Hecate with Torches

The Light Bearer

From the Eleusian Mystery School: gate-keeper, key-holder, she guards the door to the inner sanctuary of the Mysteries. The only goddess powerful enough to travel the three worlds, heaven earth and underworld.

Hearing from the utmost depths, the dread Goddess approached, all entwined with fearsome serpents and leaves of oak, amidst a shimmering blaze of torchlight; while all around her chthonic hounds bayed shrilly, all the meadows trembled at her footfall, and the nymphs of marshland and river cried aloud.

So enters Hecate moving through the night.

The famous Eleusian Mystery School performed rites concerned Hecate leading Persephone back from the underworld with her torches to embrace her mother, Demeter, and bring spring back to the world. As a personal guide, Hecate show us the way to and from her Mysteries. She is a protector and transitioner. 

Images of Hecate often guarded the doorway to the inner sanctuary of the Mysteries. Here she hurries through the night looking back to ensure we follow and do not lose our way at the crossroads.

[Reconstructed from a pediment carving at Eleusis, Greece, 480 B.C.E.]

5 1/4" resin statue, walnut shell color finish. #HCT