About the Author
Stephanie Woodfield has been a practicing Witch for the past twenty years. A devotional polytheist, ritualist, teacher, and priestess of the Morrigan, she is one of the founding members of Morrigu’s Daughters. In her spare time she enjoys creating art out of skulls and other dead things, hiking the wilds of Florida, and hosting spiritual retreats. She is called to helping others forge meaningful experiences with the gods.
Llewellyn Publications
Woodbury, Minnesota
Copyright Information
Dark Goddess Craft: A Journey through the Heart of Transformation © 2017 by Stephanie Woodfield.
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First e-book edition © 2017
E-book ISBN: 9780738754079
Cover design by Kevin R. Brown
Interior art by Llewellyn Art Department
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Woodfield, Stephanie, author.
Title: Dark goddess craft : a journey through the heart of transformation /
Stephanie Woodfield.
Description: First Edition. | Woodbury : Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd., 2017. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017029887 (print) | LCCN 2017041126 (ebook) | ISBN
9780738754079 (ebook) | ISBN 9780738752563 (alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Goddesses. | Goddess religion.
Classification: LCC BL473.5 (ebook) | LCC BL473.5 .W659 2017 (print) | DDC
202/.114—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017029887
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For the Morrigan. I am grateful.
For all the dark goddesses who have touched my life.
For my Tuatha, my Tribe of Ravens. I am grateful for each of you.
For Karen, Gina, Ivy, and Ellie for contributing to this work and being all-around badasses.
For Ed. You are the best man I have ever known. I love you.
Contents
Introduction
Part 1: Who Is the Dark Goddess?
1: The Nature of Dark Gods
2: Working with Dark Deities
3: Cursing, Warding, and Other Defensive Magick
4: The Process of Transformation
Part 2: The Descent
5: The Washer at the Ford
6: Akhilandeshvari
7: Hekate
8: Sedna
Part 3: Challenge
9: Oya
10: Kali
11: Eris
12: Ereshkigal
Part 4: Rebirth
13: Blodeuwedd
14: Scáthach
15: Persephone
Conclusion: Walking the Path
Bibliography
Introduction
It is twilight and I stand in a grassy clearing in a loose circle with others as we celebrate the equinox. Slash pines tower around us, looking like giants in the fading light. It has been a weekend of connecting with old friends and meeting new ones, teaching, and coming together. My spirit feels full and light as my friend leading the ritual tells us to sit, to feel the living ground beneath us, as he begins to walk us through a meditation journey. His voice is calm and soothing, and I follow along easily, slipping into a trance. But there is someone else there in that space between spaces, and she decides she has something different to tell me.
A moment ago I could hear my friend’s calm voice. Now it is suddenly gone, as if someone has flipped a switch and muted him, and so is the imagery he was creating. Now I stand in what almost seems like a swamp or a low, quiet lake. The water comes to just below my knees, and it moves slowly among the reeds and tall grass. But this water is as red as blood, and before me stands a woman. I know I am in the river of life and death, the river of the Washer at the Ford. The Washerwoman stands tall and sleek before me, her arms and legs long and willowy like the reeds that surround us. This time she wears a veil over her face; other times her long, black hair falls over her face like a shroud. She stoops over the water and washes something in her hands. I cannot tell if it is a dark garment, the bottom of her own ragged and flowing clothes, or something else entirely. She wrings the garment in her hands, her long, almost clawed fingers running down them and ripping invisible things away.
I have met this face of the Morrigan many times before, but with some trepidation I ask her what message she has for me. She points further out into the water, which has no shore and seems to go onward in every direction forever. The water begins to ripple, starting at my feet and moving forward into the distance. And then I begin to see the ritual circle that I sit in again, the solid ground beneath me, and the two images merge. The ground, which seemed so unmovable before, is nothing but rippling water—fluid, changeable, and reshapeable as the ripples move through them.
“Nothing can withstand the change I bring. Do you understand?” The ripples in the water are small but they feel like a tsunami. I feel the force of them washing through me, and I feel compelled to walk forward through the waters, the ripples changing everything around me and propelling me forward at the same time in an unstoppable wave. “You have asked me for change. You have set the wheel in motion. Nothing can stop this now, not even you.” And I know she is right. I have begun to make changes in my life, ones whose consequences I know will reshape my life. But this is the kind of reshaping that involves buildings crumpling and the ground beneath my feet being pulled away. If I do what I need to do, I will have to destroy so many things in my life and see what I can rebuild out of the rubble. But the cost of not doing this would be even greater.
Still pulled onward by the river, I turn to see the Washerwoman walking beside me. It is hard to see her face behind the veil of wet hair. What stands out are her bloodstained lips and the words she speaks, which move through me like the rippling water: “Remember that you are worthy. This will come to pass. No man or god can stop it now.”
