Aradia and I have been talking about making our own candles for a while now. In particular, though not necessarily relevant to his conversation, we have some interesting ideas regarding Imbolc and Valentine’s Day and recycling candles to light new fires for the coming year. So, when I started thinking about devotional meditations, in part inspired by folk saint rituals, it wasn’t much of a leap to DIYing the candles.
Candle making, at its basic, is simple. You need wax, wicks, and a couple vessels. A weight for the bottom of the wick is handy. So’s a clip to hold the wick still while you pour the wax. You need one vessel to melt the wax in, and another to pour the wax into. You can add dies, scents, glitter, and a variety of other things to make end result prettier, the process more involved. And I may do that as I get down the “don’t make a mess” part.
The wax and wicks arrived a couple weeks ago. In my first test pour I discovered that while the vessels I have to pour the wax into – reused novena candle containers – work just fine, the vessel I have to melt the wax in and pour the wax from – a Pyrex measuring cup – is not quite as large as I need. The larger wax melting vessel should arrive in the mail today, along with some wick clips just to make life a little easier.
When the wax has cooled, I’ll stick each candle with an image of the divinity to whom it’s being dedicated. It should surprise y’all none that between my own art and what I’ve found on the internet, I have a lot of devotional to bring to the occasion.
I’m still trying to decide, from a ritual standpoint, whether it’s better to make the candles in advance and come into each week prepared, or to make making the candles the core of the ritual for the first night of each week. From a logistics standpoint, obviously, it’s easier to make them in advance. And the candle making doesn’t fit really well into the “meditative acts” frame of this months’ challenge. I suddenly remember, though, that 4 weeks =/= 30 days. There’s room for a prologue and an epilogue. That day at the beginning gives me time to make a lot of candles and keep to framework I’ve already established.