Goddess views from a kind of wicked witch
The other day I was asked about following Hekate and my deities. It was someone I wasn’t entirely certain with and so I gave my basic roots with Hekate and how I started answering to her. Their parting comment was: Well, I suppose it makes sense to follow a goddess who is triple by herself than having two other goddesses.
I admit, I was a bit confused, and sadly didn’t take up my soapbox at the time but it really had me thinking.
I don’t worship Hekate as the Triple Goddess in the form of maiden, mother and crone. While I acknowledge her three faces - and will get into my reasons for that on another post today - I don’t acknowledge in my own practices the paradigm of maiden, mother and crone at all. It is a limiting ideal to my beliefs that is centered around fertility rites and binary beliefs of living and not something that truly fits in with my life.
The MMC accepts that a woman’s life is defined by four things. The obvious ones are that of youthful minx/warrior, mothering fertility form, wise and withered sage. I admit those alone have always worried me for the non-fertile, the non-maternal and the aged warrior. It was something that never worked for me, who felt that She whom I follow embodies so much more than my abilities as marked by my whom.
Beyond that it enforces a paradigm that does not allow for so many variables. Transgenderism, gender fluid, gender queer, and those that are cis females and yet are not fertile. It excludes rather than invites. The classic MMC design is one of a woman’s ability to fight, to have sex, to breed, to educate, to pass on knowledge and then pass on to another world. For some that is the perfect standard, but it isn’t for all.
For some we prefer our deities to encompass all, or nothing, or somewhere in between. We seek a path that allows for devotees to come from all walks of life, and not feel they’re “wrong” because they don’t want children, can’t bear them, can’t stand them - added for the argument that I’ve often heard that “mother” can mean mothering and maternal, which not everyone is.
To steal from a favoured show, my path is not linear but sort of a wibbley woobley timey wimey thing wherein at one moment I might be firmly entrenched as a mothering figure raising my own child (Which I note, I am physically a mother and not entirely maternal as one might define it), and the next acting as a wild woman youth, running the fields and experimenting at life. Too often I find that the MMC paradigm is followed so strictly as a linear design that it is choking to me, holding me back instead of allowing me to flourish and grow.
For me Hekate is all I need to follow. No God form - which is another views from a kind of wicked witch at another time. No triple goddess in the MMC mold.
Just for the record, this isn’t against anyone who finds comfort and solace in the mmc paradigm. That’s what religion and spirituality is for, and we each must find the path that works best for us. This is merely me sharing, putting into words my beliefes and views.
I admit, I was a bit confused, and sadly didn’t take up my soapbox at the time but it really had me thinking.
I don’t worship Hekate as the Triple Goddess in the form of maiden, mother and crone. While I acknowledge her three faces - and will get into my reasons for that on another post today - I don’t acknowledge in my own practices the paradigm of maiden, mother and crone at all. It is a limiting ideal to my beliefs that is centered around fertility rites and binary beliefs of living and not something that truly fits in with my life.
The MMC accepts that a woman’s life is defined by four things. The obvious ones are that of youthful minx/warrior, mothering fertility form, wise and withered sage. I admit those alone have always worried me for the non-fertile, the non-maternal and the aged warrior. It was something that never worked for me, who felt that She whom I follow embodies so much more than my abilities as marked by my whom.
Beyond that it enforces a paradigm that does not allow for so many variables. Transgenderism, gender fluid, gender queer, and those that are cis females and yet are not fertile. It excludes rather than invites. The classic MMC design is one of a woman’s ability to fight, to have sex, to breed, to educate, to pass on knowledge and then pass on to another world. For some that is the perfect standard, but it isn’t for all.
For some we prefer our deities to encompass all, or nothing, or somewhere in between. We seek a path that allows for devotees to come from all walks of life, and not feel they’re “wrong” because they don’t want children, can’t bear them, can’t stand them - added for the argument that I’ve often heard that “mother” can mean mothering and maternal, which not everyone is.
To steal from a favoured show, my path is not linear but sort of a wibbley woobley timey wimey thing wherein at one moment I might be firmly entrenched as a mothering figure raising my own child (Which I note, I am physically a mother and not entirely maternal as one might define it), and the next acting as a wild woman youth, running the fields and experimenting at life. Too often I find that the MMC paradigm is followed so strictly as a linear design that it is choking to me, holding me back instead of allowing me to flourish and grow.
For me Hekate is all I need to follow. No God form - which is another views from a kind of wicked witch at another time. No triple goddess in the MMC mold.
Just for the record, this isn’t against anyone who finds comfort and solace in the mmc paradigm. That’s what religion and spirituality is for, and we each must find the path that works best for us. This is merely me sharing, putting into words my beliefes and views.