A Meditation on Fire

Close your eyes

​

Breath in

Breath out

​

Find the center of yourself

Go deep

Deeper

Deeper

There

​

There is a fire in you

Deep down

At the very center

Where everything else falls away

Until there is nothing

But the flames and you

​

Is it a candle?

Does it flicker and dance?

Or is it a bonfire

That roars its defiance

Against the wind and the world?

​

Perhaps it is a star

So bright and burning

That to behold it up close

Would be to dissolve

Into the universe

​

The form it takes does not matter

Just that it burns

​

This is your center, the hearth

In the home of your body

A place of warmth, of love

Of creativity and of rest

A place where we are so much ourselves

That it cannot help

But be home

​

Now, let us speak of Hestia

​

Hestia was the goddess of

Hearth and home

They say she is both the oldest

And the youngest of her siblings

First to be swallowed, last disgorged

​

They say that she lit the fire

And kept it burning

So that her siblings

Would not be lost to the dark

The way she was when her father

Swallowed her down

​

She held the center

Kept the fire burning

Kept them all together

Physically

Mentally

Emotionally

She kept them from falling

Apart

​

When it came time

To divide up

The great wide world

Her siblings had fought

So hard to attain

All she asked for

Was the hearth

A space of warmth

Of healing

Of safety

​

Zeus could have the violent sky

Poseidon the crashing waves

Hades the dark depths

Hestia wanted the hearth

​

She wanted home

​

She is always there

Deep

Deeper

Deeper

There

Where the fire burns

​

She tends to it

Be it candle flame or burning star

She holds the center

Keeps us from falling

Holds the dark at bay

​

Breath in

Breath out

​

Feel her warmth

Coursing through you

Feel your flame

Safely tended

​

Now open your eyes