This way and that!

Its a new year, and a new decade!   And let us make it a beautiful one, full of aspiration, creativity and learning, full of love and friendship and all things good and happy. 

It might not come as a huge suprise to those readers who know of the passion I have for the Goddess Hekate, that I should also have a strong interest in that, sometimes obscure, Roman God Janus.  The God who is depicted as being bifrontal, with two faces, facing forwards and backwards and who is often associated with this very time of the year for that reason – gazing forward into the new year and backwards onto what had been achieved and experienced during the previous year.   Like Hekate, Janus is associated with doorways and gateways, guarding and protecting in the process, as he is able to watch bothways.  He is the personification of that doorway through which we all must pass from one place to another. 

This link between Hekate and Janus has been established for some time, in the 5th century CE Proclus wrote a hymn to Hekate and Janus, which is absolutely stunning.  A good translation thereof was published by Stephen Ronan in his excellent work “The Goddess Hekate” and with his permission we reproduced it also in our book Hekate Liminal Rites which was published last year.    To inauguarate this new decade on my website & blog then, I will start the year with:

“Hail, many-named Mother of the Gods
whose children are fair
Hail, mighty Hekate of the Threshold,
And hail to you also Forefather Janus,
Imperishable Zeus
Hail to you Zeus most high.
Shape the course of my life with luminous Light
And make it laden with good things…”

[Proclus' Hymn to Hekate and Janus, translation by Stephen Ronan. Full text available in The Goddess Hekate by Stephen Ronan or Hekate Liminal Rites by Sorita d'Este and David Rankine]