The end of October and the beginning of November mark the season of near-universal recognition of death and its mysteries. Many goddess images appear at this time, figures that can evoke fear and trepidation, as well as respect and mystic reveries.

Hecate is the personification of this period, goddess of the underworld and deity of the dark Moon. She represents the critical phases of the Lunar cycle with her three faces of maiden, mother, and crone. This triune nature gives her rulership over crossroads and all things with three corners. Kin to wild animals and the raw energy of nature in storms, her companions are the owl and dog, watchers of the necropolis. Hecate is associated with the dark phase of the Lunar cycle, the last seven days before the New Moon. This period of darkness, the ³witching hour² of legend, is the time when initiates may see in the dark and commune with spirits no longer hidden.

In another realm we find the goddess Ceridwen of Welsh medieval legend, a magician and mother of Taliesin (king of bards) and Morfran (the dark lord). Ceridwen had a magical cauldron that she used to make the potion for "granting wisdom." Three drops - another hint of the triune nature of the Divine Feminine - could bestow knowledge of past, present, and future. Ceridwen bestows intuition and poetic inspiration.

China brings us Meng-Po Niang Niang, the goddess who lives at the threshold of life and death. When those reincarnating depart from her realm, she administers a sacred potion to each person, causing them to forget previous lives. She governs rites of transition and far memory.

In India, it is Kali the Destroyer who represents this season, goddess of change and transition. She is depicted as a black figure, consuming the bodies of slain warriors. Yet she revered as the ultimate mother goddess and the highest reality in the Tantric universe. To Kali we present our sorrows and errors, for purification in the divine fire she emanates as she performs her cosmic dance. More.