The women are weeping at the gate again. Come sit with them. Module 2, Lesson 3 of The Descent: Underworld Journeys just went live in the level 4 classroom — The Lament and the Liturgy: Tammuz Across the Ancient World. And the timing is not mine. We are inside the month of Tammuz right now — the fourth Babylonian month, June into July, the height of summer when the green things wither and the beloved goes down. It’s stiflingly hot here in Michigan, and the spell included in the lesson is perfect for right now, for me at least. For over two thousand years, across Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, and Assyria, this was the month the women sang the laments. This lesson drops in the exact season it belongs to. Here's what's inside — and I'll warn you, this one is grief-work, not a happy ending: 🌾 The oldest lament that survives — older than the Psalms, older than Homer — sung by a woman standing at a threshold, facing the open air 🚪 Tammuz becoming Adonis, the river at Byblos running red, the women who couldn't remember anymore which torn god they were weeping for 🌱 The Gardens of Adonis — Athenian women planting seeds on rooftops deliberately to watch them die, then carrying the withered shoots to the sea 🕯️ And the thread through all of it: the mourner as threshold-keeper. Grief as the technology that holds the gate open. Hekate in every woman who ever wept at a door. There's an incense and atmosphere ritual built in — cedar, or myrrh if you have it, the scent of the mourning— and no candles this time. Only natural light. This lesson is about what travels into a room when you leave the door open. Why now, past the timing: we cross into Phase III — The Underworld Floor / Chthonia this Wednesday, July 8. The deepest room of the whole descent. And this lesson is the map for what comes after the floor. Because the torn god does not stay down. The grain that dies in the earth rises. But — and this is the whole teaching — it doesn't rise because death was defeated. It rises because the women wept it back. Without the mourner, no memory. Without memory, no return. Rebirth isn't the opposite of the descent. It's what grief makes possible on the far side of it.

It's the Fourth of July here in the States, and I won't pretend I'm celebrating. Honestly, this holiday has never sat easily with me. And this year, with so many of us looking hard at what justice actually means, the fireworks land differently. Not that my neighborhood agrees. They've been setting off fireworks at all hours. 😬 So instead of celebrating, we work. The moon is waning, which is right for this: strength drawn up, injustice cleared out. This is a simple stovetop spell — a brew you make, hold, and drink. Nothing you don't already have. You'll need: - A cup of water, heating on the stove - A pinch of black pepper (for backbone) and a pinch of salt (for clearing) - A bay leaf if you have one (for victory), or rosemary (for strength) - Your two hands and your voice The working: Set the water to warm. As it heats, drop in the salt, the pepper, and the bay or rosemary. Stir it slowly, three times, deosil — sunwise — and hold your intention clear: the strength to stand, and justice to move. When it's warm enough to drink safely (not scalding), wrap both hands around the cup, feel the heat, and speak the words. The spoken part: Salt to clear and pepper to stand, bay for the victory close at hand. What is crooked, let it break; what is owed, let justice take. Steady my spine and light my way — I drink the strength to face the day. Drink it down slow. Feel it settle. Then pour any dregs at your threshold or a crossroads, and let Hekate carry the rest. Calling on the Furies for righteous justice would be especially appropriate. A word before Phase III: we cross into the Underworld Floor next Wednesday, July 8 . Hekate Chthonia, the deepest room of this whole descent. Strength and justice are exactly what you want in your hands before you go down. Consider this brew a provision for the road. You don't walk the floor empty-handed. 🔦 Torchlight For Today: "Freedom is the source from which all significations and all values spring." — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity

Every Friday we name a conscious choice and tag it #Freewill. Not the big cinematic ones, but the small ones that actually run a life. I'll go first. My week's been motherhood and math. My son is almost one, and like some of you, I'm raising him while making ends meet. This week that meant choosing which bills breathe and which ones wait. Choosing where to manage my time. Nobody claps for those choices. But they're choices, made on purpose, and that's what free will can look like some days. Hekate is the goddess of the crossroads. Most crossroads aren't dramatic, though — most are small forks nobody sees you standing at. She's there for those too. The quiet choice counts. 🔦 Torchlight For Today: "Freedom is the source from which all significations and all values spring." — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity 👇 Tag your #Freewill: one conscious choice you made this week, big or small. Most likes and comments by Sunday wins a free Triple Crossroads Spread with me. (I have a small list of people I need to read for, but the readings will come.) En Erebos, Phos. In darkness, light. Blessings, and lots of love, Tirza 🌿🗝️🌙 #FreewillFridays #HekateanHealing #Freewill

Some of the members of the group asked me to remind them when it was the day of my birth. Today is that day. July 2 1995 a baby girl was born. Forged through fire and brimstone she evolved into one bad bitch 🐦‍🔥 thank you for being you and for well wishes today. I love this community so much and I wish we could all get together and eat cake and share a glass of wine 🍷 🌙 🍰

Plato says the soul isn't a throne. It's a chariot, and something in you is always trying to bolt.🐎 In the Phaedrus, the philosophers draw one of the oldest maps of the inner life: the soul as "a winged charioteer and his team." We drive a mismatched pair. One horse is "fine and good and of noble stock." The other is "opposite in every way”. It’s the one that lunges, bolts, and drags the whole chariot off the road toward whatever it wants right now. That dark horse is the reactionary ego. Not evil. Not something to kill. Something to rein. The charioteer's job isn't to unhitch it and leave it in a field. It’s our job to hold both horses pulling the same direction long enough to see clearly and get to where we’re going faster. If that image feels familiar, it should. It's sitting right there in your tarot deck. The Chariot card shows a driver behind two sphinxes or horses, one black, one white, pulling in opposition. The whole meaning of the card is that mastery isn't force. It's holding the tension. You don't win by making the black horse disappear. You win by driving both. Here's the Hekatean turn Plato doesn't make. He gives us the charioteer and the horses. We add the crossroads and the torch. The reactive horse does its worst damage in the dark, like when you don't notice it's veered off track, away from the path you’d like to take. Shadow work is charioteering by torchlight: you go down, you look at the dark horse, you learn its name. Hekate Enodia stands with a light in the direction you should go. 🔦 Torchlight For Today: "One of these horses is fine and good and of noble stock, and the other opposite in every way. So in our case, the task of the charioteer is necessarily a difficult and unpleasant business." — Plato, Phaedrus 👇 Name your dark horse. What does the reactive part of you lunge toward every time? I'll go first. En Erebos, Phos. In darkness, light. Blessings, Tirza 🌿🗝️🌙 #WisdomWednesday #HekateanHealing #Phaedrus 📚 Further reading: Plato, Phaedrus (246a–254e, the chariot and the two horses) — Nehamas & Woodruff translations | Plato, Republic Book IV (tri-soul beneath the chariot) | Ellen Dugan, Witches Tarot (the Chariot, card VII) | Cyndi Brannen, Keeping Her Keys (Hekate and shadow work at the crossroads)