🌛Huntress Moon🌜

🌕Diana & The Festival of Nemoralia – The Moonlit Celebration of the Huntress Goddess

Diana and her followers

Each year in the glow of August’s first full moon, or usually around the 13th to 15th of august, the ancient Romans celebrated Nemoralia, a three day Festival of Torches, in honor of the goddess Diana. This sacred event, held most prominently at Lake Nemi in the Alban Hills outside Rome, was a shimmering homage to the divine huntress — a goddess of wild places, animals, women, the moon, and in later traditions, magic itself.

Who Was Diana?

In Roman mythology, Diana was a multifaceted goddess:

• Goddess of the Hunt – protector of wild creatures and guardian of the forest’s balance.

• Lunar Goddess – associated with the waxing and full moon, ruling over cycles of nature, intuition, and illumination.

• Protector of Women – especially women in childbirth, maidens, and the oppressed.

• Patroness of Outsiders – she often championed fugitives, the enslaved, and those on society’s margins.

  
  

While the Romans did not officially call her “the goddess of witches,” later European folklore — and the writings of Renaissance occultists — intertwined Diana with witchcraft, moon magic, and nocturnal rites. This came partly from her connection with the moon, Hecate and Artemis, and her dominion over the moonlit wilderness where witches were believed to gather.

The Festival of Nemoralia

The heart of Nemoralia was Diana’s sanctuary at Lake Nemi, sometimes called Diana’s Mirror because the still waters reflected the full moon like a perfect silver glass. The lake was surrounded by dense woods, considered sacred ground, where hunting was forbidden.

During the festival:

• Women, dressed in white, would descend in procession to the lakeshore carrying torches that blazed against the night.

• Garlands of flowers adorned their heads and offerings of fruit, bread, and small clay statuettes of the goddess were brought to her shrine.

• Dogs, sacred to Diana, were crowned with blossoms and honoured.

• Pilgrims bathed and washed their hair in the lake as an act of purification, the moonlight rippling on the water.

• It was a time of vows, petitions, and gratitude, asking for protection, fertility, healing, or liberation. It was ideal for divination practices and soothhsaying.

Diana’s Mirror

The name Diana’s Mirror for Lake Nemi is more than poetic — it captures her role as a lunar deity whose light reveals truths and reflects the soul. To look into the lake under the full moon was to see not only your reflection but also your inner self, illuminated and stripped bare. For ancient devotees, this was a sacred act of self-recognition, prophecy, and renewal. The reflections of moonlight in the water also offered a look into the beyond, a doorway to liminal spaces and used in divination practices.

Modern Spell & Ritual for Nemoralia

Altar to Diana

You can honour Diana during the August full moon — or any full moon — with this simple yet powerful Torch & Blossom Rite.

You Will Need:

• 3 white candles (for Diana’s triple aspect: huntress, moon goddess, and protector)

• A bowl of water (to serve as your “Diana’s Mirror”)

• Fresh flowers (white, yellow, or wildflowers)

• Optional: a piece of moonstone

Ritual Steps:

1. Create Your Space: Set your altar facing a window where moonlight falls, or outside under the open sky. Place the bowl of water at the center, place your moonstone in it, then place the three candles in a triangle around it.

2. Candle Invocation Light the first candle: “Diana the Huntress, guide my steps in freedom.”Light the second: “Diana of the Moon, illuminate my path with truth.”Light the third: “Diana the Protector, shield me from harm.”

3. Flower Offering: One by one, place flowers into the bowl of water, speaking your intentions or prayers aloud.

4. Gazing into Diana’s Mirror: Lean over the water and let the moon (or candlelight) reflect your face. Ask Diana to reveal what you need to see — about yourself, your path, or a decision.

5. The Spell – The Torch of Clarity

   With your dominant hand over the water, say:“Huntress, Maiden, Queen of Light,Guide my vision through the night.By torch and blossom, moon and flame. Reveal the truth in your sacred name.”

6. Close & Release: Thank Diana, grab the moonstone and carry it with you to deepen your intuition and a direct conduit to Diana and the divine feminine.

7. Extinguish the candles, and pour the flower-filled water into the earth as an offering.

🪄Magickal Tip:

If you want to deepen the spell, crown yourself with a wreath of flowers as the women of Lake Nemi once did, and dip your feet in a lake, river or sea, walking barefoot under the moonlight to connect to the earth and water elements before beginning the ritual.

Alternatively, have a candlelit soothing bath, with Aura Sukha's Moon Petals Bath Salts and open a window to allow the moonlight to shine in.

Seal with action and intention:

Donate to a lost dogs home, local animal shelter or wildlife refuge in honour of Diana, protector and patron of animals.

🌕Happy Nemoralia!