A couple of years ago there was the house flipping craze, people were doing it as a way to make a living and eventually TV caught on and made some shows about it. When did owning a home become a business maneuver…when did a hearth and home become a means for financial gain? What has happened to our worship, our value, of Hestia?
Hestia, Athenian red-figure kylix C5th B.C., National Museum, Tarquinia
We are in different times right now, seems people can’t sell their homes (if they aren’t losing them). The NY Times had an article yesterday about the state of home sales and in grasping for some positivity the author wrote, “For real estate, some economists say, an end to the
seemingly endless decline in housing values might be in sight.” (NY Times, David Streitfeld). Dropping values eventually leads to shells of meaning, empty husks of what was once imbued with value. We have become too attached to literal forms and concepts and this makes difficult our awareness (and attendance) of Hestia. Profit from home sales is literalizing the value that is inherent in the establishment of a hearth flame. In the classical Greek tradition Hestia was not represented as a personified figure but as the living flame – that which glows and burns and radiates from the center, the hearth of our homes. Where is the embodied presence of the hearth in our shared collective life when the actual home keeps slipping away? How do you attend to that flame in your home?
