Faces of the Goddess Magazine SGC 21

Third, her privilege in this regard seems to
be due to the fact that she fought on the side
of the gods against the titans. She aided their
rebellion against her own kind. In this way,
she is a turncoat because she defied the bonds
of blood to aid the gods’ revolt and usher in
a new age. It is no criticism to say so: Mortals
may celebrate the bonds of blood we share
with our kin, but to be bound by such ties is
still to be bound, and Hekate, we are told, is
azostos – unbound. She is literally unbound
by restrictive clothing in the old depictions
of her, which portray her in a loose-fitting
chiton; she is unbound by the rule of the gods
or the obligations to her titanic kin; and she is
even unbound by the very bonds of fate that
determine the destinies of every creature ever
created, and every spirit that exists.
Why is this?
The answer relates back to her true nature.
Gods are the spirits who rule certain things;
titans are the things themselves. The god
Poseidon rules the sea; the titan Pontus is the
sea. The god Apollo rules the sun; the titan
Helios is the sun. Like Pontus and Helios,
Hekate is a titan. So if they are respectively the
sea and the sun – then what is she?
between, just as the gate stands between
what is in and out of the city. The crossroads
is neither one road nor the other, but the
space between them. Midnight is the moment
between one day and the next, just as the new
moon is the dark night between lunar waxing
and waning phases. And the dog had a very
specific function in ancient times, which was
to guard the borders and boundaries between
what was its master’s property and what was
not.
All of these associations point toward
between-ness, to thresholds, to liminality – to
the negative space that exists where the thing
itself is not. It is my contention that Hekate
is the very embodiment of these things. She
is not a god, so she is not over thresholds.
She is a titan – so she is thresholds. She is the
Between, and as such she exists in the space
What is Hekate?
The answer may be found in her
associations. Each deity has certain things
on earth – certain symbols – which are
specifically associated with them. The titan
of the sun is associated with dawn, fire,
frankincense, gold, lions and laurel. Each of
these is redolent of solar might. Aphrodite is
associated with doves, shells, mirrors, apples,
and copper.
Hekate, however, has her own associations.
Her place in a home is the threshold; and in a
city, its gate. Outside the city, she is found at
the crossroads where three paths meet. Her
hour is midnight; her lunar phase the new
moon. Her animal is the dog. Each of these
has something in common. The threshold is
neither in or out of the house; it is the space
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