Hestia | Recording
There is a hearth in you made from the spark of your original ground. Your εστία. In Greek, the name of the goddess Hestia means not only the home as hearth— literally, the goddess is the hearth— it also means "origin." The point from which something begins. The word itself has pre-Greek roots. This means it is pre Indo-European; pre-invasion; pre-conquest. It points to a εστία as primordial as peace.
So, this hearth in you is made of your peaceful origins. The ones that are ancestral, and the ones that are of soul. Your ancestors from long ago are gathered around this fire singing their creation stories back to you, reminding you of who you are and what ground you are made of. What literal, ecological ground— of root and mineral, tree and animal— and also what inner ground.
Even if everything around you crumbles, this hearth and its original ember remains. Even when the fires tended by the Vestal Virgins of ancient Rome were quenched, still their flames remained lit inside the wombs of all mothers and all children, all those who create, and dream, and love, to this day.
It is this inner εστία that can provide sanctuary and nourishment and kindle light for us, again and again, even when all seems lost.
In this mythic writing workshop at the cusp of autumn, we will venture deep into our inner origins, into our bones, to listen for the creation songs being sung around our origin-hearths. Through an exploration of such historical themes as the House-Temples and hearth-shrines of matriarchal Old Europe and their thematic continuation among the Vestal Virgins of ancient Latium, we will give thanks to Hestia, and begin to re-story ourselves back to home ground.
We will begin to set the stones— or branches, or mudbricks— back in the walls of our inner sanctuaries from where they have fallen due to disuse or destruction. We will retrieve the embers and set them at the center, and listen for the way of tending them that keeps a balance within and without, a way of tending them that keeps us warm and nourished no matter how the winds blow. A way of tending that weaves the wild back in.
There is a hearth in you made from the spark of your original ground. Your εστία. In Greek, the name of the goddess Hestia means not only the home as hearth— literally, the goddess is the hearth— it also means "origin." The point from which something begins. The word itself has pre-Greek roots. This means it is pre Indo-European; pre-invasion; pre-conquest. It points to a εστία as primordial as peace.
So, this hearth in you is made of your peaceful origins. The ones that are ancestral, and the ones that are of soul. Your ancestors from long ago are gathered around this fire singing their creation stories back to you, reminding you of who you are and what ground you are made of. What literal, ecological ground— of root and mineral, tree and animal— and also what inner ground.
Even if everything around you crumbles, this hearth and its original ember remains. Even when the fires tended by the Vestal Virgins of ancient Rome were quenched, still their flames remained lit inside the wombs of all mothers and all children, all those who create, and dream, and love, to this day.
It is this inner εστία that can provide sanctuary and nourishment and kindle light for us, again and again, even when all seems lost.
In this mythic writing workshop at the cusp of autumn, we will venture deep into our inner origins, into our bones, to listen for the creation songs being sung around our origin-hearths. Through an exploration of such historical themes as the House-Temples and hearth-shrines of matriarchal Old Europe and their thematic continuation among the Vestal Virgins of ancient Latium, we will give thanks to Hestia, and begin to re-story ourselves back to home ground.
We will begin to set the stones— or branches, or mudbricks— back in the walls of our inner sanctuaries from where they have fallen due to disuse or destruction. We will retrieve the embers and set them at the center, and listen for the way of tending them that keeps a balance within and without, a way of tending them that keeps us warm and nourished no matter how the winds blow. A way of tending that weaves the wild back in.
There is a hearth in you made from the spark of your original ground. Your εστία. In Greek, the name of the goddess Hestia means not only the home as hearth— literally, the goddess is the hearth— it also means "origin." The point from which something begins. The word itself has pre-Greek roots. This means it is pre Indo-European; pre-invasion; pre-conquest. It points to a εστία as primordial as peace.
So, this hearth in you is made of your peaceful origins. The ones that are ancestral, and the ones that are of soul. Your ancestors from long ago are gathered around this fire singing their creation stories back to you, reminding you of who you are and what ground you are made of. What literal, ecological ground— of root and mineral, tree and animal— and also what inner ground.
Even if everything around you crumbles, this hearth and its original ember remains. Even when the fires tended by the Vestal Virgins of ancient Rome were quenched, still their flames remained lit inside the wombs of all mothers and all children, all those who create, and dream, and love, to this day.
It is this inner εστία that can provide sanctuary and nourishment and kindle light for us, again and again, even when all seems lost.
In this mythic writing workshop at the cusp of autumn, we will venture deep into our inner origins, into our bones, to listen for the creation songs being sung around our origin-hearths. Through an exploration of such historical themes as the House-Temples and hearth-shrines of matriarchal Old Europe and their thematic continuation among the Vestal Virgins of ancient Latium, we will give thanks to Hestia, and begin to re-story ourselves back to home ground.
We will begin to set the stones— or branches, or mudbricks— back in the walls of our inner sanctuaries from where they have fallen due to disuse or destruction. We will retrieve the embers and set them at the center, and listen for the way of tending them that keeps a balance within and without, a way of tending them that keeps us warm and nourished no matter how the winds blow. A way of tending that weaves the wild back in.