Khaire Hekate Khthonia!

Khthonia. Chthonic. Subterranean.

What are the chthonic realms?

You know me, Mistress of the Underworld. You know how I enjoy a certain category of literature that includes stories of one particular being whose very name carries those whispers of all things chthonic. And You know they are fantasy tales that lean more toward what human minds should not have to see and cannot process knowing. Tales that do not reveal to us the Mysteries. 

And You know what I have seen, lived, survived. Where I have been. Where You found me.

And still I ask...what are the chthonic realms?

I see so much life in those supposed "barren" depths. Caverns and caves with rivers and wells. Minerals forming crystalline structures. Fungi. Creatures that thrive in the dark.

Nothing is lost. The Earth recycles and reuses. Important parts of her history are told by digging deeper.

The voices of the Ancestors... Sometimes they are heard more clearly in the dark.

I think I understand what the Underworld means across a variety of cultures. I'm just not sure that it matches what I understand from experience. One doesn't necessarily cancel the other, though. There is room for all of that and so much more!

The ground gives birth and rebirth. The material and spiritual are not so different.

Dark Mother, what are the chthonic realms?

Khaire Hekate Khthonia!