For many thousands of years, the hearth was the centre of life, just as the heart is the centre of our Being.
Hestia was the Greek goddess of hearth, home, family and community, and her name literally means hearth. Tending the hearth, keeping the people warm and nurtured, using the magic of fire to transform food and medicines was traditionally the role of woman. It was a sacred as well as a practical task.
Fundamentally, we all need to honour the core essence of our Being – who we are and how we express that in the world. We are all totally unique expressions of spirit, and once upon a time our community would have recognised and valued that. This essence is first nurtured beneath our mother’s heart, then at the hearth in our home and wider community. As we grow and venture out into the wider world, we can return to the healing hearth to integrate our experiences, rest and dream. We then need to create our own hearth to nurture and cherish ourselves.
HONOUR THE CORE ESSENCE OF YOUR BEING
YOU are a totally unique expression of spirit
Few of us are directly dependent upon the hearthfire any more. We have been 'freed' and 'liberated' from the need to gather wood and tend our fires, just as we have been 'freed' and 'liberated' from growing food, gathering herbs for medicines, birthing our children as women have for millennia, raising our own children. We have been ‘liberated’ so that we can be workers in an Earth-destroying system - many doing pointless jobs that don't need doing while important things go undone; getting ever busier and more stressed; and moving further and further from the core truth of who we are.
We need to bring ourselves back to balance.
Start now! Come into the Healing Hearth
Put the kettle on. Slow down. Have a cup of tea and breathe.
It is time to reconnect - with your true self, with Mother Earth, and with the greater Mystery of which you are a unique part.
REMEMBER WHO YOU TRULY ARE
Reclaim your sacredness and your immense creative power
Returning to your Sacred Self will support your own personal well-being, but is also a gift for our beloved Mother Earth.
I work mostly, but not exclusively, with women. At this time, reclaiming and re-empowering the Sacred Feminine and rebalancing the Sacred Masculine is crucial for our collective survival. Once we come back into our true power and beauty, we can begin to take action and do the real work that is needed to rebirth a new way of living together on our planet.
For current Women's Events, please go to the Diary.
RECLAIM yOUR TRUE NATURE, yOUR WILD BEAUTY, BOTH FOR yOURSELf AND FOR OUR PLANET
BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD
The keeper of the sacred flame - the heart or hearthfire - has different names in other traditions. The Romans called her Vesta. The stories of these sacred women/priestesses often describe them as the 'vestal virgins'.
Brigid (Bree, Brid, Bride, Brigantia are some other versions of her name), the ancient goddess of our lands and for whom these islands are named, was, amongst many other things, goddess of the hearthfire
