Hearth

"What circle?" I wonder as I listen to the Carter's song Can the circle be unbroken. Maybe it is the circle of life. However, this is not a circle but a cycle: from birth to death, from ashes and dust to life. The carbon cycle. No, it is not that circle. Why to mourn if this cycle is broken? Why to ask to keep it? It does not guarantee rebirth or reincarnation of those who kick the bucket.

This circle could not be neither the old Greek's and existential Nietzsche's circle of eternal return. Because a circle like that it is not only pagan but also centered in the here and now, not in the eventual end of time and final trial. If every moment is a replica of several moments in the past, we only have one opportunity to make a choice to be ourselves: at this place and this time. This is the foundation of our freedom. And freedom is not a synonym of Lord. They could be similar, but certainly they are not the same. For the simple reason that we can not ask Freedom for the salvation of the soul of those who died. Although it is clear that some of us put our hopes in freedom to liberate our minds and bodies in this life.

Tony's hearth (detail) by Lux (2013)

There is, however, a circle to ask to keep unbroken when a loved one passes away: the circle around the fire that warms the bodies and nourishes the spirits in the night. This is the circle that you want to preserve. Because at this circle there is nothing else but life and joy of living.

Appalachian cabins are unique because their porches, but also for their hearth. They materialize two sides of human experience of place, solitude, and proximity. Outside, at the porch, we enjoy seeing the vast sky and the changing forest. Singing. But to be in peace with all that open space, the mind needs a counterbalance, around the fire, at the hearth, in darkness. Sharing.

In Spanish, the name for hearth is hogar. But hogar also means home. Whereas in Greek mythology Hestia " is a virgin goddess of the hearth, architecture, and the right ordering of domesticity, the family and the state" (see more). A matriarchal figure inhabits the hearth, the heart of the home. The center of the circle. At the end, the song asks the Lord to keep the goddess. It is a matter of balance: openness and intimacy, sunshine and fire light, sun and moon...