Hecate & the Hare: March’s Full Moon
“Not one hare but three, eyes toward the moon,
Like moths to a flame, it’s easy to assume,
Nobody knows a witch without her trusty broom,
Shapeshifting Trinity, let the Hare’s Parliament resume.”
Cloaked in saffron and flanked by spectral hounds, Hecate is the mythical goddess of witchcraft and the moon. In Greek stories, she's a guardian and gardener, tending to poisonous plants and the blossoms that frame thresholds and opportunities.
When one of her flowers unfurls in our path, some consider it a 'hello' from the Below or a supernatural wink. As a crossroads deity, Hecate oversees seasonal junctures, be they equinoxes, solstices, or the moon's journey from empty to full.
Whispering from her earthen altar, Hecate returns to the wild places in spring. Masked in moonlit prayers, her arrival is marked by crocus flowers and the return of the springtime goddess, Persephone. Beneath this full moon, our fourth of the year, Hecate teaches us about resurrection, her beloved crossroads, and following the hasty tracks of the Hare…
Hecate is a gardener of plants and mystery, unmatched in her knowledge of seasons and cycles. She's skilled in field magick and floromancy, and her wisdom permeates from petal to root. Although she was a celestial child, born from the stars, Hecate planted her heart in the gardens of humanity. Even as a child, she understood that a handful of dirt was as precious as stardust.
Triform and with a torch in hand, Hecate used her connective influence to unite worlds. For centuries, she's served as a messenger between sky and sea and the places in between. When not in her cave or charioting through the stars, Hecate dwells in her soil sanctuary, a realm of darkness and transformation. She is partial to many plants, such as datura, mandrake, henbane, garlic, and crocus blossoms.
In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Hecate is good friends with Demeter and her daughter, Kore (Persephone). From her mountain cave, Hecate watches Kore piece together a bouquet of rose, violet, and crocus flowers before plucking the single narcissus that casts a cloud of sorrow over the perfect spring day. A black carriage emerges from a hole in the earth, and without explanation, chariots Kore to the Underworld.
No longer an embodiment of spring, Kore is now Persephone, Queen of the Dead and partner to Hades. According to the language of flowers, the crocus is a harbinger of change.
But the crocus is also a messenger of resurrection, with certain varieties blooming in autumn when the rest of our garden has gone to seed. So, as the story goes, Kore's been missing for months, and Demeter is inconsolable. In her daughter's absence, the Earth Mother has blighted all the plants and once-beautiful meadows, and the earth endures a permanent winter. Nothing will grow, not grass nor wheat, but miraculously, a patch of crocus flowers sprouts between the feet of the mourning woman. Demeter is moments away from smothering the flowers in her grief, but they beg her to wait, for they carry an important message – “Kore is returning home!” they promise. “Hermes went to her this morning; we can hear their footsteps just beyond the ridge!”
Some might say that it wasn't a bed of crocus flowers but the goddess Hecate who prophesized Persephone's return.
In poetry, Hecate is 'saffron-cloaked, ' referring to the crocus flower, also known as saffron crocus or Crocus sativus. Saffron-colored frocks were symbols of divinity and were also worn by Artemis, the Maenads, and the goddess of Dawn. Like the flower, these saffron-wearing goddesses were beacons of hope in otherwise dire situations.
Not solely dedicated to flowers but to the creatures that roam our gardens, we'll also find bees, deer, and hares within the pages of spring folklore. We talk about bees here and here, and deer here, but the archetypal Hare represents fertility, love, and a quick, clever spirit. This animal is sometimes a trickster or said to be a witch in disguise. In years past, witches were accused of shapeshifting into hares to evade capture.
