hearth | The Direction of Intention

The Antidote [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 19, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

This photo is of Apollo’s chariot arcing across the sky. It’s only visible because the clouds buffer the chariot’s brilliance.

Zeus is scheduled to come through later tonight. There is promise of thunderbolts. Dogga is not a fan of the flash-and-boom. Frankly, neither am I. Zeus is too showy for my tastes.

Persephone is back from her stay in the underworld and Demeter couldn’t be more pleased. The blossoming peonies are proof. The wild grasses and ferns are a-poppin’. The tomato plant promises to be as tall as I am!

Ares children have been let loose on the land. Phobos and Deimos – Fear and Terror; they wear masks and ambush immigrants. They bully because it makes them feel superior. They pull people from their homes and cars. They take children from schools. They tackle senators. They answer to a minor deity, Dolos. He is renowned for his orange color, his penchant for lying, his empty promises otherwise known as deception.

I, for one, am waiting for Hestia to fully show up on the scene. Welcoming, unifying, an ancient powerful goddess who exudes peace and quiet. She is the hearth, the warm center of “home”. She is formidable because she deals in simple honesty. You might recognize her: she is the force that pulled people into the streets, uniting them to rebuke Dolos and his nasty servants. It seems she might team up with Athena who brings a healthy dose of wisdom and strategy to the mix, capable of easily corralling Fear and Terror and sending the orange Dolos back to the swamps where he belongs.

No doubt the goddesses will provide the antidote for the toxic masculinity that ails us.

[Juneteenth! It is especially important to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved people in the USA – particularly in the face of an administration that whitewashes our nation’s history]

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SUN

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: apollo, artistry, Athena, bully, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Demeter, hearth, Hestia, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, peace, Persephone, story, studio melange, the melange, toxic masculinity, wisdom | 1 Comment »

Light A New Hearth Fire [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on October 31, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Even during the summer we call it the Halloween tree. An ancient oak, gnarled and twisted, surely a home to gnomes and sprites, a rest stop for wandering spirits. An inciter of wild imagination. It watches our passage through the seasons, our walks though the woods.

Halloween has a history, an origin story. It has evolved and changed from a sacred to our now secular celebration. It once marked the end of the year, the line between the end of harvest time and the onset of dark winter, the day when the boundary between the living and the dead became soft and permeable. A liminal day when the future could be seen and told. Ghosts returned. People donned costumes to fool the spirits and speak for the future. Mischief was made. The hearth was stamped out and then reignited from the communal flame. With the sunrise came the new year and the boundary between worlds and the future was restored.

Costumes and carved pumpkins. Neighbors coming out of their houses for trick-or-treating. Corn mazes and haunted houses. We are not so different, not really. In this way, whether we acknowledge it or not, through our coming together to carve scary faces, through our meeting on the street to watch our children walk the neighborhood and perpetuate this yearly ritual, through our parties and dressing up, we light a new hearth fire to keep us warm and full of hope through the cold months of dark winter.