For thousands of years candles have been a focal point in religious ceremony and magic ritual. Today, many people appreciate candlelight for its beauty and the mood it can create. However, few are aware of this.
This article is about bringing magic back into the home with ten candle burning rituals. It explains how the simple ceremony of lighting a candle and focusing your attention can change, heal and transform situations and feelings, as well as your environment.
Setting Ambience and Mood
Candles easily transform your environment. The soft radiance of candlelight can imbue a room with the qualities of comfort, romance, tranquillity, or mystery. In creating a particular ambience you influence the mood of those within it. As you light candles, do so with the intention of creating the mood you desire or the feelings you wish to evoke. Your intention will greatly enhance the effect you produce.
The placement of candles is important in creating effects and influencing feelings. By choosing which features of a room to illuminate and those to cast into shade, you control the focal point of a room. Throwing light on a flower arrangement or a lovely painting will emphasise them and draw attention away from areas of clutter or unsightliness. You can also position candles where they flatter faces, create areas of intimacy and mask imperfections.
Light candles to get rid of an unpleasant atmosphere. This might be in the form of an unwanted smell or an uncomfortable presence or feeling. Intend that your space be cleansed and filled with good energy, and it will be.
Symbol of Celebration
Candles are often used to mark a celebration. They are lit on festive or religious occasions and appear on top of birthday cakes. However, the lighting of candles is often automatic and its significance lost. When you light candles as a symbol of celebration do it consciously and with reverence.
Choose a time, person, place or event that is special to you. You might light a candle to celebrate a wonderful holiday you just had. As you do so, think of the happy times you enjoyed, and the freedom or abundance you experienced. In this way you become conscious of your blessings and are reminded to be grateful.
Act of Remembrance
Lighting a candle in remembrance of someone who has died is a beautiful thing to do. Feelings of grief, sadness or regret are elevated by the presence of light. Think of the qualities you loved or admired in this person and the happy times you shared with them. Repeat this simple act on each anniversary and it becomes a celebration of the life of that person.
Candle for Peace
The lighting of candles for world peace is one of the ways that masses of people can align their collective prayers. As an individual you may light a candle for world peace or with the intention of bringing peace into any area of conflict in your own life or relationships. This is a powerful ritual that directs your unconscious energies towards forgiveness, love and harmony.
Light as Protection
Light has always been associated with goodness and purity, whilst darkness is often felt to be the province of evil, despair, or negativity. Lighting a candle while invoking the protection of the light will calm your fears and enable your thoughts to turn in a happier, more positive direction.
Healing Light
When someone you know or love is in need of help, light a candle for them and focus your intention. Send loving thoughts to the person and their situation, or visualise them being happy with their problem resolved. This empowers you, and it positively affects the person you focus on.
If someone close to you is ill, it can be very difficult to remain in a positive and helpful state of mind around the patient. Sit and relax, light a candle and send out healing thoughts from your heart. Visualise your loved one restored to full health. Do this regularly and it will help you stay calm and in control during these times, as well as benefiting the patient.
Ritual of Blessing
As you light a candle, dedicate it to a relationship, project, situation or area of life for progress or a positive outcome. This act of blessing focuses your attention on what you want to manifest and helps it to come about.
Emotional Balance
The demands of a busy modern life can lead to a feeling of fragmentation. A simple and effective remedy is to light a candle and focus your attention on the flame for a few minutes. This quickly restores emotional equilibrium.
Meditation
Spiritual practice can be enhanced by lighting a candle. Just as you have your own ritual before going to bed which helps you to sleep, preparing the way for meditation can aid the practice of it. Light a candle to signify the beginning, make the intention to remain focused as you meditate, then proceed.
If you are going to use the flame of the candle as your point of focus for your meditation, sit comfortably and gaze at it. When your attention wanders, bring it back to the flame. Study every aspect of it (how it looks, moves, sounds, smells) and appreciate each of its qualities. Continue to penetrate every aspect of the flame.
When you are ready, gently withdraw from your meditation and you will find that you are refreshed and uplifted.
Release Negativity
When you want to let go of an unhappy memory or an unpleasant occurrence a candle can be used to signify release or an ending. It is important that you have done all that you need to do in physical terms and emotional processing first.
Light a candle and review everything that has happened, including your responses, one last time to make sure there is nothing more for you to do or further explore before you finally release it. While mentally saying something like ‘I now release this issue’ blow out the candle and watch the smoke dwindle to nothing. This procedure can be very effective in severing the last ties and setting you free.
All ten rituals require that you focus your mind and form an intention. That is the magical ingredient. Without it, the candle is merely a humble light instead of a powerful catalyst. Combine any positive intention with candle burning and you can perform your own magic – transform a room, a person, a life, even a whole world.