Up: [[Hestia]] Created: 2023-09-04 > [!Orbit] [[James Hillman]] said.. > Hearth in Latin is focus, which can be translated into psychological language as the centering attention that warms to life all that comes within its radius. Hestia is the soul essence that inhabits anything. When I experience Hestia, there are images that come to me, not just of her flame, but other images such as the [[Spiral]] and the [[Circle]]. I make a connection to her and in that connection I often have insights based on various experiences in my life. That idea of *gathering, weaving together (integrating) and centring randomness* (p.101) is what Kirksey describes as centredness. It includes the action of[[ focusing]] or concentrating. It doesn’t mean being balanced. ## Signs that Psyche wants Centredness - When you choose a single theme, figure or symptom that you want to write about or create - When a dream is central to a particular [[Complex]] - When an imaginal figure appears in [[Active Imagination]]s for a while ## Connection to Hestia - Dwells in hearth at centre of house which means must have central place in psyche - At Delphi, centre of the world - In centre of town’s public hearth - Kinship with Earth — both have perpetual fires under them; both earth and hearth are symbols of home > [!User] Source > Barbara Kirksey, ‘Hestia: a Background of Psychological Focusing’ > Chapter 6 in James Hillman, ed. *Facing the Gods*