Rite of Her Sacred Fires 2020

The ROHSF is an annual celebration for the Goddess Hekate, performed once a year at the full moon of May. Devotees from around the world perform a simple rite in their shrine or altar and they are united with the Goddess and one to another to a giant chain of flames. The ROHSF was quite popular, but now, it is not as popular as it was in the past. The rite remains very accessible, translated in many languages and in Hellenic we have multiple versions and drawings for the total beginners.

In the website, you will find information about the rite and blog posts about each year we have celebrated it. Each time is different, each ritual is different. I perform the ROHSF for 6 years now and I have different experiences from it each year. The most intense was in a group ritual where we raised energy and then we did the ROHSF. All the participants carried a lot of energy to their aura for the next month. Group rituals are effective if members are trained and there is a specific purpose, but this year was impossible for performing a group ritual or even a 2-person ritual! Due to quarantine laws and restrictions and besides the very low percentage of sars-cov-2 contamination in Hellas, I couldn't organize a group ritual although I invited 2 persons to come to the circle in 7th of May. People are afraid and they stay at their houses. The problem is that some people need motivation to do a spiritual exercise -especially beginners. Each year, either Eirini or I would do the ROHSF with a beginner. Sadly, not this year.

The online motivation was very poor this year. I posted the ceremony with an introductory paragraph to all the Facebook groups I have and they are related with Witchcraft and Magick, both Hellenic and English. I also typed on Facebook; "Rite of Her Sacred Fires" and I filtered the results in 2020, they were less than 10 posts 4 days before the ritual! The weird thing is that there is a special group of this ceremony, which seems to be inactive.  Even in 2019, the COH didn't post a video slideshow as it was used to for each year. But, it's not just that. It is difficult to motivate non-devotees and beginners to even perform a simple rite. They could easily buy a t-shirt with a pentacle or a statue, to state that they are Witches, than actually do the work. And even modern books push more and more to that approach. They are easy, simple, do not demand intelligence or time to understand them... So, it is not as bad as it looks when even the devotees of Hekate get tired some times. For example, from the team members of the Crossroads Witch, only I am still active. People need their own time to organize even their beliefs and our fast-moving modern society doesn't help them.

Moving to the ritual, this rite of 2020 was solitary. Me and the Goddess in the circle. A total act of devotion. I cleansed all the magickal tools of the altar and the temple space. I cut red roses, flowering tobacco, olibanum, mint, marjoram, carnations, dogplant, parsley, rosemary etc. from pots and arranged them to the altar from the beginning of the day. I cultivate plants in pots for two years and it is a good experience, so those offerings have more meaning to me. The smell of the ritual room was intense that I didn't want to burn incense. I did a ritual bath before the time of the ritual and late at night at 2:11 (hour of the Moon), I performed the ROHSF, alone in the circle. After the first invocation, the Goddess was there with a sound as a sign. I felt Her coming from the east, the point I start my circle casting and the direction I always invoke Her, despite that the Moon was on the south. When I was saying the Ephesian words I felt Her energy to the top of my skin and I calmly continued the visualization of the inner flame and the chain of flames among Her devotees. Hekate sent me a message of what to focus and I also felt that ancient philosophers were around or at least this was my visionary experience. After some minutes of meditation to the flame, I took some photos and I closed the circle. Instead of a candle, I lighted an oil lamp. This is something that I started back in 2015 and it feels right to me. The lamp was a very strong impulse back then, that I could not avoid, something like mania. 

I hope you had a nice ceremony too with a true experience with the Goddess. I notice every year that this energy that you visualize during the ritual and you built up to your aura, stays for a long time, so use it. Until next time, be safe and make good magick.