Making a public announcement to my followers and friends and mutuals and anyone else who sees this:
Please, PLEASE look into your local library services. For anything and everything. Chances are theres something there that you could utilize.
Problem studying because of ADHD or other things? The Library might have rooms you can reserve for free that you can use to force yourself to get it done.
Language help? Library might offer services for that.
Need a computer for any reason? Wifi? Scanning and printing? The library.
Audio books, e-books, music? Check your library.
They could have specialized classes for free. They could have job help for free and community services, for free. Among tons of other things.
And the most obvious one: Books. Reading keeps your brain active, sharp, helps focus, so many other things. Go read more and exercise that media literacy and comprehension because I promise you, it's more important than you realize, especially in this day and age.
For the love of God go support your libraries and utilize them, they are exponentially one of the last few 'for the People' services that are there to help and open to everyone.
On Friday night, March 14, President Trump issued an Executive Order that called for the elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library
This is an attack on all U.S. libraries. IMLS provides funding from Federal to State-level.
If you've been around my blog for awhile, you know my partner is a librarian and we've seen this shit coming, but it's still hitting like a ton of bricks.
Libraries are among the very, very few places people can congregate for free and obtain information and help with everything from doing taxes to translation services to literacy programs to community classes on anything from arts and crafts to household repair. All in addition to being spaces for essential community gathering and building. These are *OUR* spaces.
Please call your reps, ESPECIALLY if they are Republican. Slam their aids will messages, letters, postcards. Visit local offices and town halls. Show up for protests in your area. Make every kind of noise you can.
Every April London, Ontario experiences a huge outflux of students as they finish their semesters and head home for the summer break. This always leads to literally TONS of perfectly usable items being trashed when they could otherwise be donated. Living next door to a property where this was a particularly glaring issue, I simply couldn't stand by without acting. Thus over the last 5 years I have found ways to progressively save more and more of these perfectly usable items by bringing them to the thrift store. This year I was successful in bringing 27 loads of reusable items from the students waste straight to charity. Here's hoping I'm even more successful with these waste diversion efforts in future years!
Guys I need to buy some supplements but I can't afford it atm. It helps with my polycystic ovary syndrome if anyone could donate a dollar or two id be eternally grateful <3
For a very long time, at different times in my life, I’ve felt the draw and connection to Hecate. After accepting the Call many years later, and some years after that, I finally find myself called to work more closely with Her.
Which has led me on a deep dive through the Internet for information, meditation and I have some thoughts about this upcoming weekend (currently 11/13/2020).
This is my thoughts on Deipnon.
November the 16th is the supposed day the Feast of Hecate takes place. According to a similarly curious blogger, aligning with my suspicions, it appears to be a modern holiday.
Deipnon itself is an older celebration falling on the first New Moon (dark moon) of the month of November, observed, according to several articles I’ve read in the past several days, by bringing offerings of food, dirt and rubbish from home, etc. to The Crossroads and leaving it - for wild dogs and the poor.
I think it is important to create our own holidays and that there is nothing wrong in doing so. But, as a daughter of Hecate, I believe we should look at whatever historical significance we find inspiration from and contemplate the ways that can fit in our modern society.
Deipnon could be celebrated personally by leaving offerings of food at a cemetery without looking back, after a Ritual honoring Her, after taking a bath, after cleaning your house.
Leaving offerings for the Gods is absolutely something that can be done if one feels so moved. I do so as well.
This is a Sugarcream-cheese pie drenched in black raspberries with local holiday leaves for decoration - and as a signifier that it isn’t meant for human consumption, later left at a local liminal space in thanks to Hecate for a new wand.
But Deipnon is new to me. And I think taking into consideration that Hecate is a protector of children, the downtrodden, the marginalized, the poor and “the mad,” holding dogs and cats, snakes as sacred: I believe that we as pagans can do so much more in Her name.
Clean your home. Cleanse yourself. Cook an small offering for the dead...and a larger one for the living. Take canned food you haven’t touched for months that hasn’t expired yet and that meal to local food banks and yes, even churches that offer weekly meals for those in need. They don’t need to know why. If you can find non-religious organizations that do that, then go there if you’re more comfortable. Donate your time or money to animal shelters, dog rescue, reptile rescue (there are never enough), or call and ask what they need and donate supplies.
I think, too, about the emphatic “don’t look back” I keep seeing. I think, if the offering is meant for Hecate, but (as seen in a passing article citing an “ancient writing”) “it more often gets eaten by dogs or the poor” then it is meant for them.
Not looking back means your offering is given freely, with the respect and dignity given to the person who might be taking it. So many times, society judges those of us in need, or uses their charity more to glorify themselves than to support those they’re helping. Be mindful.
I read somewhere another comment, the only one I found, that if you do look back after leaving an offering, then ghosts will drive you mad.
As both ghosts and madness were attributed to being controlled by Hecate, I could see Her afflicting someone offering in bad faith (without true charity) with such.
So, in honor of Hecate, I believe that giving back to those in need in our community should be added into our observance of Deipnon/Hecate’s Feast.
The article below is not mine, but confirms the suspicions I had that this is a modern celebration. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.patheos.com/blogs/hearthwitchdownunder/2016/11/tracing-hekates-november-festivals.html/amp
So, my mission this week was to trace these two festivals and find out, 1: what they are about, 2: are they ancient, and 3: where did they c
