Ecstatic Agendas

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^{Hekate altar, March 2023.
Author’s personal archive.} 

In my recent post “Be Not Afraid” I wrote about Time and some of the ways humans try to organize and chart it. Against the spectre of an unwieldy final piece of writing, I left some holes in the plot that have been haunting me a bit. One of the things I’d have liked to include is the concept of Planetary Hours (and the analogous Daily planetary rulerships.) 

I spent the tail end of 2021 and most of 2022 exploring this method of reckoning by applying astrological timing and lore to the physical production – and what we might call the conceptual patina – of several talismanic editions. I learned a decent amount about a subject that only a small demographic of people care about at all, and it has given me a new ontological filter to deploy upon the world when I wish.

In brief, each day of the week as well as each hour of the day is said to fall under the “influence” of one of the seven classical planets, enabling the magical practitioner to tap into a sort of neoplatonic flow of these energetic emanations that each have their own areas of influence within one’s life and self.

Mapping a study of and practice with Hekate onto this organizational system can be a matter of nuance. Since She is often seen as a lunar deity as well as a goddess of witchcraft, it is Monday, Day of the Moon, that might seem like an obvious choice. But Hekate’s history and Her place in myth link Her with many gods, localities, heroes and villians. Crowned by Saturn, lit by the Sun- in Her various exploits and appellations She is honored by Jupiter, goes forth over bloody Martial fields, and in Her many varied qualities She is as changeable as Her sometime companion Mercury. Her lineage within the canon of female deities of the ancient Mediterranean links Hekate with Venus as well as Sumerian Inanna and others- indeed, when Hekate carries Her twin torches these are often understood to be the planet Venus in it’s morning and evening glow.

This goddess has many titles and many faces, many ways of being and moving.

She is both gatekeeper and the gate itself, key and key holder, bull, wolf, horse, and flame; serpentine and spectral in Her immanence She arrives white as the moon, red as blood, black as the dirt of the grave. As patroness of thresholds, doorways, roads and paths, travelers and the lost, mistress of ghosts and dogs and restless dead, She inhabits any days and all nights. Nurturer and Devourer, Place and Placelessness. We don’t reserve our work with Hekate for a particular time, although such factors as the hour, the day, the weather, the moon’s phase, and the seasons do play a part in how I will continue to seek Her.

Returning to the principle of planetary emanations:  in this system it is supposed that an ineffable, omniscient “first principle” of Unity, beyond qualities and descriptions, descends through each planet’s sphere of spiritual influence, gaining attributes of each, until it reaches material manifestation on Earth. There are ways to work within this frame that focus on the Astrological components, as well as through ceremonial Angelic magic of the Trithemian persuasion, or within the archaic pantheon/s to which the planetary names are attached. One may approach these concepts [archetypes?] as psychological impulses within the self, or as independent spiritual entities.

Personally, I feel there is merit here in “crossing the streams”.

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Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon.

The Moon, as the “planet” closest to Earth, mediates this process of manifestation- is literally the Gate and Gatekeeper through which potential becomes actualized.

We can see then that Hekate’s lunar associations, rather than being a boundary within which our understanding of Her must be fit, make sense as (again) a threshold – a gateway – to the broader roll-call of correspondences, authorities, confrontations, and initiations inherent in Her Mysteries. Walking through this lunar portal, we access the many realms beyond.

-Jason Wallace Kamp’Triefenbach, SD HFHR. 03.27.23

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