Saturday Goddess Blogging

Hestia, in the high dwellings of all, both deathless gods and men who walk on earth, you have gained an everlasting abode and highest honor: glorious is your portion and your right. For without you mortals hold no banquet, - where one does not duly pour sweet wine in offering to Hestia both first and last.
~Homeric Hymn to Hestia~


My moon is in Taurus, so I've always been devoted to Hestia (known to the Romans as Vesta, served by the Vestal Virgins). Encyclopedia Mythica explains that: Hestia is the Greek goddess of the hearth fire, hence presiding over domestic life. She is the eldest sister of Zeus and the oldest daughter of Rhea and Cronus.

She was a virgin-goddess, and when wooed by Poseidon and Apollo, swore by the head of Zeus to remain a virgin. She had no throne, but tended the sacred fire in the hall on the Olympus and every hearth on Earth was her altar. She is the gentlest of all the Olympians.

Hestia is the gentle goddess of the home and hearth, the goddess of hospitality, the goddess of those who love to decorate, garden, entertain, cocoon. She represents continuity, the lighting of the hearth in the new home with an ember from the hearth of the old home. Several modern systems of personality classification based upon archetypes recognize a Hestia personality type: The source of Hestia’s sacred fire was believed to be the molten lava that burns at the center of the earth, connected by an “umbilical cord” called the Oomphalos to the city of Delphi, a place of great wisdom and spiritual energy.

The town hall, a meeting place for citizens to discuss the community's affairs (a forerunner of western democracy), was built around a hearth that honored Hestia.

The living flame of Hestia was tended constantly and never allowed to die out, for it represented the energy of all life and to let the flame extinguish was to invite a cold and barren existence. When new “subdivisions” were developed, fire was carried from the town’s hearth to light the fire of the new community, assuring its prosperity.

The Olympic Torch is just one example of the living flame that has survived to modern times, though it is seldom recalled that it originally honored the Greek goddess Hestia.

The ritual of a bride and groom lighting a candle together from the flames of two candelabra to symbolize the creation of the “new” family from their two “old” families derived from the ancient practice of bringing Hestia’s flame from the bride’s mother’s home in order to assure Hestia’s blessing on the union.

Here's a lovely invocation of Hestia:

Elsa Gidlows "Chains of Fire"

Touching the match, waiting for creeping flame,
I know myself linked by chains of fires
To every woman who has kept a hearth ...
I see mothers, grandmothers back to beginnings,
Huddled beside holes in the earth ...
Guarding the magic no other being has learned,
Awed, reverent, before the sacred fire
Sharing live coals with the tribe.