u/glovefullofvaseline

Hi all, I know similar questions have been asked before and I've had a scroll through but can't find anything exactly specific to what I want to know with regards to other deities. I've seen plenty say that Santa Muerte must be kept in her own space, but that working with other deities is fine. Many say she must come first.

The trouble is, I've heard the call loud and clear, but I already have close bonds with a trio of patron deities. Mine are Hades, Persephone, and Hecate. They've been my ride or die since I was 18, they've transformed my life, they've claimed me as theirs. They are like a family to me and I can't imagine putting any other spirit before them or above them.

Is it really the case that Santa Muerte must be first and centre? If so, am I still able to honour her in some small way without incurring her jealousy or feeling like I'm being tepid?

Thanks

I wonder if anyone else has experienced a close link between Hades and the concept of time in their UPG.

A few years ago, I had this dream - for context, I'm in the UK, and (for those who don't know) here we have a town down in the western part of the country called Glastonbury, famous for the festival of course. However, Glastonbury itself as a town is also famed for its pagan and new age community. There are neopagan temples, offshoot gnostic churches, tonnes of spiritual shops, etc. Having grown up with pagan parents, I visited often as a child and the place is dear to me.

Anyway, I digress. In this dream I was in the White Spring Temple at the base of Glastonbury Tor. It's an old Victorian well house converted into a God/Goddess temple which is open to any and all and popular with pagans from all walks. In there are these large pools where the White Spring's water, said to be holy, collects. People bathe in it, baptise themselves in it, do shamanic drumming and half-drown themselves in the process, etc. I was here, standing before the main pool. Hades was there. He asked if I'm ready, and I said yes, and he stood at the edge and circled me a few times. Then he stepped into the pool and immersed me in the water, shoving me down hard and holding me with an iron grip.

When I emerged, the world was quiet, and he was gone. The spring was utterly still. I left the temple, walking down the hill past the sister spring, the Red Spring. That was also still, though the water still emerged from the lion's head spout - it just wasn't moving. I was freezing cold from the water, but there was no wind at all.

I walked down into the town. Anyone I saw was utterly still, frozen mid-stride, a phone in hand, lips mid-sentence. Birds had paused mid-flight. I eventually arrived in a small car park that sits next to Glastonbury Abbey, and finally found someone who wasn't frozen.

He was an ordinary-looking fellow, mid-height, lightly tanned skin and brown hair, with round glasses on his nose. He wore a simple red jacket and workman's trousers and boots - but something about him was off. For a moment, he moved at a strange angle, and this dark, gloopy essence peered out from what appeared to be the facade of a body. He seemed rather shocked at my appearance. He had this box open in front of him and was tinkering with all these strange cogs. I asked what he is and he told me he's a time spirit. It's his job to fix time. He asked what I am, and I told him I'm human. He replied: 'Yes, I remember you from before. But you don't remember. Still, it's been a while since a human stumbled into this.' Weirdly, the time spirit then invited me to lunch.

He took me to one of the popular local cafes, but with time standing still, he had to make our food himself (how did the oven even work?). He asked me something else that I can't remember but made a comment about me being 'in good with the boss'.

I should note, this happened on the spring equinox of 2024. I had been expecting Persephone, but got this instead. A connection between Hades and time doesn't seem so unusual, of course - death being a natural result of time, being married to a goddess of the seasons who must be connected closely with time and its cycles. It was just such a wild experience. Probably one of the weirdest, and I've had a few whacky ones.

Anyone else had anything similar? Any weird and out-there things that seem like they belong in a movie? I'd love to read about them.

Hello all. First, for some context, I've been a devotee of Hades for around 8 years now. In that time I've had a lot of experiences in dreams and meditations, and this story links one to a moment which happened just now.

Years ago, I had an experience in which I was stood with Hades in a field in the Underworld, a vast field of asphodel flowers as white as bone, and in that field were huge, docile, black-violet bees. He spoke to me at some length about the nature of the soul's time among the asphodel, and these beautiful bees were everywhere, gentle, quiet workers in the land of the dead. I suppose, looking at it through a poetic eye, extracting the sweetness from death and transforming it into nourishment. I've always wanted a tattoo of one of these bees, but never got round to it.

Anyway, fast forward to just now. It's a sunny weekend here in the UK (shocker, I know) and I'm in the garden I tend in dedication to Persephone. All week, I've felt Hades' presence around me, a sense that he wants something from me - and it's been a while since I truly have, he's been taking a back seat as of late - but not much else to report. I went and sat in a graveyard, contemplated, nothing much else. So here I am, wondering which unread book on my shelf I should choose to read on this fine day, and I choose 'Eric' by the great late Terry Pratchett, fancying a dose of fantasy and humour.

The first few lines are:

'The bees of Death are big and black, they buzz low and sombre, they keep their honey in combs of wax as white as altar candles. The honey is black as night, thick as sin and sweet as treacle.'

Pratchett goes on to describe Death tending his bees in some more detail.

Make of it what you will. I know what I make of it...

...I should probably get that tattoo.

TW: child death

I felt compelled to share this recently.

I've been devoted to Hades, Persephone and Hecate since I was 18. I'm 26 now. In that time, my life has changed a lot. At 24, I qualified as a teacher, and my first job would bring me into contact with a very special little boy, who for privacy I will call Simon.

Simon was born with neurofibromatosis. He was also a twin - I had his brother, Oliver, in my class too. Shortly after I started, Simon was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumour. It was confirmed by October that it was terminal. Shortly before the boys' birthday, he was dead.

Unfortunately, the school I was in was terrible and offered little support to me to be able to navigate what was happening in the lives of 23 7-8 year olds, including a little boy who had lost his twin. Simon's funeral was possibly the hardest day of my life - I almost chickened out of it, as shameful as that sounds to admit - but I didn't. I went.

I tried to stay strong for the kids, but it wasn't easy. I wasn't equipped with the skills to help them and nobody else stepped in. It was just me and these 23 remaining, wonderful, challenging, largely neurodivergent kids, navigating something that they could barely begin to process.

One night, I was meditating, and Persephone came to me. Simon was with her. She held his hand and walked away with him, just as She had with a stillborn baby I had seen in a labour ward in my previous job as a student midwife. Where there is tragedy, She is there, somehow making it something sweet, innocent, beautiful.

I still think of him often. I dreamed of him not too long ago - that I took him to the zoo.

As I drove away from Simon's funeral that bright winter morning, the sun was low and the clouds were white, and the song 'Cloudbusting' by Kate Bush came on in my car. I can't hear it without thinking of Her, and of him.

If you read this far, thank you for taking the time.

May Mother Persephone be a guide to all children who go early to their rest.