Hestia is the Greek Goddess who embodies the sacred fire of the hearth and the hospitality of home.
Hestia, the Archetype: Personification of the Sacred Fire and the Inner Sacred Space
The myth of Hestia is the flame of life. Hestia, which in Greek means passing through light or consuming, always had honor from all of the deities, becoming the only one to be worshiped in all men's houses and the temples of all the gods. Courted by many gods, especially the beautiful Apollo and Neptune, Hestia rejected all marital proposals and asked her brother Zeus to protect her virginity. Daughter of Chronos and Rhea, Hestia was one of the Olympian deities. Due to their desire to remain chaste, Hestia and her priestesses were vestals who continuously watched the sacred fire in the temples.
Usually represented wearing a long dress, often with her head covered by a veil, Hestia is the goddess who never left Olympus and never engaged in quarrels, those being the wars of gods and mortals. The animal most sacred to the goddess is the donkey. As the goddess of the sacred fire, she represented the deity of the home, defending the family's life, presiding over the home environment, and family ties. In Rome, Hestia was known as Vesta, and the sacred flame of Vesta, kept burning in her temple by her priestesses, the Vestal Virgins, united all Rome as one family.
Hestia was worshiped before any of the other gods in all places and festivals, as she was the oldest and most precious of the goddesses of Olympus. A promise made in her name was the most sacred of oaths. From Zeus, she received the honor of being worshiped in every household and being included in all the sacrifices. She was allowed to remain at peace in his palace, surrounded by the respect of gods and mortals. She was the personification of stable housing, where people gathered to pray and offer sacrifices to the gods, and worshiped as the protector of cities, families, and colonies.
Hestia’s sacred flame shone continuously in homes and temples. All cities had the fire of Hestia, placed in the palace where the tribes would meet. Hestia’s hearth was a sacred space, a center, a focal point, and a point of heating. This fire was created directly from the use of sunlight. When the Greek cities were founded outside of the capitals, they took part of the hearth fire as a symbol of connection with the earth and the mother city, and lit the new hearth fire where the political center of the new city would be.
Always fixed and immutable, Hestia ultimately symbolizes the continuity of civilization. At Delphi, there was kept at perpetual flame with which to light Hestia’s other altars. Each pilgrim who came to visit the city was first advised to make a sacrifice in honor of Hestia. Hestia, the chaste goddess of the households, is the great mother and protector of all married women, homemakers, and the goddess of the home. In ancient Greece, to revere Hestia meant to cultivate a ritual of sitting around a fireplace. For the happiness of a couple, it was deemed necessary to have a fireplace or an altar that would give warmth, comfort, continuity, shared awareness, and collective identity.
No home or temple was sanctified without her presence. Hestia was both a spiritual presence and a sacred fire that provided light, heat, and warmth to the food. Hestia shared the image of the sacred fire with Hermes, who was the alchemical spirit imagined as the fire element. This fire was considered the source of intuitive knowledge, symbolically located in the center of the Earth.
Another association between Hestia and Hermes refers to the sacralization of the space. In ancient Greece, outside all households, as a protection against invading evil, stood a "Herma", a pillar representing Hermes. Thus, Hermes and Hestia were associated with the protection of a sacred space, with Hermes guarding the exterior and Hestia guarding the interior. The pillar and the ring in a circle represent the male and female principles, respectively.
The great paradox was that, despite the many honors she carried, she was the least known deity of the Olympian gods and was never actually represented in human form, but rather as a flame in the center of a home, temple, or city. She had as her symbol a circle, since her original fireplaces were round, as well as their temples. While other deities had mobility all around the planes of existence, Hestia remained motionless on Olympus. This immobility prevented her from being represented in any role in myth, instead remaining as the personification of an abstract principle, the idea of fire, rather than as a personal deity.
About this peculiarity of Hestia, being the first Olympian paradoxically and simultaneously the most obscure, her image and her place were identical. There were no pictures in her temple, only the sacred fire upon the earth. Hestia, representing the interior space, is associated with feminine values, the importance of the inner sanctuary, and the internalization of finding meaning and peace. The sanctuary of the family without a source of heat is either diminished or lost. The feeling of a basic connection with others disappears, but also the need of the citizens of a city, country, or earth bound by a common spiritual bond.
The Fires of Purification
The element of fire is associated with the color red, summer, and the heart; it is also linked to passion, spirit, and intuitive knowledge. In both the Old and New Testaments, the fire element purifies and cleans, becoming the vehicle that separates impurity from purity, which is consistent with a shared vision in alchemy. Fire, since the beginning of time, is adored for eliminating impurities and contamination, and has been regarded as an essential element that regenerates and renews.
The importance of Hestia in one’s psychological life stems from its ability to mediate the soul, providing the individual with a place to gather and a junction point where the soul and the world intersect. It is through the psychic presence of Hestia that the world of man’s psychological life is housed. The act of imagining, a psychological activity par excellence, is not separate from the world. The villas we create are where they live within dreams and fantasies. Outwardly, they manifest an aspect of our soul. The house is more than the landscape: it is a psychic state.
The soul, from the perspective of Hestia, reveals itself through spatial metaphors. So the pathology manifested by the language of the goddess of the hearth contains phrases relating to space: off-base, off-center, unable to settle, distanced without a carpet underfoot, demonstrating that without Hestia’s values and their power integration, the soul is unable to find a place to live and grow.
This was one of the fantasies related to the pathologies of the soul, because primitive peoples feared the loss of the soul. Cicero argued that the soul without a central anchoring place was lost forever. When lost, the soul has no psychic link with Hestia and its centrality. The soul cannot go home because there is no place to return. In this context, the absence of Hestia represents a threat to the integrity of the psyche, with its multitude of images and their influence.
With Hestia, there are limits to distinguish the intimacy of the house inside from the outside world, because there is a house that offers psychic protective walls, making possible the celebrations of life and nourishing the soul. Without Hestia’s presence, there is no separation between the spaces inside and outside, there are no protective barriers, which allow the permanence of the images so that the whole psychic world is experienced as fleeting and transitory. The absence of those walls provokes mental and emotional pathologies, which can be observed in certain transient disorders such as psychosis and degrees of schizophrenia.
The condition of a guardian image of Hestia prompts us to connect with another aspect of divinity: hospitality. Providing a place of union of the congregation, Hestia offers hospitality to the images, as they are spirits that embody or personify the acceptance and warmth of the hearth. Impersonation is a means of knowing; it is a possibility for establishing a fruitful relationship with the unconscious.
You will also enjoy Kundalini and the Fire of the Holy Spirit
Follow us on Humanity Healing on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest
