wardly focused archetype. Once begun, meditation often becomes
an everyday practice because it provides a sense of wholeness and
centeredness, an inner source of peace and illumination, of access
to Hestia.
For some women, poetry emerges when Hestia’s presence is felt.
May Sarton, author and poet, says that for her such writing “is pos-
sible only when I am in a state of grace, when the deep channels are
open, and when they are, when I am both profoundly stirred and
balanced, then poetry comes as a gift beyond my will.”^6 She is de-
scribing an experience of the archetype of the Self, which always
feels beyond ego and effort, a gift of grace.
FINDING HESTIA THROUGH UNCHOSEN SOLITUDE
Almost everyone experiences periods of unchosen solitude during
their lives. Such periods usually begin with loss, grief, loneliness,
and longing to be with others. For example, free-lance writer Ardis
Whitman’s husband gave her a quick hug and dashed out the door,
was stricken by a heart attack, and never returned home again.
Seven years later, she wrote about some of the unexpected rewards
of solitude. Her words evoke feelings associated with Hestia:
Like the first thin sunlight after rain, there is a meager yet
growing warmth that is as indigenous to unchosen solitude as
sorrow itself is. It is warmed by memory...also by a growing
sense of our own identity. When we live surrounded by people,
some of the passion and insight natural to us leaks away through
the sieve of small talk. At your most daring moments you believe
that what is going on is the ultimate human work—the shaping
of a soul. The power of life comes from within; go there. Pray;
meditate. Reach for those luminous places in yourself.^7
HESTIA THE WOMAN
A Hestia woman shares the attributes of the goddess in being a
quiet and unobtrusive person, whose presence creates
Hestia: I Goddess of the Hearth and Temple, Wise Woman and