I Call upon and Invoke Thee
Oh Triple Goddess of the Witches
Mighty Mother Celestial
Black Robed and Silver Clad Queen of the Mysteries
Lady of Spirit and Inspiration and Magick
Ever-changing Goddess of the moon
Lady of the Groves and Gardens
Bride of the Sun
You who is at once, The Maiden of Creativity,
The Mother of Possibilities, and The Secret Wielding Crone,
I Invoke Thee by Perfect Love and Perfect Trust
Please be present in this rite in Thy Honor and Praise
Share with me Your Love and Lore and Law
That Thy Servant and Friend may be Fulfilled
Hail & Well Met
~Invocation, (c) 2010 Pax/Geoffrey Stewart
Dear Friends,
This, which I was determined would be the first entry in this little series, has been a tough post to write for all its brevity. It is strange to note that I don’t have many dramatic or deep encounters with The Witches Goddess, the Three-fold Lady who is Maiden and Mother and Crone… a couple stand out… but Her presence in my life is a largely subtle one compared to some of my other encounters with Divinities.
The Charge
The Charge, or rather, Valiente’s Charge of The Goddess is the first time I can specifically remember encountering Her. After all these years I can’t recall which version in which book or where I was when I first read it…. I want to say it was in the back of either Complete Art of White Witchcraft or Diary of A Witch, both by Sybil Leek.
I remember it was an older book. Anchorage is blessed with some world class used bookstores because it can be ridiculously expensive to move to and from Alaska thus a lot of folks jettison stuff on their way out, I remember the worn pages of a paperback in my hand,the sensation of that light almost feathery quality of the page edges that old paperback books have. I remember the old paperback/used book scent overlaying that slightest hint of Metaphysical/Occult bookstore. I remember the slightly old fashioned type against the sepia kissed creme of the page.
I remember the words, as I read them, seeming to flow off the page, up my arms deep into my head and heart. I remember how filled to bursting I was with Spirit and Love and Hope and Power as I first experienced a sense of Her deep and abiding love.
I remember the sense of the rest of the world receding and the sense of the words speaking directly to the deepest part of my soul. Drinking down the words of the Charge, I can remember feeling changed. Touched and Transformed by Her words, sent through Doreen, so many years before I was born. She was there, and although Her presence in my life has been an often subtle one, She has been with me ever since.
A Voice in The Rec Room
This was one of the few, dramatic, moments in my experiences of the Triple Goddess. An acquaintance of mine who was claiming to suffer from Multiple Personalities (Dissociative Identity Disorder) had had, or decided to have (which I say looking back on the episode with the perspective of many years experience of the ways people seek to suck up attention and specialness in dysfunctional ways) an episode.
I wasn’t entirely sold on the MPD, had some inkling it might just be attention seeking, but also felt that it was possible that there WAS some mental illness going on or at least some emotional troubles… so I did what any self-respecting Witch would do; I decided to turn it over to the Gods… or in this case The Witches Goddess. This was early enough in my journey and practice as a Solitary Witch that She was in the spotlight of my practice at the time.
I had decided to try something different, and instead of putting the tools on an altar table or cloth, I arrayed them and the various notions and lotions and potions that inhabited my early altars around me in a circle, and Cast Circle through and upon them. I did the usual Cirlce rites and then after The Rite, in symbol, I began praying to Her. I asked Her what I could do for my friend and lay the situation out before here as I understood it at the time and prayed for Her guidance.
“Love him.” She said.
I. Heard. The. Words. Aloud. Not in the conversation-in-my-head-but-not-my-words style, which is the usual way I get impressions from The Holy Powers, but aloud. Out, friggin’, Loud!
I spun around, startled, and knocked over the lit Candle for Fire… which luckily went out and did NOT ignite the synthetic orange shag of daylight basement rec-room. After a moment of processing this, one of my earliest this-shit-is-real experiences, I uprighted and relit the Candle for Fire and continued to pray for a time. She, of course, was maddeningly silent after this, but I tried to remain content knowing She was and is there and will put a hand or word in if needed.
Reflection
Mostly I am aware of her on Full Moon nights, or nearly full nights. The familiar embracing Presence. The sense of settling in as I begin Invoking Her in Circle, the passionate thread that runs through me as the Blade and Chalice meet. While I haven’t had a lot of woo-woo experiences involving Her, I have almost never really doubted She is there.
I’d love to be able to say that I have NEVER doubted Them or The Craft, but I am as human as anyone else and sometimes I wrestle with fear and doubt and confusion. Always though, I return. I return to Them and to Her.
Lately my relationship with Her has taken a bit of a turn as I encountered the Feri Trad way of addressing Her as “Holy Mother in Whom we live move and have our being”… this has resonated strongly for me and for my practice and I have incorporated that phrase into some of my own Craft.
Peace,
Pax
…
Libertas (whilst written before this series was conceived of, it fits a little too perfectly into the theme to be ignored…)
The Witches Goddess (this post)
Dionysus
The Honored and Beloved Dead
Spirits of the World Around Us
Chrysalis 