today is a Hearth Goddess day. how little we regard Her, the flamekeeper who holds herself back from the Olympian drama -- the spinster, named for the work of women from the beginning of days: fiber artist, net-spinner, spider woman. we've come to valorize warriors, but what would we be without the hearth woman, whose fire creates home from cold and crag, whose mantle protects us?
A Bhrighid, scar os mo chionn do bhrat fionn dom anacal.
she is the center of the city, the fortress, and the weathered woman in the kitchen, her face etched with the stylus of age, telling tales with the scent of baking. virginal, yes, owned by no man -- but she is Mother in her basic element: the womb that warms us, the food that feeds us, warm skin and full bellies, lights dazzled by the dancing brightness.
she is furnace and forge and flame, hearth and home and here, maker and mother and mender. city center, she mends all disputes and marries the outsider to the hearth as she married Bres from the other side, as she gave her seat to the foreign god of ecstasy.
she is the beauty we forget to see, until we are standing amid the blank white, our footsteps swallowed by it, erasing the path back.
Hestia, Vesta, Tabiti, Brighid -- hail the Hearth Mother in the mouth of winter.