Myths are a way to access archetypal energy in your writing. Maybe there is a myth you have carried with you. Maybe there is a myth calling to you from a collection of stories that you have yet to explore.
What can our intuition uncover when we shine our torches back on the storytellers of the past?
One of my favorite myths is a goddess myth about Hecate.
Hecate is the Greek Goddess of witches, spellwork and the crossroads (the symbolic representation of decision making and fate). She is often pictured holding a lantern, accompanied by a pack of wild dogs or in her garden tending to her medicinal and poisonous plants, with her serpents.
Hekate by Maximilian Pirner c.1901
Hecate’s priestesses are known as the Thessalian Witches. Legend has it that the Thessalian witches knew how to “draw down the moon” which to me is such a beautiful image of a group of women, coaxing the moon and magic out of the sky.
Hecate and her priestesses are known by some as the first witches.
Sometimes, when I am unsure, I pull out my tarot or oracle decks and draw a card. Some of these cards have myths, symbols, animals, and planets associated with them.
How can you draw the moon down in your own writing? How can you make your own witchcraft and spellwork during the darker months (in the Northern Hemisphere) of the year with your language.
Prompt:
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Additionally, you could try to channel a myth that you’ve always been drawn to: Echo and Narcissus, Persephone and The Underworld, Achilles, Medusa, there are many, and explore in your journal intuitively how this myth takes shape with your own life.
Narcissus and Echo by John William Waterhouse c. 1903
Feature Image: The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse c. 1888
