The Waters of Hekate Einalia

Glorious Hekate!

Dark Mother!

Hekate Einalia of the Dark Seas!

I wonder what the "Dark Seas" are at times. The simple, mundane world, explanation is often filled with ideas about people once believing there simply was no fishing that could even be done in waters that could not be reached.

That seems...too simple. 

I grew up near beaches. We weren't even looking out on an ocean, but simply a gulf that would open to an ocean well beyond where we could see. Even before my education began, when I was a small child who only knew my own fantasies, I knew the farther out you go the underwater world must be bigger and more fantastic. That we were getting only the tiniest hint of all that glory at the coast.

How much more must people who grew up with tales of Poseidon and legends of monstrous creatures and water spirits have understood that? Could they really think there are just no fish past the reasonable points for boats to travel? I have my doubts.

But I also know so many of the Mysteries have been lost in trying to explain away ancient peoples as being uneducated by modern standards. Yes, of course humans have been misguided and mistaken at times. I don't think that explains everything, though. And so maybe there is more to the Dark Seas than our historians are looking at.

Drown me in Your waters, and then let me be reborn! Cleanse me, the way a body is cleaned for a funeral and a baby is cleaned after birth!

I think of the Dark Seas that give no fish and cannot be traveled safely by boat because they would go too far out to return. I think of the possibilities for the origins of Christian baptism. I think of the phrase "trial by fire", and how some cultures must surely have known "trial by water". I think of the hurricanes that are often seen as the Water version of earthquakes, wildfires, and tornados. I think of Your domains in the Three Worlds. I think of how we are all born from water. I think of how water is the blood of the planet.

I don't claim to know what, exactly, Your Dark Seas are. I doubt they are as simple as physical water, though.