotypes. Like the voice said, “I'll go do what you should have done.” I should have done something for the old man, starting with giving him the benefit of the doubt. 

Volunteer Match, Website for Volunteers 

I still don't know what the Egyptian names in my dream mean but I'm pretty sure I have Hecate's partially figured out.  That, and all of them have snakes in common!

Salutations,

Sesh

P.S. All pictures except the meowdling cat are courtacy of google image search.  The cat in the picture is the exact cat who woke me up at 10 and interrupted my divine dreaming.

Amendment: Perhaps I heard wrong and the name that was said was Meret instead of Menet.  It's only a letter difference and Meret is actually a goddess, though not of mice. Still no mice goddess.  Meret is the counterpart of Hapy and is the one who recieves all His bounty.  She is a goddess of joy, rejoicing, celebration and dance.  If it was Her in my dream, well I can see how she could be the "everyday woman's [...] goddess".  Meret is depicted with the same lotus or papyrus of upper or lower Egypt and almost always shown with an offering bowl.  Maybe my dream is telling me to stop stalling on the offerings?

Alternately I got tired of trying to find specific Egyptian mouse goddesses so I just googled "Mouse deities" and Genesh popped up.  Mostly depicted with an elephant head, He ssometimes shows up with an mouse head instead, and there is a good chance that might be where I saw the mouse headed deity.  However, I am not Hindi so this is not a path I'm willing to try to walk.  Sometimes Deity calls to us and we are FORCED to answer.  Sometimes they wave a little "you-hOOO!" and we just wave back and keep going.