Don’t Make Me Go Circe on Your Ass..
To be perfectly frank, I didn’t know much about Circe, the daughter of Hekate, before joining an online coven ran by Cyndi Brannen known as Keeping Her Keys, an online modern coven dedicated to the Greek/Turkish Goddess Hekate. I honestly did not know how much I had in common with this ancient goddess who was abandoned at birth, rejected by her biological parents, sent into exile, and made the most of her dire circumstances only to become a mother and lose her beloved child.
When I grew up in my adopted family, I didn’t identify with the people that were in my family. I was not isolated on a remote island, banished for who I was, but I might as well have been. Once I grew up, I married, had children, and was betrayed. Then I had my children taken from me, much like the goddess Circe was on her own island. I had no idea that this had ever happened to anyone else and consequently felt alone in my misery. If I had only known that this had transpired in the lives of other women, I may not have felt so alone and ashamed of my life.
Circe, the daughter of the Goddess Hekate, felt alone, abandoned and betrayed. She revealed the men that came to her island as the swine they actually were. Woe to the man I encountered had I had this spell of revelation of a man’s true nature available to me in my bag of tricks. Perhaps life wouldn’t have led to the lessons I learned from the pig I married. Circe, in the time she had to herself, made the most of the isolation on her island and began to study the nature of the herbs and plants around her, as well as the animals. She leaned in, as Cyndi says, to her dire situation and began to make the most of it in order to better her circumstances. By the time Jason arrived, she turned his men into pigs. This was not only handy, it was a work of magical masterpiece. If only I could reveal a man’s true nature today. I sometimes wonder if there is a spell for that. Perhaps it just requires good old fashioned wisdom from having been around for a while.
Circe conceived a son which she dearly loved only to have him ripped from her life. This, also happened to me. It feels as if you have been used to create life for those who do not have that ability to do so, only to be abandoned once again for who you are. Used and thrown away. I know this pain intimately. It is something other than normal pain, one that cuts deep into your soul and leaves a wound that never heals. I wonder sometimes how many women have had their children stolen from them for the patriarchal society that does not value them other than as use as a baby factory. If men could give birth, they would have destroyed all the women by now. This I feel is entirely true.
Circe took in the situation and rather than allowing it to make her weak, she readied herself for the future and anyone that came her way. She prepared for the long haul. She made herself stronger for the future. She is indeed a goddess to revere and fashion one’s self after. She took in the terrain and formulated a plan for attack. She was no weakling. She made the most of what she had. She had the animals and the plants and her own common sense and determination. Would that every woman sense this power and awesome ability and harness it to make their lives better. It’s no wonder the patriarchy wants to keep us down. They want us under thumb, easily defeated. They use words to do this, because fists are no longer acceptable and sometimes carry the burden of a legal battle.
Once upon a time, women like Hypatia from Alexandria learned the wisdom of the ages and tried to bring it forth to all that would listen. She knew 1200 years before Kepler that the Earth moved in an elyptical pattern around the sun and because of the patriarchal nature of the rising Christian faith being contorted into something malicious, she was silenced and executed for being a woman. The world fell into a dark ages when the Christians “spread their message” of love and peace because they could not allow a woman to be above their messiah. They suppressed the knowledge women had to offer. Is it no wonder we have no idea what herbs do until recently? It doesn’t matter to the patriarchy because herbal lore and craft was something that women did and were burned at the stake because for knowing because it was deemed witchcraft to understand what the men did not.
Hypatia and her pagan ways were demonized much the same way many women have been demonized since the dawn of the Christian faith which led to patriarchal thinking and cultural norms. If only they had listened. If only the women had been malicious enough to rid the world of the men that wanted to rid the world of them. But that’s how it is isn’t it? The evil ones prevail because they are more malicious than the ones they seek to suppress and conquer. No, that way cannot last for long. I say to you, Circe rises again! The patriarchy cannot endure the strength of women. She is in each and every one of us. She spurs us on to fight our way back, to be of consequence in the world. She leads us out of the fringes and shadows back into the light of day, where we can make a difference and reveal what has been masked, heal what has been ill, and use what we have around us as the medicine for the task at hand.
Circe should be an inspiration to all women. She is the original heroine. She is the original suppressed woman that had to deal with the intolerable and make the best of her situation. She did not cave or give in. When confronted, she simply did what needed to be done, consequences be damned. Would that we all were of this mind. She overcame the obstacles in her path and did what we all should do, she fought back against the man.
As a follower of the old ways, it is my opinion that Circe was one of the greatest women to ever live. She endured, persisted, and fought back against anything that came her way. She was the original bad-ass of women. Perhaps we should all take a lesson from her past. Reveal the swine, learn the tools of what you have at your disposal, and fight back!
