Magna Mater: Hekate and The Great Mother Goddess

To see the Mother as she is, in her darkness and light. That is the image of Hekate as Pammetor, The Great Mother Goddess. To know her warm embrace and her firm corrections when we veer from the path. To give us, as John Bowlby, wrote “a secure base from which to explore the world. ”

For those of us who were denied this foundational sense of security, the journey can be untethered, as we wonder from one dysfunctional situation to another. The inherent problem, which Bowlby also describes, was that “what one cannot tell to the (m)other, one cannot tell to oneself.”

Stretching back across the centuries, we see that others venerated Hekate as The Great Mother. In the earliest reports, such as Hesiod’s Theogony, Hekate is portrayed as all powerful. This distinguishes The Great Mother from earth goddesses, which can be called “Elemental Mothers”, and The Great Mother who is source, soul, and cosmic. She is not Gaia, for example. The Great Mother, to the ancients, was life and death, blessing and bane. Nor is she merely a Goddess of Motherhood, although Hekate has always had a special interest in mothers and children. She was often described as Midwife in ancient texts.

In historical sources, Hekate is often interwoven with goddesses, as we learned in the last lesson. These triplicities formulate a Great Mother Goddess by weaving together all aspects of The Mother Archetype. With Artemis and Selene, she becomes the Wise Crone, the experienced Mother, while they represent the earlier phases of The Mother’s Journey. Hekate is also linked to other forms of the Great Mother Goddess, for example her association with Cybele, whom the Romans venerated as Magna Mater (The Great Mother).

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She is the darkness.
She is the cry of "enough."
She is the sigil written in stone.
She is the silent walking away of the betrayed.
She is the lonely raising arms to the moon.
She is the lie told to live the truth.
She is the secret circle drawing down her moon.
She is the poison that heals.
She is the bold stare into the future.
She is the blood shed to bring rebirth.
She is all those who dare to become.
She is the power that is our right.
She is The Dark Mother.
She has returned.

Lesson 4: Ancient Hekate's Many Roles - Keeping Her Keys: An Introduction to Hekate's Modern Witchcraft

From the ancient sources, we know that Hekate was a liminal goddess, standing between worlds, particularly at the threshold of life and death. She was described in many diverse ways including Mother of All, Queen, Savior and World Soul. She was viewed as the torch-bearing guide for those on nightmarish Under World journeys. Not only was she viewed as the guide along the road, but also as the way itself. The variety of the titles bestowed upon her by the ancients often appears contradictory. We need to consider two things. One is that the ancient writers held vastly divergent views of Hekate. The other is that Hekate has always been a complex goddess with multiple roles and abilities.

Many-named Goddess who brings glory to men,
Whose children are fair,
Bull-eyed One, Horned One, Nature.
All-Mother, who brings forth both Gods and men
You roam around Olympus,
And traverse the wide and fathomless abyss.
You are the Beginning and the End.
And you alone are Mistress of All. - The Greek Magical Papyri IV 2785-2890.

“We’re witnessing the end of a 5,000 year reign of patriarchy, and are coming into a society created by our technology that will be more balanced and more feminine. It’s already happening. And I think that the good news is that it’s coming just in time.”

— Leonard Shlain