FOREWORD

Shards of a Broken Mystery

The Restoration of Hekate

by

Shira Marion, Ph.D.

Mystery! Mystery! Viva mystery! The word itself means “seeing with the eyes closed,” in the context of initiation. Shira Marin’s Shards of a Broken Mystery: The Restoration of Hekate, is itself a mystery, and must be approached as a mystery, seeing with the eyes closed, preparing oneself for ritual initiation. Likewise, dreams—a province of Hekate—are seen with the eyes closed, and this is why dreams too, must be approached as mystery—so unlike how they are approached in the contemporary world, forgotten, neglected, disregarded. For the modern eye and ear,  tethered to computer screens, this may strike one as nonsense, as hardly a challenge to the hegemony of seeking the security of the rational, the protection of explanation, the surety of understanding. But these are not the haunts of the goddess Hekate, who has touched Dr. Marin and placed on her shoulders the task of restoration of this long-forgotten one, variously named “Queen of Night,” “The Sender of Nocturnal Visions,” “Goddess of the Paths,” among others.

After finishing the text of Shards—as if finishing were possible—and before writing this foreword, I had a dream as if sent by Hekate herself. In the dream I was alone in a grand ballroom of sumptuous dimension. Overhead, there was a spectacular crystal chandelier brightly lit but dimming as I looked at it in awe. When it went dark, there was nothing to see, nothing to hear, until a loud crystalline crash filled the air and told me the chandelier had fallen and broken into bits and pieces. I knew in the dream, that it was to be my task to repair the broken light.

I take this to mean that Shards is “psychoactive,” that it may impact you in ways you cannot imagine, do not expect, may not even want, but like it or not, agreed to or not, you too may be recruited to the task of restoration.

Do not read this book as a straight-on narrative. The book itself is like shards, and the restoration occurs with the bits and pieces undergoing a process of assemblage within your own psyche. Read a page. Look at an image. Close your eyes. Wait. Hekate may come to you as “Queen of Ghosts.” Or she may appear as “Child-Nurse.” Or as “The Terrifying One.” There is no predicting. But into the blank space of your imagination—if you permit blank spaces or are able to recruit them—she will come in the old ways, or in new ways, in recognizable form, or in disguise.

I suspect women will have an easier time with this way of relating to Shards. Women are more at home with mystery, more comfortable with letting the “unknown” engender, more at home with the brokenness that is the too-common fate of patriarchy’s scourge. But as a man, I must urge my fellow men, do not miss this opportunity to grow, even if the path seems crooked and untoward, even if you can’t see very far ahead, even if you can’t let go of the rational, the explanatory, the sought-or understanding. Take it on as an experiment. Read a bit. Gaze at the images. Let your mind wander. Under the influence of Hekate, you will come upon the trivia, and you will find yourself, even involuntarily, on the branch path, leading away from the straight and narrow, the bright and glorious, leading to the place of dead things, Hekate's realm. Don’t turn away. This is the place of deepest psyche, the access to layers beyond layers of deepest knowing. Hekate’s realm is the place the poet Rilke, a man, knew: You must give birth to your images. They are the future waiting to be born. Fear not the strangeness you feel. The future must enter you long before it happens. Just wait for the birth, for the hour of the new clarity. This is Hekate’s doing.

Gods and goddesses, those presences incarnated in the depths of psyche, all demand devotion when they present themselves, recognized or not. What manner of presentation is not our choice. How we respond to the reality of their presence is, though such choices are never easy, whether we choose to serve or not to serve.

Should you be so fortunate as to be chosen to serve—even an unlikely presence like a goddess of old—make no mistake, nothing less than your future is at stake. Taking part in possible futures, rather than having futures thrust upon one, is the best possible course. Shards of a Broken Mystery facilitates the awareness of possible futures through the agency of Hekate, and even more so as she is restored to vitality in the individual psyche. This is the gift that Shira Marin, through her devotion to Hekate, has presented to us.

Russell Arthur Lockhart, Ph.D.

Everett, Washington

May 11, 2017

Shards of a Broken Mystery is available at Amazon: https://amzn.to/2sQwULJ