And then the river and the Washerwoman are gone. I see just the darkness behind my closed eyes, hear the calm, soothing voice of my friend as he continues to guide the others through the meditation. I take a breath and try to ground myself. I put a hand on the ground and run m
y fingers through the grass. The ground is solid, but I still feel the shadow of the rippling water.
I went home from that festival feeling grateful for the Washerwoman’s message and determined to make the changes that over the last two years I had been coming to terms with and working through in many different ways. Change can be a slow process; little things lead you in unexpected directions. And other times change can be as quick and cutting as a sword. I didn’t expect my life to fall apart, regardless of me initiating the changes, the very next day after my flight landed. But it did. And the Washerwoman had been right. I had laid the groundwork, and on some level I was convinced she had as well, for the things that happened. I ended an eleven-year relationship, I nearly found myself homeless, and I was reminded that blood family isn’t always family. I learned that I had some amazing friends, I moved across the country, and I learned that I did deserve happiness. Just because I could try to hold up the weight of the world didn’t mean I had to or was supposed to. I had to learn to feel, and own, my own self-worth.
Nothing was easy about these changes; nothing ever is with the Morrigan. But I don’t regret it, and it was worth it in the end. She is not the only dark goddess who has challenged me or dug her claws into my soul and made her mark, and she will not be the last. As painful as that part of my life was, I cannot help but be grateful. Life is about changing and growing, about tearing away and learning and relearning who we are and who we can be. It’s never easy, and it isn’t supposed to be. The dark goddesses that have walked by my side during such times have wrapped black wings around me, mourned alongside me the pieces of myself that were no more, and at times forced me to get up and fight. For that I will always be grateful. Sometimes their lessons came easily; other times they were a painful process. But I always emerged stronger in the end and with a greater understanding of myself.
Working and building a devotion to dark deities can be a rewarding process—and an utterly life changing one. If you feel called to dark and dangerous gods, don’t be afraid to embrace the path and to challenge what you think you know and how you practice. Follow the gods into the dark and be transformed. You may cry and scream and rage along the way, but you’ll never feel more alive and your life will transform for the better.
[contents]
Part 1
Who Is the Dark Goddess?
It’s time to get started. It’s time to wake up.
Don’t wait another minute.
Claim your heart, and claim your glory.
You have all you need.
—Marianne Williamson, A Woman’s Worth
W e call her the Crone, the goddess of the underworld, goddess of death, the dark goddess. She rules over everything that we fear. She offers us wisdom in exchange for pain. She is the Morrigan, inciting her favored warriors into frenzy on the battlefield. She is the Washer at the Ford, keening while she washes the bloody clothes of those destined to die. She is Hekate, who lights our way through the underworld. She is the terrifying Kali, who dances with abandon on the corpses of her enemies, wearing their severed heads as ornamentation, and she is Sekhmet, who drinks blood like wine. She is sometimes terrifying, her lessons often painful, but the dark goddess dwells within each of us and is a vital part of our being. She is the force that shines within us in our darkest hour and the face we turn to when we seek rebirth. She likes nothing better than to break us apart, only to remake us anew.
The dark goddess and the lessons she teaches are vital to our lives. Her destructive aspects teach us that there is death within life, that we are constantly changing and evolving. No matter what we have been through in our lives, we can rise from the ashes and like Kali dance ecstatically on the ruins of our old selves toward rebirth. As the fierce warrior drinking the blood of the slain, she is a no-nonsense goddess, teaching us to make our voices heard, to stand up and be counted, and inspiring us to bring about change, both in ourselves and the world around us. And she is also the shadowy keeper of the dead, teaching us how to pierce the veil, to see into the future, and to commune with the beloved dead. But she is also the side of the Divine that we avoid the most, and as a consequence we often have difficulty working with her.
Dark gods rule over the things we fear the most. Some fear that working with this aspect of the dark goddess will bring out the darkest or worst parts of themselves. Other times we are simply afraid to welcome change into our lives and finally release the things we keep buried deep within our souls. While working with the darker aspects of the Goddess may make you face things about yourself you would rather ignore, her path is one of transformation and ultimately one of healing.
But where do we begin? How do we look past our fear and understand how to work with dark deities? My friend Gina will tell you that she thinks some people should have to take a test before they can work with goddesses like Hekate, the Morrigan, or Kali. I remember laughing at the idea as we sat around a bonfire in her yard one summer night, talking about how seeking out and working with dark goddesses had affected each of our lives and how others around us were affected by the touch of such gods. But then I really thought about it. These goddesses have a habit of turning your life upside down, breaking down barriers, and bringing about needed but often painful transformation. Some who dive headfirst into the realm of the dark goddess, they may find themselves overwhelmed, frustrated, and oftentimes stuck. We lose our way in the dark and don’t quite know how to grope our way through the underworld and shadowlands we find ourselves in or how to face the challenges given to us. The dark goddess has a habit of hammering lessons into our flesh until we have truly understood and worked through them. When we ask the gods for change, they are more than willing to give it to us, but we aren’t always ready to go through that process of transformation. But if it were an easy process, it wouldn’t be meaningful.
