Bringing the Fire Home: Hestia, the Eclipse & the Turning of the Season
This month the full moon is in Pisces, with a partial lunar eclipse. We also had a solar eclipse this month with the new moon - we are in what is often referred to as 'eclipse season'.
Eclipses can be seen as deeper illuminators, bringing old stories, emotions or challenges into the light so we can see where our attention is needed.
Themes often associated with eclipses include endings that create space for new beginnings, clearing ancestral wounds, emotional revelations, releasing outdated identities and trusting life's larger unfolding.
Of course, each of us will experience this differently depending on our chart, but if this season feels challenging, call upon your tools for self-care and self-compassion as you ride the wave, and remember: this too shall pass.
Shadow work is a core aspect of my work and if you are interested in learning more about it, head to my blog where you will find a wealth of articles and info.
Last month we discussed the fire of Sekhmet. This month we explore the heart of the hearth with the Greek Goddess Hestia.
Sekhmet: Let yourself burn.
Hestia: Now tend the flame.
Hestia gently beckons us home to ourselves after the often more exuberant and extroverted summer days. Not that summer is over, fear not (!) but we are on the cusp of drawing into autumn and Hestia reminds us to gather all the abundance, the experiences, the lessons, the fire - and start to direct it back home to the hearth to be assimilated in autumn.
I also love Hestia as our eclipse archetype this month because eclipses are an invitation inward. We are plunged momentarily into darkness as the shadow covers the light. As a woman, I have found I am moved by nature's cycles and rhythms, and so often what is reflected in the outer sphere is mirrored within my inner sphere.
So Hestia can help us nurture and nourish a grounded home within as we move through the seasons and planetary shifts.
Sekhmet was the fire at its most fierce and untamed; Hestia is the fire consciously tended.
Hestia’s mythology
Hestia is the first born of Chronus and Rhea, sister to Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus. Chronus famously swallowed his children through fear of them overthrowing his title. Hestia was the first to be swallowed and the last to be regurgitated making her symbolically both the eldest and the youngest of the siblings. She sits at both ends of the story and creates a firm and steady centre. An integration of extremities which culminates in a central flame and solid, sustaining hearth. She brings a sense of wholeness, completion and satisfaction.
She represents the sacred centre from which everything else unfolds.
Hestia’s archetype is homeward and earthy. The word Hestia means hearth or fireplace. She is unconcerned with the more extroverted characters of the Olympian, choosing not to marry or excel outwardly in the pantheon, and instead Zeus granted her permission to stay at the centre of the home and tend to the hearth.
Before I go on, this is NOT a suggestion that that is where women belong! Far from it. Hestia’s decision is sovereign. She chooses to build a home for herself rather than seek the external validation and approval of men or the outside world. She chooses to tend to her own roots and light her own fire. She belongs to herself and remains connected to her own centre.
In public spaces, Hestia was celebrated by the burning of a flame, representing a symbolic centre of community, bringing people and practices together. When a new community was founded, the settlers would take the fire from the mother city to start their own sacred hearth for the new community. The Homeric Hymn to Hestia describes her as having an "everlasting abode" in the homes of gods and humans, and says that no banquet properly took place without honouring her.
She is the fire we may all gather around.
How we can embody her archetypal force
Hestia’s mythology is not necessarily about retreating. As we move toward the end of summer, we can take that summer flame and use it to light up our inner world, celebrating home within ourselves while participating in the world from a grounded centre.
At midsummer, we experience the great external fire:
☀️ Sun
🔥 heat
🌻 abundance
🦁 Leo
✨ expression
💃 outward life-force
But as autumn approaches, we shift the focus from'how brightly can I burn?' to 'what is worth tending? What flame do I want to keep alive? What nourishes me when the outer light begins to diminish?'
This moon brings a lunar eclipse that invites us to look at the unseen, the undercurrent, the subconscious realm. It may ask us to be extra gentle and tend to the fire within to help alchemise those energies that are ready to burn away, to make space for the new.
It is a clearing, and Hestia helps us create a solid, soulful, steady connection to centre as we journey towards autumn - a time that, for me at least, involves deep shedding, shaping and much nostalgic musing as I shed my leaves and prepare for winter.
Free Wombspace Activation
Here's a free somatic wombspace meditation to help you cleanse stagnant energy, release blocks and invite vitality into this powerful energy centre. Lead from your heart, embrace your womanhood and celebrate the unique essence within you. You will be added to my monthly lunar newsletter 🌕
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