One of the things I’ll miss about winter is boiling water on the stove. I kept a pot going pretty much around the clock, whether I was at home or at work, between November and March. I have forced air heat, which is dry and which lacks a radiant source. To compensate for both, I boil a large pot of water. It adds moisture to the air and creates a place that is hot, where the heat actually emanates from. This is the pot in my studio; the one at home is about twice the size. I am sure I bioled away more than 300 gallons of water like this; the pot needs to be refilled at least daily. I would leave it going when leaving for short times; and not for longer times, so this took some planning. It became a kind of Vestal ritual: something involving maintaining a hearth around the clock. I developed a fascination with these pots ofВ simmering and boiling water, partiuclarly the way the heat and energy accumulate inside the thing, then radiate outward. Sometimes I would let the minerals gather for weeks, then scrub the vessel out. I would be fascinated by the smell of the water and the steam and the ambiance created by having this central point of fire/water in my space. After a while I started to connect it to my Moon conjunct Vesta in Aquarius.
How could I have MISSED this? Ahhh….in Scorpio. . .from now on, will read ALL the signs; don’t want to miss anything this good. Especially “it was a ritual that transcended all the other activities of my life, and kept me bound to my home. . .” Thanks for digging this out and replaying. Didn’t realize the Goddess was so close and so real. Bless you!
This is my first Vesta story, from 1997, told in The Spiral Door (2007 annual edition).
From the Scorpio Annual Report
Granted, I have never read anything resembling this in any explanation of Scorpio, quite to the contrary: but astrology is about experience and not just about what you read. It also depends on what you read, and what you do with it. Let’s look at the mythology for a moment. Vesta, the goddess, is a personification of fire, one of the primal forces of the cosmos and the very thing central to human survival. On the short list of things that human beings do that no other species does is make and tend fire. “[Vesta] continued to the end, as she had from the beginning, [representing] the household altar, the sanctuary of peace and equity, and the source of all happiness and wealth.” The aspects of life that she oversaw were not just the hearths of households and cities. Rather, it was supposed in ancient times “that in the center of the Earth there was a hearth which answered to the hearth placed in the center of the universe.”*
When we bring the Vestal Virgins into the picture, we have the image of humanity working together to tend this fire: fire that is at once interior to a human being; that burns in their home; that burns in the central altar of a city; which burns in a hearth at the center of the Earth; and which is one with the fire at the center of the Universe. Perhaps this means the Galactic Core, perhaps some other presumed center of consciousness, such as Shamballa. The relationship between the humans and the fire implies devotion, attention, and direct participation in the life of God. In other words, the divine fire burns to the extent that we tend to it.
I had my first direct experience of Vesta one year when I moved into a house that only had wood heating one cold, damp autumn. The place came with a woodpile, but all the wood was wet. As it grew colder, the fire became a necessity, particularly at night. I had never experienced living with wood heat before, and the wet woodpile presented a special challenge.
I had to develop a routine to get the stove going, then systematically bring in wood and dry it out a little next to the hot stove. Burning wet wood is not efficient, and the fire required tending at least every two or three hours around the clock. Because of how difficult it was to get started again with wet logs, I had an incentive to keep it going.
This went on for some weeks, at least. Tending the fire became an overriding priority during that time; it was a ritual that transcended all the other activities of my life, and kept me bound to my home except for short trips out. In a sense, I was married to this fire, and had to take care of it night and day.
This experience gave me my first real clue as to what Vesta was about — the feeling, not just the idea. It was not so much tending the physical flame, though the metaphor was difficult to miss; it was, rather, the sense of total dedication that came with the activity, including maintaining continuity of that fire, from night to day, from one day to the next. In truth it was about developing a conscious relationship to the fire — and the stove, the wood and the space in which I was living.
Few of us tend a fireplace or actual sacred hearth these days, and astrology is for the most part an interior study of our psychological and energetic properties. As a symbol of the psyche, the flame is usually considered an archetype of the core fire, which is creative and sexual — they are the same thing. It could be interpreted as faith or devotion, love or awareness; they are all properties of the same thing. This is the heat that keeps us warm from within, and in the human realm with its many distractions and its many competing gods, it needs to be tended constantly. Sadly, as humans press forward into the activity of life, their core creative/sexual nature is one of the first things we tend to ignore.
I hate to do this but,… (it is funny as shit).. I lived in a 600 sq. ft. mobile home that we ripped the walls out of. These were the commune days, and seein’ how close we all could kick it. I don’t chat with any of the cats I kicked it with (does suck), (some really good, Quality people).
BUT!!! I Built a “fireplace mantle arch” from brick that stretched through the ceiling, it was pretty bad ass. The chimney was alternating thrices, a grand sextile at a two level increment.
Anyway, and back to the subject, We used to boil Rice and other grains on the wood stove and call it congi, it worked the humidity, the temperature, and the nutrition.
Please, get intimate with a wood stove at sometime in your life. There’s nothing quite like the experience of fire, contained, and controlled, that can make you respect time and understanding in such an ACCEPTING manner.
Plus, it’s just fun to burn shit!!! (Or in a hyper vegan way, burn anything that momma ground put out…. yes that can go odd…. use your own discrimination.)
Fire is righteous, (this coming from a sag.!) but when you experiment with it’s implications in regard to your well being, it takes you to a whole new or, rather in the moment space, that you can’t quite honestly get anywhere else.
I just had to share some FIRE!!!
Jere
Well, I noticed in the pix you had the lid on. . that could make a difference. Slower release of steam than when I left the lid off. . .a real jungle!
The didn’t, actually, leaving me to believe the air was really, really dry – both from winter and from forced hot air…
Yeah, I do this too Eric, but it didn’t conjure up the Vesta vision until now. Probably because my Vesta is conjunct my Saturn, not moon! It just kept me from shocking my kitties . .and vice versa. Always preferred it to humidifiers that took up precious space, but my(full) pot (on simmer) was good for about 5 hours. Rarely left it on when leaving home, unless accidentally. Did all your windows steam up like mine did?