Posts Tagged ‘cottage’

Hearth Craft

“An rud a nitear sa chuil, thig e dh’ionnsaigh an teine” ~ What’s done in the corner will come to the hearth.

“No matter where I serve my guests, it seems they like the kitchen best” ~ A decorative plate that once hung in my Great Grandmother’s kitchen.

In these modern times, in Western society especially, the home of today is centered on the television. The furniture is placed strategically around it; the couch or sofa faces it and the faces of the family are also turned towards it. Often our most prized family photos, trophies, mementos and the like rest on or near it. Surely if archaeologists one day dig up the bones of our civilization, they will think the television was our God.

But before primetime TV and soaps operas took over our lives, before Nintendo and Xbox, the household and everyone in it would gather around the family stove, and before that, the hearth. The hearth was such in integral part of European (and Colonial) culture that there was no separating hearth and home, fireside and family. In fact, the word for “hearth” in Latin is “focus”.

Hearthcraft is working with the magick and spirit of hearth, home, kith and kin. In Hearthcraft the entire house and the land it sits on is sacred space, the home the family’s temple, centered on the hearth. Be that hearth a fireplace, a woodstove or modern electric range. In Hearthcraft, the home is hallowed.

Even cleaning can become a ritual. In fact, life is made up of a series of little routines we go about day by day; hearthcraft is the practise of recognizing the magick in every day routines and traditions. There are many spells involving the use of a mop or broom. Many “cleansings” that Pagan practitioners do, involve literally cleaning the space before doing the spiritual cleansing.

The hearth plays an important part in folklore and the traditions of the family home. A large part of most holidays and festivals throughout history is feasting, as well as lighting the hearth.

Hearthcraft is grounded in commonsense and practicality; it is using what is available to you. A healing spell is a bowl of chicken soup; a purification ritual is sweeping the floor; a ritual to honor the gods is cleaning the fireplace.

Hearthcraft is finding the sacred, the spiritual and the magickal in everyday things. It is bringing that “special something” into a house that makes it a home.