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                       C I R C U M L U N A R
                     T R A N S M I S S I O N S
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Issue One                                                  May 2021

====================[ THE HEARTH OF THE MATTER ]===================
                              by durtal

It seems that Kepler first used the Latin word 'focus' in 1604 to
refer to 'the point of convergence' in the mathematical sphere. It
is possible that this is an analogical use of the term and may
reference the point of light created with a lens. You probably know
what I mean. I remember another child showing me a trick with a
magnifying glass outside one sunny day. He quickly adjusted the
glass's height over my forearm to effect a sharp pain as the
converging rays burned a hole in my skin.

Hobbes brought 'focus' into broader English parlance nearly fifty
years later. I don't know if he did this with a magnifying glass or
not. But, Hobbes is certainly not my favourite philosopher. With
its particular take on human nature, he published Leviathan about
the same time he popularised a word whose use is ubiquitous but
whose original meaning is too often unknown. Sometimes the
abstractions of science and a specific sort of philosophy separate
us from the mundane realities of life in unfortunate ways.  

Ironically, the political philosopher who espoused that humans are
"all take and little give" used a word that belied his contentions
in the original. Focus is the Latin equivalent of the Old English
word 'hearth'. People still used the latter term in my youth,
especially in rural regions. Phrases like "hearth and home" and
"keep the home fires burning" catch something of its ethos. The
hearth was where household members gathered to cook or to work by
the hearthstone's firelight. In its warmth, children sat to hear
the stories of the family and community after dusk. Kith and kin
entertained themselves with music and drinking and dance nearby. In
some cultures, families kept ancestral bones beneath the
hearthstone. Here was a point of convergence in the human habitat.

The rising or setting sun reminds me of a hearth fire as it
converges on the horizon. I know what it is to wait in anticipation
for the warmth of a fire on a cold winter's morning. Others gather
close to you, hoping to absorb a little of your body's heat
while they wait too. You each rub and blow warm breaths onto
your hands and comment on the cold, and you remark on the
day ahead. As the kindling catches, hope builds and
blossoms as the flames devour the larger pieces of wood.
The fire roars madly as you back away, waiting for the
wooden pyramid to collapse. When there are coals left
mostly, you cook your breakfast over them and drink your
morning coffee. You smile and share a joke or two with your
fellows. One of them ruefully remembers that it is his day
to do the dishes; they are piling up as the others finish
and go. This time, like its later double, is a short space
of intimacy before separation.

By analogy, sunrise is like the birth of a child for whom the
family cares. Such brief familial intimacy is still most often the
case for the young. But, not so for the elderly. We fill the noon
meridians of our lives so completely with striving and drift so far
from one another that, too often, family members no longer live
near to one another at the sunset of a loved one's life. Now
others, not family members, nurse the frail and wash their bodies
late in life and at its very end. Frequently, there is only the
intimacy of strangers who alone know where the bare bones of our
final days lie before we slip into the deep dark of death's night.
This is all that the world offers in this day when hearth fires and
home are all but forgotten. We now only focus camera lenses
(automatically).

Did old Thomas Hobbes have a point?


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