Hearth Altars
- etymonline.com
The latin word for focus means hearth, or fireplace. In the 17th century the word was used to describe the way light is refracted by a lens, directed by a magnifying glass and produces enough heat to ignite paper, ‘fireplace’ is then quite appropriate as a metaphor metaphor to describe their convergence point. From this sense of focus has been extended to the senses to mean a “center of activity.” (Merriam-Webster online dictionary)
Fire has been such a focus of our lives for countless generations - from cooking to day dreaming and divining by the flames. Carrying embers of the fire in birchbark baskets to the smooring of the fire in Gaelic culture.
Our earliest gatherings around a fire may well have birthed the first stories, flame shadows flickering on the walls animating and drawing us into the tales. These fires are the first hearths as fire warmed and protected us, helped us cook and lit the night and so came the roles in keeping the fires lit in Celtic hearths, to marking the great fire festivals with raging bonfires to the prayers said over the smooring of the fires of Gaelic culture.
Hearth Altars invite your own personal focus - a place to draw your inspiration together, sacred objects, talismans - however you weave your own sacred intention and magic.
There are two styles of Hearth Altars - the first is needle felted, the reverse side can be lined and a small ring added if you wish to use as a wall hanging. The second style is wet felted which creates a more primitive looking piece.
All the hearth altars started life as Selkie Skins, the idea that in our current human form we use our selkie skins as a sacred altar cloth. Bear Hearth Altars are inspired by the Red Bears of the Chauvet Cave in France while the Reindeer hearth Altars hold a little of real reindeer hair. Selkie skin markings are inspired by the cup and ring markings of Scotland (although these are found all over the world). Ancestral Mother Hearth Altars are created with shadowy ancestral figures and are created as an inspiration in tapping into and honoring your own ancestral lineage.
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