Up: [[Hestia]] Created: 2023-09-04 Updated: 2024-12-26 Hestia’s particular gift is that she illuminates. Her illumination is the light from the hearth and its flame. The word for hearth in Latin is ‘focus’. ## Common Understandings of ‘Focus’ In common usage, focus is the ability to perceive clearly. Or, if you have a scientific bent, it’s the place where light is most concentrated, where rays meet after being refracted or reflected. Both of these usages are often thought of as a straight line, but they are actually circular processes. Perception is a relationship between perceived and perceived. In optics, the focal point is the point from which separation or convergence occurs, so it’s both starting point and ending point, suggesting the image of a [[Circle]]. One non-linear definition of focus comes from the theatre, where the focus is the best illuminated part of the stage. ## Focus in Hestian Terms Let’s stay with the theatre. In psychological terms, Hestia controls the theatre lighting so that there’s a place in our psyche where imaginal figures may be seen so they can teach our consciousness about us. And when that image is crystal clear and defined, we say that it is in focus. This doesn’t mean that we interpret the image in order to make it defined. Rather, we return to the image again and again from various directions in an attempt to *find the fire of the image. This is imagining in a Hestian mode.* (p. 109) Amplification in dream work is part of this way of imagining. **Note**: Image is a slippery concept in Jungian philosophy. See [[Image ‘Defined’]] for one attempt and [[Quotes - Image]] for words from the master, C.G. Jung. And focusing has one more relevant meaning. Sometimes the inner images are activations of old psychological wounds. At those times, *focusing is the slight movements toward and away from those burned-burning places of soul. It is a way of ‘finding place’ for one’s illnesses and wounds* (p. 111) so that we better adjust to our life and its limitations. > [!User] Source > Barbara Kirksey, ‘Hestia: a Background of Psychological Focusing’ > Chapter 6 in [[James Hillman]], ed. *Facing the Gods*