Calendar of the Sun
29 Halegmonath
Day of Hestia Tamia
Color: Brown
Element: Fire
Altar: Like all rituals to Hestia, this ritual takes place in the kitchen and not the altar room. A
fire should be lit at the main hearth, and fresh-baked bread spread upon the table. The tables
should be laid with the preserved jars and cans and bottles of the harvest.
Offerings: Have in visitors, and feed them. Feed the hungry.
Daily Meal: Any correct food, eaten with outsiders.
Invocation to Hestia Tamia
Call: Hail, Hestia Tamia, Lady of the Pantry!
Response: Hail, Keeper of the Storehouse!
Call: Hail, Lady who counts each grain
That each of your charges may eat,
That there be no waste and no greed,
That there be no inequality in hunger.
Response: We must sacrifice to Hestia!
Call: This is the saying of our ancestors,
But they did not mean food thrown
Into flames, or rivers; this is not the way
Of the Lady of the Storehouse.
To sacrifice to Hestia is to put that food
In the bellies of others than yourselves.
To sacrifice to Hestia is to bring in strangers
From the cold and the wet, and offer them food
And drink, no matter how little you have.
To sacrifice to Hestia is to remember the Law
Of Hospitality, and how the Gods all love that Law,
And that the stranger most soiled and tattered
May be a vessel of the Gods in disguise.
Response: We must sacrifice to Hestia!
Call: For the counting of one's resources
Is a holy act, sacred to Hestia Tamia
And her never-emptying pantry.
May our own pantry be as generous, Lady
Whose face is never shown
As she would rather be known by her deeds
And her gentle presence. Hail Hestia Tamia!
Response: Hail Hestia Tamia!
(The rest of the afternoon until Hesperis is spent tallying the stores in honor of Hestia.)
[Pagan Book of Hours]