A gathering of hares is called a Hares Parliament, and even today, rumor says this isn't a meeting between animals, but a gathering of witches. Some of us might see Hecate in this swift messenger, and if we do, she might go by the name Harek. A rabbit-faced deity, Harek was believed to be Hecate's German equivalent, and instead of hounds, she was flanked by hares. Like dogs, Hares have long been associated with the moon and the Underworld, sometimes living on the moon or serving as its protector. Followers of this mythical creature would carve its image into an amulet and wear it for agility, prophecy, or fertility.
Though the hare has appeared throughout mythologies for thousands of years, none is as intriguing as The Hare's Trinity (also known as the Three Hares) for the three creatures chasing the tail of their neighbor.
Hare's Trinity design from Telling the Bees
Despite the widespread appearance of this design throughout culture and myth, its exact purpose remains a mystery. Some suggest The Hare's Trinity is simply a puzzle of perception or an optical illusion created by the animals' shared ears, as we see in the riddle and image below.
Hasendrei/Hare's Trinity target in the Deutsches Jagdmuseum
Others go a different direction, focusing on the triangle formed by the conjoined ears and making connections to the moon and ancient moon cults. The Three Hares have also been linked with seasonal deities and holy trinities, triform goddesses like Hecate and their ancient secrets to regeneration, even the crossroads.
Under the spring moon in the days around the Spring Equinox, the storytellers gathered…at the Spring Crossroads, magic is made. During this five-week series and program, Little Witch Books author Kristin Lisenby and fellow word witch Kate Belew hold space with you at the creative cauldron of spring. Gathering by the hearth, the lit candle, and the Hawthorn tree, they'll explore and tell the tales of the Spring Witches, potent plants, folklore, and myth.
Beginning on March 27th, you'll meet via Zoom on Wednesdays for five weeks. Here's the schedule:
Week 1: The Sacred Blood Aphrodite & the Red Rose
In our first meeting at the crossroads, we meet Aphrodite, Adonis, and the Goddess's red rose. The rose is dazzling, seductive, even, but what makes this flower so alluring is not the velvety petals or their heavenly scent, but the thorns, delicate and deadly…
From the seafoam of the sacred ocean, Aphrodite was born. A warrior in her own right, this Goddess is connected to archetypes and symbols of love, lust, and beauty. Aphrodite is no stranger to desire. To begin our journey together, we'll meet Aphrodite at the watery crossroads of spring, the same water from which new life emerges. In her arms, Aphrodite carries a bouquet of roses. Both thorned and blossoming, these blooms are not unlike this ancient Goddess. And they arrive to draw blood, to cultivate lust—Aphrodite's rose garden, where sacred sensuality is tended to, like soil.
Week 2: The Webs We Weave Arachne & Winding Ivy
In week 2, Arachne shows us how to loop, knot, and spin her silk threads and, in doing so, sew our stories into life's winding tapestry. While the uninitiated see a simple web, Arachne teaches us to see any number of things – a labyrinth, the moon, or the Wheel of Fate.
This week, the 8-legged fairy steers our chariot into the stars. She untangles forgotten spirals and spins new tales crowned with Ivy. Arachne's words, needle-sharp, thread us into the memories of ancient Greece. There, we find a maiden with nimble hands that rival those of Athena. After a contest gone awry, Arachne, the young weaver, is transformed. Relabeled a trickster, a hag, an immortal fairy bound to the Goddess, tonight, Arachne fills her pockets with silver thread and sets her sights on the crossroads. She arrives at dusk, when day gives way to night, spiders stir and fairies take flight.
See the full schedule and meet the rest of the goddesses, Cardea, Flora, and Persephone, here.
These stories are fodder for your creative work. They are rituals to hold you in the shifting of the season and the potent fertile earth. They are seeds to sow in the earth as the wheel turns. The Spring Crossroads is about gathering from our corners of the world to hold coven around these stories and support the telling of your own.
Click here to learn more about this five-week creative coven with weekly gatherings, rituals, prompts, folklore, and stories about the spring witches, their potent plants, and the poison path. Explore the crossroads, the realm of these stories, the liminal where magic is made.
