How To Start Working with a Dark Goddess (what to expect)

Disclaimer : This blog post may contain affiliate links. This helps this blog thrive divinely at no extra cost to you, so thank you for supporting this small business and may you continue to shine your divine light ever so magically.

There are many dark goddesses that are praised and worshiped in witchcraft. Dark goddesses help us connect to the unconscious realm and connect to our subconscious mind which in turn helps strengthen our practice. 

My personal favorite to work with is Lilith, but there is many more like Hekate, Persephone, Medusa, to name a few. They all pertain to different aspects of life and so they can help you in different ways. How they help you all depends on your own personal relationship with them and their strengths and focuses which usually correspond to their origin stories. 

Why would you want to work with a dark goddess?

It is really helpful to connect to a dark goddess when you’re going through some sort of shadow work. 

Working with a dark goddess also helps you tap into your dark divine feminine energy. This energy is dark, fiery, transformational and through this dark goddess worship you can regain the power that you may have previously lost. You can restore proper boundaries and realign yourself with things that truly matter in your life and people that truly matter. 

A dark goddess can help you become dominant, sensual, assertive. She can help you heal past traumas. If you want to feel absolutely powerful then definitely consider working with a dark goddess archetype. 

How do you work with a dark goddess?

If you already decided it’s a path you want to go down then you want to incorporate more shadow work into your life or working with the unconscious realm and subconscious mind going into the darknsss. 

People seem to think you need to have some sort of crazy experience happen to you where a dark goddess starts reaching out to you through various signs. Perhaps that is you, maybe you have had a dark goddess reach out to you in very unusual ways in your life but it doesn’t always have to be the case. It is totally acceptable for you to seek out a dark goddess. You do not have to wait for her to reach out to you. 

Research 

You can do your research on many goddesses and pick one that resonates with you. Most of the time any form of witchcraft often starts with a lot of research. In fact, doing research on a particular dark goddess can be a form of offering to her beacause you are taking the time to learn about her. Understanding what they like and what they don’t like, and learning about their back story will help you begin to develop a relationship in that research phase. 

Introduction

When you’re ready and have a particular goddess in mind, or just want to try it out and see if that energy resonates with you, the next step after researching is to meet that goddess. This is where you are sitting down, introducing yourself to them and attempting to build a connection. It’s like friends becoming friends, it isn’t something instant. You introduce yourself and start learning things about one another and you get more familiar with each other. 

Meeting a goddess can be as simple or complex as you want it to be. You can simply sit down and light a candle, call that goddess’ name and talk to her as if you were talking to a friend or an acquaintance. Introduce yourself, talk about what you would like to do, what you are hoping to get out of this relationship and what you are planning to offer this dark goddess in return. 

I want to elaborate that this isn’t just a take-take-take relationship, but rather a give and take relationship. Definitely don’t expect to go into this dark goddess work assuming that she is just going to help you and come at your becking call to do whatever you want her to do. It definitely is a two way relationships just like any other. Show gratitude, give offerings, give worship in order for that two way relationship to really take place. 

This is called dark goddess worship so you are worshipping this deity and you are respecting them as a god like figure. Even if perhaps you view this dark goddess as a psychological archetype it’s important to pay respect and gratitude as they are a connection to the psychic realm. 

Meeting a dark goddess can also be as fully immersive as you want it to be. You can make a full ceremony out of it. You can bring in a lot of elements that particular deity likes. If they have certain correspondences like colors, numbers, herbs, or something that really relates to their mythology that you really want to bring into the setting you can set up a whole altar dedicated to them. 

Really, all that is important here is trying to set up a connection with that dark goddess. 

You can also go on an astral journey to meet the goddess. You meet them in their space where they live. For example, if you are working with a goddess that is often found by lakes, or mountains or lives in the underworld, it depends on the particular dark goddess, you would go into their space to connect with them. You would go on an astral journey; this is where you go into an altered state of consciousness and you mentally travel to that place they reside and you introduce yourself there. 

Worship

After establishing a connection, this is when you start the worship. This is where you might want to set up an altar or spend time with them on a regular basis. Maybe setting up a specific daily practice or set specific days that you are going to dedicate to that dark goddess. You can give offerings to that dark goddess and offerings depend on the particular goddess and her likes and dislikes. 

Offerings are not necessarily physical items, they can be acts of service that you think she would appreciate. For example, when it comes to doing shadow work, setting clear boundaries and cutting out toxic people from your life, committing to a meditation practice, doing any self care practices that are especially necessary for your healing; especially when healing trauma. Those can all be acts of service that you are doing in the name of that dark goddess. These can be a lot more long lasting and meaningful. 

