The House Witch: Your Complete Guide to Creating a Magical Space with Rituals and Spells for Hearth and Home - Arin Murphy-Hiscock 2018

The Sacred Hearth
Your Home As a Sacred Space

The hearth symbolizes sacred space wherein you can be yourself, where you are secure, where you can be open. The hearth is a wellspring, a place where people can recharge, where they can go for comfort on a basic level. It is a place where you can access energy, wisdom, and power more easily than anywhere else within your home—and outside it, for that matter. It is a place where you can explore your thoughts and feelings, a place of communion with family and the Divine, a place where you can stand to direct that energy, wisdom, and power to a greater good on a family level and the level of your community. The hearth is a place of power.

When people use the term hearth, it generally evokes a vague idea of a symbol in the form of a fireplace of some kind. People who possess a fireplace or know a bit about history may be able to identify it specifically as part of the fireplace layout. Since the word is central to this book, let’s take a moment to explore the various definitions of what a hearth is.

Hearth is usually defined as the brick- or stone-lined space at the base of a chimney where a fire can be built and at which cooking takes place; the stone- or brick-paved, tiled, or otherwise protected area next to or surrounding a fireplace that extends out into the room; the likewise paved flat surface on which a stove sits (especially an iron wood-burning stove); and the figurative home built around the fireplace as symbolic center.

Here’s an interesting fact for you. The term focus (plural: foci) is a Latin word meaning “hearth, fireplace; fire, flame; center; or central point.” How appropriate, then, that the hearth is considered the focus of home-based spirituality.

As an extension of the fireplace, the hearth is a natural place to gather. In older times, the fireside was a place where chores were done—sometimes out of necessity if the fire was an essential part of the task—for light, warmth, or comfort. It was a social place as well as a place to work. Soap-making, candle-making, and dyeing all require heat and water when done by hand, for example. Caring for the young, the elderly, or the ill would also have been done near the fire for its light and warmth. The hearth was centrally located in most homes, making it a natural gathering place for social reasons as well as practical ones. Lessons and teaching would also take place by the hearth. In short, the hearth has always been a very active zone of the kitchen area and of the home overall.