Artemis donned a short hunting tunic called the khitone while the Maenads draped fawnskins over a krokotos, a saffron robe. Like the crocus flower, which blooms in early spring amid storms and moody skies, these goddesses were beacons of hope in otherwise dire situations.

D. J. Conway described Hecate as a lunar, chthonic deity who steered a dragon-drawn chariot. As a triform Goddess, she ruled the Above, the Below, and the earthen kingdom of mortals. She embodied the moon's dark phase and all three faces of the holy trinity, and therefore, the number 3 was sacred to her. Numerologically, this number suggests wholeness and completion, and creates a triangle, a symbol of the goddess that links her to the voces magicae and the realm of magical words.

The voces magicae are a series of encrypted phrases and characters found in spells from the Greek Magical Papyri and other ritual texts. This archaic code is vast and mostly indecipherable, and it includes the six Ephesian Letters - askion, kataskion, lix, tetrax, damnameneus, and aision (aisia) - as well as palindromes, symbols, seals, nonsensical words, abstract glyphs called charaktēres, and geometric shapes including triangles, squares, and wings. Sorita d’Este says that while we cannot say with certainty that the Ephesian Letters were connected with Hekate, it seems likely. Their first known appearance was in a Mycenaean inscription from the fifth century BCE that read:

“The Ephesian vengeance was sent down. Firstly, Hecate harms the belongings of Megara in all things, and then Persephone reports to the gods. All these things are already so.”

Although modern Hecatean lore draws on Greco-Roman cosmology to illuminate her story, this goddess’s roots reach back to much older kingdoms. Hecate’s roots are far-reaching and creative in nature. Creativity has always been a spell of the goddess and (some suggest) a key to immortality.

Merlin Stone discusses Hecate’s generative influence in her book, Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood, writing:

“Mother of the Heka, the magical power of the Word, She who holds the moon’s magnetic reins on ancient magic spells, was known first in the Nubian tongue. Sacred Goddess Heqit, Ancient Goddess Hekat, Oldest of the Old, amphibian being that swims in the water, yet walks upon the dry land, was the magical essence of Isis. She whom all of Egypt called upon, summoning Her from the land of Africa to do her wondrous works—for the emanations of the Heh Ka, the mighty energies of a million hearts, are contained within Her. Holy Enchantress, Mother who brings birth and rebirth, forever renews the cycle of existence—as the frog brings forth the tadpole, as the tadpole turns to frog, so Hekat guides the transformations, giving power to the spoken word of sacred incantation.”

Starting on October 30th, join Pointy Hat Press co-founders Caitlyn Holowaty-Barone and Kristin Lisenby for a three-week art workshop and ritual in intuitive art-making and creative mediumship! Cloaked in the mysteries of the Samhain season, participants will gather around the virtual candle for a collective psychic experiment, using art as a doorway into the creative unconscious and crafting art altars for Hecate, the Mother of Witches.

This workshop explores mythical and occult symbolism, mediumistic art-making methods, and triplicity in magick and artistic composition. Over three weeks, our coven will create mixed-media triptychs (tri-formed altar pieces) informed by the Hecatean language shaping our personal lives and our collective experience together.

This series invites artists of all levels to divine with their unconscious material through collective and spontaneous art-making methods. No experience is needed, just a blank page, a curious heart, and a desire to venture beyond the physical veil.