The Western Gate

Triple Goddess
Edited by Jack Grayle
Araxes Press

A compilation of essays devoted to the ‘Triple Goddess’, Thrice named thrice be.
Being a compilation… it’s going to be a mixed bag , an assorted box of confectionary… some you take because you love them and some because, well .. they’re there. (And some you feed to the dog.)
Robert Graves (White Goddess) and James George Frazer (The Golden Bough ) are mentioned, quite a few times to the point of annoyance. Other texts and references of course are spoken of. Robert Briffauld’s book ~ The Mothers as an example somewhat mentioned in passing, and dismissed;-
viz. The Triple Goddess of the ‘Persians’- Manat was not a triple Goddess we are told ….thus rubbishing the work of Briffauld… good…, but doesn’t expand to tell us about Manat, Al-Lat and Al-Luzza, three Goddesses who were worshipped by the prophet Mohammed’s Tribe before converting to his new revealed doctrine. (After he promised that three mothers would sit at the table of Allah, before changing his mind)
Other books of note from classics to contemporary, littered throughout….which ultimately begs the question,
So what does this book bring to the table, or the altar?

Theres a Cheese shop and Next door but one a bakery.
A Fool to his gormless nodding dog;- “I know what i’ll open in between !” he exclaims looking on at the two enticing shops before him.
The gormless nodding dog, nodding approvingly expecting him to say a pizza parlour or something that will make use of both its neighbours fayre.
“I will open a combined Bakery and cheese shop” .
The nodding dog nodded approvingly because after all, the fool had hold of its lead.

The idea of the Goddess, we are told goes back beyond time, like, as long as there was women perhaps? Fancy that.

Robin Artisson delivers a talk on the, ” everything comes in threes notion”, the seasons after all, ” Spring Summer and Winter, depict the threes.” Ok, ….so maybe the ancients didn’t worship four seasons. Fuck Vivaldi.
Persephone, from the classics lived one third in hell, and two thirds tending to Earth’s nature. There you go, vindicated. It’s all about thirds henceforth.
And things start to get shoe horned, and bits of jigsaws cut with scissors to make them fit, even if its the wrong piece, who cares as long as its finished.
I’m not going to name names or which bits were rubbish in my opinion, in the main, what does this book bring, to be deserved at a place under the illumination of Hecate as we seekers plunder the depths of the shadows? Coming after Lily Regulus’s ‘She of the Night’ it’s always going to have to follow the benchmark, and as a result it’s a bit meh.
The artwork by Red K.Elders is lovely, and her own little essay a dreamlike prose and homage to a praxis and worship of the Goddess, in the guise of the principle of Jo-Ha-Kyu (beginning, break, rapid ) and I am hopeful, its a different viewpoint after all, but then we march on to the rest of the book , dull nodding and quoting of bloody Frazer this and bloody Graves that.
I’m looking for the roots of the triple Goddess, trying to dissect the mindset of our ancestors, why is the triple Goddess almost an archetype and imprinted design in our psyche? These answers and more are possibly given, and possibly smeared hither and thither, all the quotes from the classics yes, and hymns and song and poetry and prose, yes, you can bung in Shakespeare’s, three hags, sniffing the secret codewords of a frenched up cauldron of gruel, and, yep they’re included in this book, of course they are… there’s three of them after all.

… . I am unkind, but it’s almost as if I’m reading an introductory book throughout, and no fledgling is going to have the means to buy this book. Sometimes its nice to have a reference book, all the notes and doodles and margin comments stacked neatly together, but that’s not this book.
I wonder if all the authors got together to decide what article or bit they’re going to write, there isn’t much duplication (apart from bloody Frazer and bloody Graves), whether they all picked a topic from the raffle in a hat or Jack Grayle (editor) managed to stop the pile up of jam on top of jam.
As the guilty partner in a breakup says, ” It’s not you, it’s me.”
Yes perhaps the forthcoming trine of outer planets, themselves all in trine, and all as symbols of the subtle aligning is affecting me, perhaps I’m not grounded to properly critiquing the book. And I hope not. I don’t critique or review, I just ramble the fuck on kicking up leaves.

I guess I want to read more people prostrating and hailing, cussing, cursing and giving us means to bewitch and also guide with the use of a magic eye. On an altar of three candles. Perhaps a few recipes of the season when Persephone walks abroad and also Pomegranate wine fermented with Honey for when she goes down below.
I don’t want to read the notes of some speaker yodelling on a pedestal in a small hall full of nodding dogs, it all seems rehearsed, and formatted. Hecate/The Triple Goddess has never been boring, but she is unpredictable, cunning and prodding the insecurities of our psyche, yes!

Threes! that’s what we’re told. Again and again, and thrice again.
Its repetition and drives the autistic mind, I stir my tea three times widdershin, three deosil and three again widdershin. If a see a strange number, it doesn’t become valid or of concern until I have seen it a third time. I hear a word for the first time, and, would you Adam and Eve it, it pops up again twice more. “Aunty Beryl died today, and so did Mrs Greene from up the road… I wonder who the third will be…”
Three !! it’s like an old episode of Sesame street where today’s number is Three !!!

