Hestia
I light the candle, the flame flickers with life.
I call to you, sweet virgin, for you are the guardian.
I pray for your protection and your warmth.
I pray for your companionship, when my soul is cold and lonely.
I light this candle to you, in this place where fire dwells.
I burn the incense and feel joy.
I cry in your presence, and am not judged.
I stumble and you are there to catch me.
Silent Goddess, observer of life, who guards the dwellings we hold dear.
You who are the first.
You who are the last.
I pledge my soul, my honor, my respect to you, my patron.
In the Hearts of Man
In the hearts of man, there is a special place. A place protected and forever sacred to all, mortal and immortal. This place is Home. This place is the sacred dwelling of the virgin goddess Hestia upon the earth. If home is where the heart is, then Hestia is everywhere you go. Hestia is like the burning flame of passion for the security of you and yours in that sacred place you dwell. She is in the beat of every heart that seeks to build a home for himself, no matter where it is, what it looks like, or how humble, for Hestia is a humble goddess. Among the more brilliantly visible gods, hers is the soft light that is outshone but never forgotten. Hers is the soft light of a candle before the blinding light of the sun. Yet it is this very thing that endears her to the hearts of man. For in her quiet way, she sees. In her subtle way, she is most profound. In her sacred dwelling, you too dwell.
The Hearth and Home
Blessed goddess of the hearth and protector of the home. I think that in this function, Hestia is at her most powerful. Her work here is to provide us that feeling of safety, of shelter, and that feeling that it is that part of the world that is of your own making. Cleaning becomes a form of worship as you are cleaning her temple. Buying a new piece of furniture or decoration is to please the goddess by making the home more beautiful. Most importantly, take pride in your home, be it ever so humble, for the Gods are not prone to rewarding greed in any real way, and seeking to live beyond your means for the sake of showing off for others is neither smart nor what Hestia approves of.
Huh?
Well, the humble goddess is a subtle one, and it is in the subtle acts that we most honor her. Blessed Hestia, you who are the first and the last, come into my home in peace. Come into my home and stay, for here you are always welcome.
The Quiet Listener
If any Deity of our pantheon can be said to have been quiet, it is Hestia. Myths surrounding her are almost nonexistant, and more likely than not she is simply a secondary character involving the lusts of a God she turns down, a god who quickly moves forth to his next conquest. Hestia is a Virgin Goddess, and in Hellenic terms, it means she never took a husband, and never gave up her virginity to any God or Man. In a different manner, this also implies that Hestia was ot a goddess who was going to give over her power to a lord or master, as was the way of things in Ancient Hellas. This has always lead me to believe that the worship of Hestia is one of the oldest of all the Olympian Gods.
Quiet as she was, Hestia was honored at every feast, and at every ritual, for it was to her that the first libation was poured and it was also to her to whom the last libation was poured. It was said of Hestia, that she gave up her place on Olympus, for she did not like the petty squabbling and constant fighting and instigation that was the nature of things on Olympus. She chose instead to make her home in the homes of mortal men. It is said that she tended the home of Apollo, as well as that of mortal man, and this description tends to make her out more of a maid or housewife (no insult intended here to all you homemakers out there) than a Goddess of such vital importance to the civilization of man. But Hestia is not one to protest such silly things.
I disagree whole heartedly with the idea that Hestia removed herself from her divine Olympian office, for the Ancients understood something about how Olympus was set up. They understood that there was a balance to be kept, and the Gods and Goddesses represented that balance in their numbers just as they did in all other things. Six Gods and Six Goddesses. As it should be.
Who is it she gave her place to? Well, Dionysos, it is said. The emasculated and ecstatic son of Zeus. But I hardly think that to be the case, though Dionysos is an important Deity, to be sure, I do not consider him an Olympian God. I consider him a Chthonic God related strongly in his aspects to Persephone.
Blessed Virgin
As I have already mentioned, Hestia is a Virgin Goddess. The idea of the virgin deity is a popular one, the Hellenic Pantheon has three main Goddesses that are virgins, and the idea itself was carried over into Christianity (in the form of the Earth Mother) as Mary. What is implied is not a purity of body, though mythology tells us this is the case, but of spirit. A preservation of the sovereign power at her command, a power not to be shared with or handed over to a husband.
Blessed Fire
Like Hephaestos, Hestia is a fire deity, but a deity of the beneficent power of fire, a power that must none the less be utterly respected for it still has the capacity for great destruction. The goddess of the hearth is the goddess of the home, of the safety of the household. Her altar was the fiery hearth, where the meals were prepared, where heat was had, where the fire to light oil lamps came from. A fire necessary to the well being of the family and the nation.
In the modern Western World, these blessing seem less important and we take them very much for granted, but the home is still the refuge of the soul. It can be a shelter from the storm of society, though in many cases it can be the all consuming fire of abuse.
Personal Notes and Observations
There is something extremely special about Hestia. She is a goddess that is central to every turn of the seasons, every meal, every new stage of life. It was the hearth around which children were run as they were presented to the Fratria. It was at the hearth that Demeter sought to grant immortality to a young child. It was at the hearth that the sacred fire of the home was kept lit, and around which families gathered, and it was as a goddess that was very much associated with man and his humble existence that Hestia was said to have abandoned her throne on Olympus that she may be closer to us, her worshippers.
That Hestia did not develop more of a mythological presence is sad, but at the same time a blessing. In the increasingly artistic depictions of the gods as Classical Greece reached its zenith, many lost that feeling of sacredness and became almost comical caricatures that seem almost blasphemous at times, but there was to Hestia a personal feeling. She was worshipped in the homes of man, and it was there that she received honor among the people of ancient Hellas.
Today, Hestia is very special to me. She is represented in a place of honor in my home. The silent watcher over all those I love and who I hold in my prayers to her divine spirit. The sacred fire of her power symbolized by a humble candle. Appropriate to a goddess of immense power and honor, yet humble and pure of demeanor.