Maybe we don’t so much need a test but a manual. A guide through the dark, a torch to light our way through the underworld, to give those who seek transformation a tool kit. It is my hope that this book will be just that: your guide through the dark, not only a guide to who the dark goddess is but how to work with her, how to approach the work she gives us, bring true transformation into your life, and navigate safely through her realm.
In the first part of this book we will look at who the dark goddess really is, misconceptions surrounding dark deities, and how to go about transformation and devotional work. Throughout the rest of the book, we will work in depth with goddesses from multiple pantheons as we move through our own journey of transformation. You will find spells and meditations as well as workings to aid you in your journey. You will also find a few spells and invocations from the members of the Tuatha Dé Morrigan, a group with whom I have explored and honored dark deity, hosted retreats, and held public ritual for the last several years. As each of these individuals has had unique and significant experiences with the goddesses we will be working with, I offer their perspectives and include tools and techniques that these seasoned practitioners have used with success.
Dark Goddess Craft is about delving into our own darkness and emerging renewed. It is learning how to dance in the void, knowing when to let certain aspects of our lives go, and making room for the new. It is a path of transformation, change, and healing. It is the art of learning to confront your shadows and truly discovering who you are. The dark goddess, in all her many faces and guises, stands at the threshold of the otherworlds, waiting for us to learn her mysteries. Torch in hand, she waits to guide us through our inner darkness and lead us to rebirth. Will you follow her into the dark?
[contents]
1
The Nature of Dark Gods
W hen I first begin working with a deity, there is a certain kind of protocol I go through. It is the same whether or not I have chosen to connect to that particular god or they have, as gods so often do, just appeared out of the blue making demands in my life. The gods are very real to me. They are vibr
ant beings with their own personalities, tastes, likes, and dislikes. They move through my life like old friends and, at times, unexpected strangers. When you have heard the laugh of the Morrigan, it is impossible to confuse her for Cerridwen or Hekate. The heat and coppery taste of Eris’s energy is nothing like the fire that fuels Kali’s dance. The vastness of Hekate’s presence is not the same as that of Ereshkigal. They are all very distinct from one another. And getting to know a god is not unlike the processes we go through when we build a relationship with a new friend or lover. You begin to learn that person’s personality. With the gods, I start by learning the myths of those particular deities and about the cultures they originate from. I make altars, I make offerings, and I do journey work to connect with them. It’s important to understand the nature of the god you plan on working with. Ultimately, I trust my gods. They are not strangers to me. Sometimes I don’t know where they are leading me. I may face their challenges willingly or go kicking and screaming, but there is trust between us. Because there is a long-standing, deep relationship there.
To work with dark gods requires that we delve into their nature. We will work closely with the individual goddesses and their myths, but first it is important to understand how dark deities as a whole function: who they are, how we have come to view them, and the processes they rule over. There are pitfalls and challenges to working with any deity, and there seems to be a consistent pattern to the challenges many of us run into when working with dark gods. And I think some of these arise because of how we are taught to approach the gods and how we have been taught to view change.
Dark versus Light
What exactly does it mean when we refer to a goddess or god as “dark”? Is this the darkness of the night sky? The void? The darkness where monsters live under the bed? Or for that matter, what do we mean by “light”? Humans have a tendency to want to put things as vast and unknowable as the Divine into boxes, to categorize and simplify them, in an attempt to understand them better. We label things in our search for understanding. It’s human nature. In modern Paganism we often divide deities into two camps: dark and light. Essentially, the idea of a god or goddess being dark or light is a modern one. It has no real place in ancient culture. Gods in every pantheon have always specialized in certain areas, whether that be agriculture, healing, or ruling the underworld. But in general that is where the categorizing ended for our ancestors. Dividing the Divine into dualistic, often opposing natures is very much in line with our modern concepts of good and evil and stems from the influence of monotheistic religion. Today we like to think of the world in terms of everything having its opposite, instead of seeing that most things, including the gods, fall into a gray area. There is male and female, night and day, and good and evil. Dark deities are in no way evil, but what we have learned to do when we approach the gods in this manner is to label any deity that holds sway over a realm or concept that frightens us as “dark.” Gods who rule over death, change, war, violence, anger, and all the things that make life difficult or painful must also be dangerous and untrustable in some way, not unlike the things they hold sway over. What we often fail to see is that dark gods are not the cause of these things, but rather the very beings who teach us to understand them, who challenge us to move past our fears and give us the strength to face some of the more painful unavoidable things in life.
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