Dear Wendy:
The maidens find me in the woods. They don’t like the lessons even though I prepare them so carefully. The wolf all dressed up in my nightgown, the oven burning all the day long waiting for a tender lad to fall into hell, the winter full of terrible stories. It’s the winter of years raging outside and the maidens must stay with me or marry a frog. They must spin a cloak of spider webs or go naked. They must never cut their hair. And then of course, spring comes, and they leave. But not until someone else decides its time…some hair-chopping prince or huntsman, some power mad Lord of the Underworld. The maidens go on to stumble through the desert and find him blind and suffering, or are taken from the fields of narcissus down into Hades and I must blight the earth in my grief for the loss. The maiden finds her use and it is the use of all maidens. But they remember the lessons…the wolf, the frog, the fearful underworld with its flames.
Why can they not stay with me in the silence, on the dark side of the moon while it moves through the clouds? The bright side is mere reflection, you know. A pretty illusion. There in the dark woods, I would bring them peace and they would bring me comfort. As it is they sit by the cradle and tell my stories and it just goes on.
From Hecate
(The boney old crone
Sitting alone
Stirring her cauldron
And making a moan)
Dear Hecate,
Girlfriend, we have to talk.
Now don’t get me wrong. I feel for you. I really do. It’s just not a party here on Planet Earth without a good old Witch of the Moon. Or Goddess. Witch, Goddess, whatever. I’m a little that way inclined myself. Not all the way Witch/Goddess, you understand. More bi. But at least I can tell where you’re coming from.
You see change coming and you don’t like it. Well, there’s nothing weird about that. Who does like watching the economy change, and their job being phased out? Who likes knowing it’s Retrain or Die?
But I think that’s what we’re looking at here, Hecate. The world has moved on since your heyday. Granted, it hasn’t always moved on in ways that support the idea of an improved human life, but it has moved on.
And those of us who are committed to supporting an idea of improved human life have got to get back in there, roll up our tattered, cobweb-covered sleeves, and get to work.
We need new stories. Sure, it’s good if the new stories have actors from the old. In fact, it’s great. But those actors have to start acting in new ways or we are, as a dear friend of mine, Aunt Jemima, put it so recently, completely fucked. So we need new weavers of new tales.
This means you, Hecate. With your resume, your background, your experience, you’re just what the Modern World needs to help it get out of the cul de sac it is presently banging its head on the back wall of.
Why ask those maidens to stop dead and hang out with you on the moon? Hey, they’re not even maidens any more. And I bet they hardly noticed when their maidenhood stopped, too. What you want to do is start concentrating on the Full
Woman. Don’t encourage them to hang around mooning, waiting for something to happen. Get them going giving what they have. Right now.
And you want to get off the Moon. The hell with space travel, Hecate. There’s enough to do on Planet Earth.
We need you here. So stop moaning and come back on down.
You can stay at my house while you look for a place of your own. And I’ll fill you in on what’s been going on in the presently totally messed up world so we can make a plan of action.
Myths, Fairy Tales, Legends, Stories forever.
Yours in solidarity,
Ask Wendy