As far as spending time with her, it can be during a practice such as tarot reading, pendulum reading, or meditation. You would bring her into the practice by calling her name and inviting her into your space. It would be a good idea to set a schedule so that you are doing this on a regular basis and you dont end up going weeks or months without even acknowledging this deity. You’ll find that your relationship develops a lot faster and of a higher caliber if you are doing worship work on a regular basis. 

Somewhere along your practice and worship you may want to consider doing a more formal dedication ceremony. At some point you may want to dedicate yourself to that dark goddess. A dedication ceremony can look so different depending on the practitioner. It is basically when you are committing yourself to that deity, committing to the worship and transformation that is involved in this practice. 

Some common questions

Do I need a dark goddess to reach out first?

No, as mentioned before you can initiate that contact if you like. However it is possible that a dark goddess will attempt to contact you first. 

How do I know which goddess is reaching out or if a goddess is even reaching out at all?

If a dark goddess is reaching out to you, you may notice dreams or signs in your waking life that pertain to this dark goddess. 

They may show up in your divination readings. If you need more clarification if a goddess is reaching out to you, a tarot reading or pendulum reading can be a great idea. Through divination you can have conversation with your dark goddess and thus get some more clarity. 

You may hear this dark goddess in everyday conversation, or maybe they come up on a random video. But with anything that may seem like a sign do consider the mundane over the magical. 

For example, you may see a bunch of crows appear at your doorstep and it happens several times, that might be a sign that a dark goddess is reaching out to you. But if you live in an area that always has a bunch of crows out all the time then consider the mundane over magical; it probably doesn’t mean anything. You may have a lot of crows in your area like you always have and maybe you just never noticed it before. 

How do I know if something is a sign or not?

If you are wondering if something is a sign from a dark goddess you can always ask for confirmation. Say you have a candle dedicated to your dark goddess and it normally burns clear and never has any flickering but then one day you light it and it is flickering like crazy. A lot of people consider that this means the deity is trying to reach out or speak to you. But to consider the mundane over magical you can ask for confirmation. You would say something like, “if this is a sign, do it again”. Or with anything else that you feel may be a sign simply say, “if this is a sign do it again”. Just getting that confirmation can be really helpful. 

Some times you may feel like you’re almost obsessively thinking about a dark goddess and you don’t know why; that might also be a sign and that would be a great time to start doing research on her. 

Consent is important 

This relationship is a two way streak so remember just because a dark goddess is reaching out does not mean you have to develop a relationship if you don’t want to; and vise versa they dont have to be interested in working with you just because you want them to. With that in mind, if the relationship ever feels very one sided keep looking because eventually you will find a dark goddess that you will have a two-way streak relationship with. 

How do you know if it’s a two-way healthy relationship?

You’ll know if it’s a two-way relationship because it will feel good. You are receiving clear communication from them, it’s resonating with your soul and its creating real change and transformation in your life. Like any relationship, it should feel like a healthy one. 

What to expect when working with a dark goddess

The shadow work will be tough 

Unfortunately, sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. Meaning anytime you are working with trauma or you are trying to change things in your life there is a breaking down period where things may be seemingly falling apart but they’re actually falling apart in your favor in order to build back up and turn into something more beautiful. You really have to break down the current structures that exist in order to achieve that transformation and transcend into the next level. 

So if it feels like things are getting worse, definitely do what’s most healthy for you. Obviously, if this relationship is not serving you then definitely don’t continue this type of work. However, there is a certain level of breaking down that is absolutely necessary in order for you to build yourself up into something new, stronger and better. 

Expect the unexpected

You can not plan out everything that is going to happen throughout your journey when working with a dark goddess. Expect to be surprised. Expect for random things to happen in your life but typically they are for your benefit and your healing in the end. 

It also may take you a while to find the dark goddess for you. It is absolutely okay to maybe bounce around until you find the dark goddess that resonates with you. 

Dark goddess work can be so therapeutic and so transformational. If you are using this along side shadow work consider that it may be really heavy at times. For this reason you are gonna want to make sure that you are in a very safe, loving and secure enviornment. 

Darkness does not mean evil

Some people are a little nervous to work with a dark goddess because there is this stigma that dark godddesses are evil or scary which is far from the truth. Dark goddesses unfortunately, have this bad reputation but really if you are going down this road you will find for yourself that it’s not scary. 

This correlates to the stigma in our society that going into the darkness and gong into all of those repressed traumas is a scary thing. Yes, addressing your own personal trauma is uncomfortable and it is difficult to address things that you have been suppressing for a very long time but dark goddesses can be so powerful and healing, they are not scary. Darkness does not mean evil. There will be challenges along the way but it in the end it will all be very rewarding and beneficial.