Digredi.

Zero: It represents the absence of form and quantity. It is the fertile void from which all things may arise.
One: It signifies unity and indivisible being. It is the origin point of identity and existence.
Two: It embodies division and opposition. It introduces relationship through contrast and tension.
Three: Three ! THREE !!! It expresses resolution and synthesis. It brings balance by uniting opposing forces into a coherent whole……

Agredi.

It’s not I think each article in the book is poor, that’s not the case, I’m just not sure it works as an anthology dedicated to;- and here’s the rub, well who? really,
“I’m None the wiser” said the fool to the gormless nodding dog putting down the Violet tome.. She‘s still an enigma.
The gormless nodding dog yawns and replies, “surely, if you are none the wiser, then you are not yourself -the fool, and thus, are you not wise?”
Yes, I hope somewhere over the rainbow it will become apparent, but I have to walk on….and watch the jigsaw pieces coalesce to some unified image, some Aha! moment.

Change gear.
It, the book~ The Triple Goddess, is , little more than a largish magazine. Considering the font size is perhaps the largest font in any book I’ve had since Spot the Dog went to the seaside…(Review coming soon ). maybe that’s why it has a healthy page count? c. 431 pages. But it’s cheating.
As I tried another article/chapter I began to writhe and tug at my collar and fidget… I’m not learning anything new, I don’t really care about Robert Graves and his relationship with a tomboy.
ok, I throw my hands up in the air in alarm, I don’t know what I want!! I admit it, and maybe because… yes, the Triple Goddess, is central, fundamental to my practice, that I feel so protective, I become enamoured with emotional contagion, even in my lonely and closed off practice, am I gatekeeping the idea,…to myself, am I jealous that others dare even to tread in her footsteps. Do I believe the Triple Goddess deserves a better platform, a better homage ? I begin to dislike my dislike. I begin to question my questioning.
Focus.
There are some notable omissions ~ some authors we have come to know who represent Hecate, perhaps they’re bound by exclusive publishing deals I convince myself.
Shani Oates however does present a very thought out and expressive chapter on the Norns, as a parallel, alike the Morai.
She is maid/matriarch of the Clan of Tubal Cain. Myself, being a plastic-anarchist with a flag of No Gods No Masters obviously -it’s a source of ridicule for me, and ignore this stupidness;- teachers after all teach, leaders lead, and people like me just muck things up, fighting on the terraces when everyone else just wants to have a hot dog and clap approvingly.

Digredi.

“While one soul longs to be seen by all the world, another—crowned in fame—yearns only to vanish into the freedom of the silent unseen,” I ponder on this as I whittle a piece of elder branch, “Blimey, I ain’t after no crown, see, and I aint gonna bend the knee to any patchwork kingdom neither. I’m just nosin’ about for a bit o’ wisdom, that’s the truth of it—maybe just enough to keep me tickin’ on, heart, head, and soul, somewhere off… past the rainbow, where the world don’t quite catch ya..”
“Oh stop your nonsense and Qabbalist signalling, we’re not impressed!” replies the gormless nodding dog.

Agredi.

Yes, there are some good chapters in this book, there are some gems, that’s not the problem as I see it, it’s whether as a whole the 13 course dinner works as an experience.
Am I being picky, my library is a mish mash of this and that, my personality altars depending on environment, why cant a book? Or do I want things ordered, only to then complain its not maverick and paradoxical enough, to challenge the mind and get the bastard witches fawning over coloured candles out of their comfort zone.
I want a compilation of Hecate about how what’s ugly is actually beautiful, how to dissect my own psychology, how prejudice works naturally and suggestively, how we should disregard the musings and etchings set in stone and deliver the sword, how a woman feels when menopausal- when all a man wants to do at the same age is ride a big motorbike and look at obediant sex slaves in the far east- apparently, but clearly we have no idea what a woman’s going through.
How the old woman who is mocked and songs sang to cruelly demean her feels.
What hopes for the Maiden, what she wants and expects and what happens when cruel reality comes to roost?
The Mother, how can a man hope to be of empathy to his fellow neighbours when only the mother truly understands?
How a woman is seen as inferior, as the moon is to the sun, and yet it occludes the sun perfectly.
More than being about the divine feminine, She is the dynamism of nature, ever-unfolding force that resists containment, beyond silly symbols and cannot be boxed as one archetype that permeates and is inherent through history.
She pulses through cycles of creation and dissolution, not as something to be worshipped from afar, but lived, embodied, and constantly, always, in motion. She’s Tender and Ferocious, a quiet patience that nurtures growth and also a sudden, untamed energy that reshapes entire landscapes.
She is not static beauty or idealized grace, but a raw, generative power that thrives in contradiction— life is not a fixed identity, but a process of continuous becoming. Between her nature of this and that I stand then, alike that shop, a mixture of both, upon the bloody crossroads.

Header Image;- from, Maximilian Pirner (1854–1924) Hecate (1901)