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Huchi-Fuchi, by Kris Waldherr

It's only fitting that this week's Goddess Inspiration comes from a hearth Goddess, since it is the season of Brighid, patroness of hearth and forge. Huchi-Fuchi is a Japanese hearth Goddess. Some scholars think that her name and the name of Mount Fuji, Japan's great peak, come from the same root. Huchi-Fuchi bring with her energies of movement, of cleansing and purifying, of burning away the old to make room for the new. How this resonates with the message of Brighid/Imbolc, with its first stirrings of spring and sense of possibilities and beginnings!

"Surround yourself with warmth by creating an environment that nurtures others"

 

That's Huchi-Fuchi's message to us this week. She comes along at a time when I've been very focused on transforming my home. This past winter, I took a short course in Renegotiating Your Sacred Contracts, through the lovely women at Your Spirit Sparkle. I chose to renegotiate my relationship with stuff. I come from a family that was headed by two children of the Great Depression, and thus grew up surrounded by stuff that would be "useful someday." Add in long periods in my own adult life when I was living in poverty, and I developed some unhealthy attachments to things and to patterns of thinking that have led me to accumulate and keep more than I need. Over the last year, and especially as I worked on renegotiating that contract, I've come to see how all that stuff was blocking the energy flow in my life. That what I wanted was space -- in my home, in my body, in my calendar -- and that I would need to let go. I've been working steadily to declutter -- physical objects, outdated stories, negative self-talk, commitments that didn't better my life or feed my soul. And as I've found more space, I've come to love the openness.

Huchi-Fuchi inspires me to keep up this process. To create a home that is nurturing to me, and to those I love, because it is open, clean, energized. Here are some questions I'll be working with this week. Feel free to join me, and share your experiences in the comments!

What does it mean to feel nurtured?

How can I create a home where I feel nurtured?

What can I do to create more warmth in my home?

How does cleaning my home help to purify my energy?

How can I see cleaning and other housework as work sacred to the Goddess?