a happy childhood. Cronos was a tyrannical father who had no
warm feelings toward his children. Rhea was ineffectual and
powerless, and did nothing to stop the abuse of her children until
her last child was born. Of all the children, Hestia was the most on
her own to cope in whatever manner she could.
Some Hestia women that I have seen in my practice have had
early lives that parallel that of the goddess—abusive, tyrannical
fathers and ineffectual (often depressed) mothers. Many were psy-
chologically on their own throughout childhood in households where
the needs of the children were discounted and where any individual
expression was “swallowed up” by the need of the father to domin-
ate. In this kind of environment, most children emulate their parents:
the stronger, especially the boys, may abuse or tyrannize the
younger and smaller, or may run away from home or take to the
streets. Among the daughters, a powerless but maternal sibling may
follow a Demeter pattern and try to look out for her younger siblings,
or she may follow a Hera pattern and attach herself to a boyfriend
as soon as she is old enough.
A Hestia daughter, however, is likely to withdraw emotionally,
retreating inward for solace in the midst of a painful, conflicted
family life or a school environment that feels foreign to her. She often
feels as alienated or isolated from her siblings as she does from her
parents—and she truly is different from them. She tries not to be
noticed, has a surface passivity, and an inner sense of certainty that
she is different from those around her. She tries to be unobtrusive
in all situations and cultivates solitude in the midst of others. Hence
she becomes virtually “persona-less,” like the goddess herself.
In contrast, a Hestia daughter from an ordinary middleclass family
with supportive parents may not appear to be all that Hestian. From
nursery school on, she is helped to “get over her shyness or timid-
ity”—which is how others often label her inwardness. Thus she does
develop a socially adaptable persona, a way of being pleasant and
sociable. She is encouraged to do well in school, to participate in
everything from ballet to girls’ soccer, to be maternal toward little
children, and go out on dates when she is in high school. Yet, how-
ever
Hestia: I Goddess of the Hearth and Temple, Wise Woman and