Letter 10: Hecate's Night, The Pineal Gland, Rain Magick & Amethyst Healing Properties

“Never lose the part of you that loves the moon.” – Unknown

This week I have decided to keep things darker and witchy in keeping with a shadow work aesthetic. We will discuss Hecate’s Night and how to utilize the energy of the Goddess of Witchcraft in our everyday lives. How to use the rainy season to our magical advantage, and why using rain and water to cleanse can be important, especially during this time of year. I’ll dive deep into the emotions that our pineal gland represents. With shadow realms and the dark being the theme for this week, I want to explore the healing properties of the Amethyst crystal, where hopefully you will learn how the calming effects of this crystal can help us during these heightened times of stress. Let’s get right into it!

This last week, we celebrated a lesser-known event called Hecate’s Night. This lasted from sunset on November 16th, until sunset on November 17th. This was a time for us to offer things like garlic, pastries, mushrooms, crystals, and moon water to the Goddess Hecate. Hecate, (otherwise stated as Hekate), is the goddess of witchcraft, shadow work, death and rebirth, divination, psyche, the crossroads, and the night. She was first known as the goddess of childbirth and the wilderness but evolved into representing what she does today. The story of Hecate and her reference in Greek mythology is that she witnessed the abduction of Persephone, and with a lantern went to the underworld to search for her. 

Some things that she also represents are owls, horses, lanterns, dogs, and intuition. Look for these signs and symbols if you are curious whether or not she is reaching out to you to work with you. Some reasons you should utilize the energy of Hecate is when you are unsure of which decision to make, needing guidance for finding your spiritual purpose, a desire to connect deeper to your higher self, when you wish to learn more about witchcraft and divination, or if you are trying to get in touch with your shadow side through shadow work. She is the perfect energy to call upon when needing insight and further guidance into the things that help us to grow more and learn more from our psyche. 

If you have been following along with the newsletter for the past 10 weeks, hopefully by now you understand the importance of connecting to your shadow self and clearing out the junk that we all hold onto that sooner or later leads us to dis-ease and misalignment with our higher selves and our true purpose. Hecate isn’t the only thing that can help guide us on this journey. The pineal gland is a small gland located at the center of your brain, it is a part of the endocrine system, and is in charge of balancing your circadian rhythm, and the distribution of the hormone melatonin. Spiritually, the pineal gland is essentially your third eye. It is our intuition, and our source for making a connection to the spirit world and our own inner worlds. It is essential to keep this part of your brain healthy when trying to make a connection to your own source. Just like Hecate, and the crystal amethyst, this part of your brain is responsible for regulating the connection between light and dark. 

There are many ways to keep this gland functioning properly, these include physical actions such as proper diet, hydration, taking herbs like chaga, milk thistle and turmeric, and keeping your brain active with things other than electronics. There are spiritual practices you can achieve too that help keep the pineal gland active and can also allow you to maintain a healthy connection to the spirit world, your shadow self, your intuition, and the Divine. These practices include, meditation, divination, the use of crystals, connecting to nature, and you can look further into more practices because there are so many resources out there that people aren’t aware of, because we never knew that it’s what we needed to look for. 

If you are unsure if you need help with your pineal gland becoming reactivated, look for these signs. Brain fog, disconnection in relationships, feeling close minded, negative views on faith, insomnia, migraines, and restlessness. The emotions that coincide with pineal gland function are, negative relationships to an early childhood religion, feeling unsupported, lack of trust stemming from known or unknown sources, lack of imagination, creative blocks, no trust in the flow of life. 

Emotions become stuck in specific areas of the body, depending on the energetic frequency they give off. Emotions, like us, are all made of energetic vibrations. Our bodies have different energy centers and different emotions correlate to each specific energy center. These emotions have the same frequency as our Ajna chakra system, so they get stuck in places such as our pineal gland, our eyes, the hypothalamus, the thalamus, our sinuses, and our ears. 

Now that we have spoken about the pineal gland and about Hecate, I want to dive deeper into the water element. During the discussion about the pineal gland, you might have noticed that one of the signs of unalignment in the pineal gland is having little to no trust or faith in the flow of life. The water element represents our emotional selves, and helps us connect back to the flow of life no matter where the issue stemmed from. If you are aware of where it came from or not you can use water as a source for cleansing and releasing the trapped emotions and start to trust that life is flowing you to the place you belong. Water is also symbolic of the moon, feminine energy, our intuition, and cycles. We can utilize the energy of the water element in spell crafting, or just in everyday magick. 

Magick doesn’t need to be complicated. You can simply use the water element to cleanse you even just while you’re in the shower. If there is a nearby water source, you can go there and say a small prayer. If you want to get more crafty with either of these practices, you can use water charged by the moon while in the shower, or you can write everything you wish to release on a biodegradable scrap of paper and release it in the body of water. During this season we usually have an abundance of rain. You can use the practice of rain magick by going outside in the rain and envisioning the water cleansing you and releasing your stuck energy back into the earth. This is really all I have to share about the water element. It is very useful in releasing emotions and you can use it in whatever way you wish. When invoking water spirit, you can call upon spirits from the west to help enhance any rituals you are planning on using water in! It really is so simple to incorporate ancient and connective rituals into our everyday lives where it has been otherwise lost. 

Keeping right on the theme of shadow selves for this week, I found it really fitting to talk about the crystal that is probably one of the most recognized. Amethyst is such an incredible stone for enhancing pineal gland activation. It helps with insomnia, nightmares, divination, and is one of the most highly recommended for third eye healing. Amethyst has a naturally calming effect on the user, making this crystal one of the most effective for stress, anxiety and depression. You can use this crystal by placing it on your bedside table or under your bed if you are using it for troubles with sleeping or getting rid of nightmares. This crystal can be a great one for connecting to not only your third eye and intuition, but also for the Goddess Hecate, as it shares a lot of the same attributes. It assists in decision-making, cleansing, releasing, spiritual awareness, endocrine system cleansing, purifying the aura, and it also assists in the support of coming to terms with death. This stone is also a great connection to the pineal gland as it helps to balance and regulate your circadian rhythm! I just love when everything ties together so well in a newsletter. 

A great way to add everything into your practice this week would be, in my opinion, to get your hands on a piece of amethyst, add water to your craft and practice, get in touch with the state of your pineal gland, and look further into Hecate! Once you are aware of what needs to be worked on next you can start to use these items by hands on experience. The best way that I have learned everything I know about witchcraft is by having tried everything at least once. If it isn’t for you, or you don’t feel drawn to the practices or items listed then find what does call to you! This is your journey after all. 

Thanks so much for joining in this week! I hope the information finds you well and you are able to utilize it to your best intentions.