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<\/p>\nThis post is part of a blog challenge series, 30 Days of Devotion to Hekate. \u00a0Day 2 and we are looking at how I first became aware of Hekate.<\/p>\n
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I was aware of Hekate before I was, well, aware of Her.\u00a0 It is difficult to explain really, but I know I am not the only one to have experienced this sort of thing.<\/p>\n
One day as a child, maybe 7 or 8 or 9, I am really not sure how old I was, I was reading a book of my mothers \u2013 the New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology.\u00a0 It quickly became my favourite book, and, while mum still technically owns it, it has resided with me, in my bookcase, for many years now.\u00a0 She will probably never get it back!\u00a0 Anyway, I was reading this book and came across the Goddess Hecate.\u00a0 As I read about Her I had this feeling come over me, powerful but gentle at the same time \u2013 it was like a not painful strike of lightning through my entire body.<\/p>\n
![\"Encyclopaedia](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/690\/2016\/07\/2016-07-30-21.14.24sml.jpg\")
It was weird.<\/p>\n
But this was the moment I started to pay attention to something that had been present in my life, my body, my mind even, for as long as I could remember.\u00a0 Something that wasn\u2019t me.\u00a0 But it had been there for so long I didn\u2019t realise that it wasn\u2019t part of me.\u00a0 Until after this moment, when I started paying attention and realised that it was separate and powerful. \u00a0And maybe a little bit scary. \u00a0I mean, it\u2019s not every day that you realise, Oh look there is a great Goddess influencing my life.<\/p>\n
So this is how I became aware of Hekate.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t actually immediate. \u00a0That feeling of shock and, well I guess it was recognition, it made me start paying attention \u2013 but I didn\u2019t quite become aware of what it meant\u00a0for a while yet. \u00a0But it made me pay attention and start to focus on the things that would happen, the feelings and even thoughts I would get, and so over time I became aware that they were more than I had realised.<\/p>\n
She had been part of my life for a long time before I became aware of Her.\u00a0 Once I did become aware of Her, well, I tried to get hold of as much information about Her as possible.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t easy though, I was only very little so in truth the majority of my information came from me re-reading that Encyclopaedia over and over again.\u00a0 Looking at other Goddesses from Greek mythology and other mythologies that were similar to Her and trying to build a bigger picture of Her \u2013 to try to connect to Her and get to know Her, to understand this Goddess who had claimed some part of me before I even knew who She was.<\/p>\n
It was quite some time before I was actually able to build on my knowledge of Her, beyond what I was able to glean from Her Herself.\u00a0 Years in fact before I was able to find anything on Her, and of course it came in the form of modern witchcraft, Wicca and Paganism \u2013 Crone aspect of the Triple Goddess.\u00a0 Gah.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately for me I tended to end up with all the wrong books. \u00a0I live in a small town with a small library, and it was not easy to get hold of good books \u2013 especially as a pre-teen and then teenager with little to no money! \u00a0So I ended up being influenced by things like The White Goddess (yeh, go figure I managed to find that little gem). \u00a0The fact that book was written by Graves, and my much loved Mythology Encyclopaedia had a foreword by Graves, probably didn\u2019t help matters. \u00a0Graves was obviously trustworthy. \u00a0Ha!<\/p>\n
But the truth is, I was never truly able to force myself to believe in the things all these books told me about Her. \u00a0Admittedly I did and still do like some of the things Graves discussed in the White Goddess, but I always had a bit of trouble with his talk about Hekate.<\/p>\n
So, that\u2019s my simple and weird story of how I became aware of Hekate, and how I started to learn about Her.<\/p>\n