Liber Hestiae: The Book of Hestia (Libri Deorum: The Books of the Gods) Kindle Edition

The Olympians are known for being nothing if not restless: always on the move, wandering into new stories, making dramatic entrances and exits. Yet what of Hestia, the eldest of the Olympians? Where are her myths? Plato says that “Hestia alone remains in the house of the gods.” She is not known for visiting mortals or traversing the heavens. She remains, standing still, in the center of it all.Yet in religious worship she is honored as the one who is both first and last. In philosophy she is honoured as the center of everything, the fountain of self and the goddess of both earth and flame. In both Greece and Rome Hestia and Vesta were honoured as goddesses of the state who helped maintain its success. Yet she is still an intensely personal goddess, who brought comfort to families, daughters, mothers, poets, and more. Who is she?Learning about her, we learn about our place in this cosmos. The goddess who is equated by Philolaus with the center of the universe is able to help center our own universe, to offer a foundation upon which to construct our thoughts, our worldviews, our meanings of life. This book offers a wide selection of the sources about her in English translation, whether in history, religion, poetry or philosophy. This book aims to provide the modern worshiper with a handbook of what we know from history about this goddess and how to honour her as the world spins forward. Tracing the sources on Hestia, from earliest Antiquity to the modern day, here are the prayers, the philosophies, the poems; here is the book of Hestia. Read more