Use Your Candles

Harness the positive energy of candles. Candles should adorn every woman’s home. They are great addition to your pampering rituals. Bring in pillars, votives, and scented candles to create a true sense of private refuge. As you read this blog or have ‘me time’ light a candle. Say aloud or in your mind any affirmations or prayers, and think positive thoughts. Make a commitment to yourself to improve your life by raising your level of spiritual consciousness.

An indulgent way to spend an evening alone is to turn your own bedroom into a candlelit palace. Do this just for yourself. Place scented candles all about your room, group them in strategic corners and places and create a glamorous and cozy boudoir to sit and read while in bed. Reading in bed undisturbed is truly one of a woman’s greatest luxuries. Try reading other blogs on pampering and luxury. Read blogs that give you a peak into the world of luxury and prestige. A lazy evening reading by candlelight can easily create a sense of feeling luxurious.

No matter what it is you want to accomplish – better health, to finding a new career, connecting with loved ones, or protection and happiness for your family – use your candles to help you get in your pampering zone. Your candles will help light the way to peace, serenity and relaxation for a renewed inner and outer self.

Assign a Message to Your Candles
Light your candles, then assign a message to each. Relax and surround yourself with the flicker of pampering candles. Light your candles and imagine your lifestyle once you’ve achieved all your personal goals. As you visualize your goals think of how you’re going to achieve them down to the tiniest detail. Be specific. Program your mind for success. See yourself achieving your goals.

Ask yourself. What do I want out of life? Healing, financial success, spiritual awareness, better health, start a family, new career, love, new house, protection, longevity, guidance peace. Focus on one goal at a time. Light a candle for each, and then do one thing every day that will help achieve your dreams.

What Candle Colors Represent
White candle for peace on earth.
Jasmine candle to raise your spiritual consciousness.
Red candle for strength and good health.
Light blue candle for healing, understanding and harmony.
Dark blue candle for inspiration, protection and meditation.
Green candle for money, growth, prosperity and abundance.
Yellow candle for confidence, action.
Brown candle for endurance and concentration.
Pink candle for love, honor and affection.
Orange candle for stimulation.
Purple candle for communication.
Gold candle for physical strength, knowledge and wisdom.
Silver candle for stability.
Violet candle for self-improvement.
Black candle for truth and releasing painful memories.
Lavender candle for blessings.

Romance:
Light floating candles and burn your favorite scented candles to create a romantic atmosphere.

Family:
Arrange your candles in groupings that represent and symbolize members of your family. Combine small, medium and tall candles to serve as the family unit. As you light your candles recite a prayer for each family member. Take this image and surround your family in this protective bubble. Ask God to keep your loved ones safe.

Candles in a cluster are a great way to symbolize your friends and loved ones – giving out light to all who see and feel their energy. It is believed that tall candles reaching to the sky are messages to God. Each time you light a candle with love in your heart you increase your awareness of how to heal from the inside out. It’s a universal truth that candles represent unity, peace, love and spirituality.

A Little Candle History
Early candles were made of vegetable waxes produced from plants such as bayberries, candelilla leaves, candle tree bark, esparto grass, and various varieties of palm leaves such as carnuba and ouricury. They were also made of animal tissue and secretions, such as spermaceti (whale oil), ambergris, and beeswax (insect secretions).

Sometimes entire animals such as the stormy petrel and the candlefish of the Pacific Northwest were threaded with a wick and burned as candles. Tallow candles were made of sheep, cow, or pig fat. All these candles were rather crude, time-consuming to make and very smoky.

Kinds of Candles FYI
Of the two kinds of candle fuel, beeswax was considered the better since it burned cleaner than tallow and had a lovely odor compared to tallow’s rancid, smoky smell. Being scarce, beeswax was expensive. Only churches and the wealthy could afford beeswax candles. By the 17th century, European state edicts controlled the weight, size and cost of candles. In 1709, an act of the English Parliament banned the making of candles at home unless a license was purchased and a tax paid.

Probably most important of all, Paraffin was refined from oil around 1850, making petroleum-based candles possible. The combination of paraffin, which burns clean and without odor; and stearin’s, which harden soft paraffin, was developed in the nineteenth century. It revolutionized the candle industry, giving us the tools and materials we still use for candle manufacturing.

Understanding Candle Shapes
Container:  Any candle that is poured into a container and burned in the container is a container candle. These candles are made of soft wax and would not be able to stand on their own outside their enclosures. The container prevents soft wax from dripping. These candles are safely contained in a vessel, and used in restaurants and religious rituals that require long-burning candles.

Pillar: A thick candle with geometrical cross section such as a circle, oval, or hexagon is called a pillar. It is referred to by its diameter followed by its height. For example, a 3-by 6-inch pillar would be 3 inches in diameter and 6 inches high. Pillars come in standard sized for commercial and religious purposes.

Novelty: These are irregularly shaped candles made by molding, sculpting and/or pouring.

Taper: These are long cylindrical candles that kindle memories of historic candle-dipping. Tapers are generally 1/2 inch or 7/8 inch in diameter at the base because most holders are designed to fit these two sizes. There are, of course, exceptions, such as birthday candles (3/16 inch) and Danish tapers (1/4 inch).

Votive and Tea Lights: Although these candles originated in the church, the term now refers to small plug-type candles that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter by 2 to 3 inches high. This shape has become popular for scented candles because their small size allows them to fit easily into small rooms, such as bathrooms.

As votives melt and become liquid in their containers, the wick uses up all the liquid fuel. If you burn a votive on a plate, the burn time will be shorter because the wax will drip and the wick will be unable to use it. Tea lights are small votives used to warm pots of potpourri and to heat foods. They fit in smaller-than-standard votive cups.

Ella Patterson is a published author