![\"S13.2Hestia\"](\"http:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/S13.2Hestia.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBut\u00a0Hestia had no throne.\u00a0 Dressed in a plain robe of brown, s<\/span>he sat by the hearth fire, tending the sacred flame.<\/p>\n When I was a child, Hestia never interested me much.\u00a0 She seemed drab. \u00a0Overly peaceable<\/span>.\u00a0 Whereas\u00a0h<\/span>er immortal siblings\u00a0passed their days frolicking in diaphanous tunics, inspiring poets, and enjoying\u00a0scandalous affairs, Hestia didn’t get out much.\u00a0 <\/span>She was the sort of person it was easy to overlook, sitting amidst the ashes. \u00a0And she was there by choice!\u00a0 <\/span>No act of injustice had bound her there, no evil spell, or wish gone wrong\u00a0constrained her.\u00a0 <\/span>Why would anyone choose thus, let alone a Goddess?\u00a0 <\/span>Who would give up a life of adventure to sit beside the cinders?<\/p>\n So went my thinking as a\u00a0young artist.\u00a0 In my teenage years and early twenties,\u00a0<\/span>I lived for wildness. \u00a0I read Rimbaud, Baudelaire, the French symbolists. \u00a0Like Aries, I was\u00a0tempestuous, warlike, quick to anger, flighty in my desires.\u00a0 <\/span>Like Aphrodite,\u00a0I was seduced by creativity– and lived to pass on its seduction to others.\u00a0 <\/span>Like Dionysis, I loved to experience any alteration to my state, to\u00a0lose myself in life’s intensity.<\/p>\n I look back on that person and on those days, with fondness. \u00a0So it’s interesting now to find myself at this new place in my life,\u00a0where I too find myself sitting hearth side, and finding peace there.\u00a0 Hestia’s place. \u00a0W<\/span>here I once saw plainness,\u00a0now I see warmth, love, and hidden colors.\u00a0 <\/span>Hestia as\u00a0a quiet muse.\u00a0 <\/span>Hestia as still center. \u00a0Hestia, a small, constant star, holding steady\u00a0amidst the ferocious pantheon of action and desire.<\/p>\n Hestia holds the space. \u00a0Amidst the pomp and showy beauty of her siblings,\u00a0it would be easy to overlook Hestia’s\u00a0her simple work– to tend this sacred flame– the flame of quiet presence.\u00a0 <\/span>And yet, without her, where would the Gods and Goddesses be?\u00a0 <\/span>Where would any of us be?\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n Every day, outside our Brooklyn apartment, at least twenty\u00a0ambulances go by, often waking\u00a0my little son\u00a0from his slumber.\u00a0 <\/span>We step outside, into the clamorous world. \u00a0Trucks barrel by, spewing exhaust.\u00a0\u00a0As we walk, billboards tell me what to do, what to buy, who to be.\u00a0 <\/span>Carrying my child, I try to shield his sweet eyes\u00a0from dark images on all sides.\u00a0 Graphic pictures of people\u00a0with l<\/span>ung cancer.\u00a0 A poster for “Saw II”. \u00a0Another movie poster<\/span>\u00a0shows a woman cowering in terror, trying in vain to shelter her two children from an approaching shadow.\u00a0 My child<\/span>\u00a0stares wonderingly\u00a0as we hurry by them.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u00a0long for a great wing, wide enough to shelter him, strong\u00a0enough to hold\u00a0him close to the mystery\u00a0from which he so recently came.<\/p>\n Hestia reminds me that amidst the\u00a0clamor, there lives\u00a0the point of return.\u00a0 <\/span>She invites me into quiet, the still center of the world.\u00a0 I come with my child in my arms. \u00a0<\/span>Together, we go in quiet, to sit\u00a0beside her hearthside.\u00a0 T<\/span>here, we know\u00a0peace.\u00a0 “Stay as long as you like,” she says gently. \u00a0And we do. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At times,\u00a0dear friends\u00a0come to me, also\u00a0shellshocked from\u00a0the mad world outside, refugees seeking the\u00a0shelter of a listening\u00a0ear. \u00a0Here, Hestia is again my teacher.\u00a0 I<\/span>\u00a0imagine the sacred hearth of\u00a0Olympus.\u00a0 <\/span>How it must have glowed as a place to circle round, to gather, perhaps to sing.\u00a0 Ovid, Plutarch, the other Bards focus on the God’s action packed\u00a0exploits. \u00a0<\/span>But each misadventure had a\u00a0morning after.\u00a0 <\/span>The stumbling home.\u00a0 <\/span>Who else would be awake?\u00a0 Only one, maybe–<\/span>\u00a0Hestia, beside the fire.\u00a0 <\/span>Hestia’s quiet peace. \u00a0Hestia the listener.\u00a0 Hestia,\u00a0warm friend.<\/p>\n