Hearths and Motherboards

When our furnace hiccoughed last week, we turned to our little efficient hearthstone wood stove to keep us warm—a good backup to propane for Vermont winters.

Having just finished reading The Mist-Filled Path: Celtic Wisdom for Exiles, Wanderers and Seekers, the words of Frank MacEowen filled my head. My favorites were the ones at the end of his poem, “Return”:
                May you taste resurrection
                        Without the need of dying for it.

                I love that concept.

I learned that most Celtic spiritual practices are rooted in peace. 

Nothing could have been more peaceful last week than sitting inside a snow-globe with a crackling fire, coals glowing bright red-orange. It almost  erased my concerns about how much a new motherboard would cost us—for that’s what the furnace-guy’s diagnosis proved to be. Motherboard. She who keeps our house warm and our water heated. Motherboard, akin to the Matrix, She who watches out for our safety while we sleep. Our new-fangled hearth.

MacEowen said sometimes we are tricked “home” by spirits, synchronicity, dreams, and outward events (aka Leonard’s blue and white Propane van with tire chains parked in your driveway).

We are, I suppose, all keepers of “the flame.” All “Motherboards” in some fashion. We may not “smoor” the fire each night, as the Irish women did, banking the coals for tomorrow, with a Gaelic blessing. But it would be a good thing for us “hearth-keepers” to remember that whatever we have to do the next day, we can blow life into it.

The old hearths offered a sitting place, a story-telling place, a place where people gathered and shared food and drink. A center point of activity. The hearth was where heaven and earth met in Old Ireland and the fire, sacred to Bridget, was extinguished completely once a year and relit from the big community Beltaine fire at Tara—center of all Irish life.

While it’s not as much fun to sit around a basement furnace and tell stories and tip a few, I keep telling myself the functioning Motherboard IS there. As She is everywhere, connecting us all. Making sure we're safe. Keeping us warm.

Comments

[amy lenzo]

Ahhh, I LOVE this concept. When I lived in Vermont, many years ago now, we heat entirely with wood. And indeed that old Ashley was the center of activity every morning and every evening throughout the winter.

We read aloud to each other - I remember the words of the entire Kurt Vonnegut novel "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" blessing us each evening for over a month.

And I love the connection with a MotherBoard, which of course has reference in my line of work. :-) I like thinking of my work being supported by this kind of MotherBoard.

Thanks for this, Karen.