"Mother of our mothers,
Foremothers strong
Guide our hands in yours,
Remind us how to kindle the hearth."
___ Caitlin Matthews, "A Blessing for the Hearth Keepers"
The hearth is a special shrine that is still ceremonially tended in some Gaelic households. Before retiring, the woman of the house 'smoors' the fire - that is, covers any fresh fuel with ashes so that the fire is banked in and slowly burning. In the morning, the fire can then be easily woken without recourse to fresh kindling. Three blocks of peat (turf) are then placed in the grate, their ends touching so that they radiate out in the customery three-legged triskele symbol, and a prayer is made over the fire, normally invoking Brighid as saint or goddess, since she is the protectress of the hearth. Among traditional peoples, the tending of the hearth is one of the chief duties that fall to women. These two tasks seem to be interlinked: keeping the hearth and maintaining spiritual practice are daily, habitual tasks that cannot be avoided without loss of integrity to the whole household. Today, we may no longer kindle the hearth, but this does not exempt us from kindling our spirit. Many people now incorporate small domestic rituals into their daily life: lighting a candle upon their hearth shrine, acknwledging their guiding spirits and allies with flowers and offerings, spending time in meditation in a quiet room, making an earth-shrine in their gardens and window boxes. As each home becomes again the focus of dedicated spiritual practice, the hearth-light is rekindled and we remember our own part in the reverence of Spirit as ancestral hands guide our unremembering ones.
"Create your own hearth-shrine and make it the kindling point of your spiritual practice everyday."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]
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