The further I go on my own journey, and in my study of the different spiritual paths, the common theme is that the true gods desire only for us to experience our wholeness. They don’t want us to feel guilty for how we understand them, nor do they want us to remain stuck in spiritual kindergarten where we act only out of fear. This fear that can freeze us in place is inflicted by the powerful who impose their religion upon us. What the gods of my understanding teach is that wholeness is achieved through embracing our darkness. Moreover, it is through spiritual deathwalking that we are reborn into our wholeness. The light cannot exist without the dark. The shadow and the soul seek integration, neither can be denied. This is the lesson of the goddess, whom I experience as Hekate and as Circe, Medea and Persephone. 

Fear of turning inward is instilled in us by the powerful, who would have use believe that understanding the deeper world within and without is beyond our capabilities. They use guilt to keep us frozen in immature spirituality, with their micromanaging gods waiting anxiously to smite us down for our sins. My goddess doesn’t do guilt trips. Her desire is to lift me up so that I may be wholly in my power.

She is the force that fuels the universe, and she teaches that all must die to be reborn. Moreover, that spiritual deathwalking is an inherent part of our journey, for it is only by letting die all that no longer serves do we truly walk towards our wholeness. She encourages me to walk with other allies and spirits, never forcing me to do anything. How unlike what most religions attempt to do.

The greatest teachers show us the path from shallow lives to the depths of ourselves is through spiritual rebirth, whether it is through the great goddess Hekate’s myths or the stories about Jesus. They were deathwalkers, pointing the way through darkness to the light of the truth. Unbinding them from harmful religions that supposedly venerate them, but really only serve to keep us in spiritual kindergarten, liberates us to pursue, in trust and love, our own depths.