the making of a candle

It felt like a good day to dress a candle.

I didn’t know it yet, standing under the hot stream of the shower, attempting—and failing—to hold a cleansing mindset, to allow the negativity and tangled, whirling emotions to melt and flow off me like the water, swirling away and seeking ground.

I didn’t know it yet, kneeling on the floor of my bedroom before a rose scented candle, my fingers caressing and releasing the 108 beads of my mala, one with each breath, my unexpected mantra “I hurt…I hurt…I hurt…” speaking the truth that finally allowed the emotional whirlwind to settle, to subside into a new mantra: “I heal…I heal…I heal…”.

I didn’t know it until I opened my datebook after lunch to write in a new appointment, and read these words on the facing page for this week:

Strength and Hope Candle Dressing

Evergreens of all kinds are brought indoors for decoration during the winter months because they are symbols of hope and a reminder that growth will prevail. Trees like pine, cedar, and spruce stand strong and sturdy even in the harshest climates, displaying resilience and the amazing ability to thrive in the face of adversity. This candle dressing can be incorporated into winter rituals or used on its own in spells for strength and endurance during difficult times¹.

There followed a simple recipe that included no directions whatsoever. My first thought is, how the heck do you “dress” a candle? My second thought is, Wow…I need that. I really need that today. This is when I know, and had always known, that today is a good day to dress a candle.

There is a drawer in the main bathroom of our house where I keep my extra candles, the ones I don’t burn very often. In it I find a half-remembered treasure: hand-crafted candles from Israel that my mother had given me when I got married, for consecrating holy days or welcoming the sabbath. I have never used any of these candles before, they are too precious. But they are also the only tall, unscented candles I have, and it finally feels right to use one. Carefully I crack open the package’s top flap and draw out one lovely fat candle, as thick as my thumb and as long as my hand from heel to fingertip. I set the candle on the table and carry my other find from the drawer to the stove. This one is a beeswax candle, a gift from my mother-in-law several years ago that I had somehow ruined long before it used up its wax. The wick had burned down too far and wouldn’t stay lit, and I had littered the top of the candle in ash and soot from matches left to burn and melt enough wax around the wick that it would light, and when that didn’t work I had tried scraping away some wax before relight it, which hadn’t worked either but had left the debris of the failed attempts stuck to the wax like the aftermath of a forest fire. I had even tried laying a second wick down next to the first, which had only worked long enough to stick it solidly to the surface of the poor candle. Emboldened by my candle dressing idea, I am determined to salvage the poor beeswax candle. Luckily it had been poured into a sturdy, glass holder, so I place it in water in the top of a double boiler and leave it to simmer and melt. It is also a good day to remake a candle.

While the beeswax candle simmers I fetch the package of colored beeswax strips leftover from Chanukah and removed a bright red one. Then I find a pretty little round of cedarwood that I had purchased on a whim last summer because I adore the smell of cedar, it reminds me of the old log house I grew up in. I fold and carefully tear a 3/4 inch strip off the short end of the red beeswax rectangle and press it across the bottom and evenly up two sides of the shabbat candle, then wind the rest of the strip around the entire bottom of the candle and press the malleable wax together, forming a stable base. So far so good. I lay the candle—now in it’s underwear, so to speak—back on the table and put on my good boots and jacket. What I need next I can’t find inside. With me I carry my largest bowl, the one I make popcorn in for snacking, still containing the leftover hard bits that sink to the bottom. It is another unseasonably warm day for January, I barely need the jacket, although the air is quite chilly. My boots squelch mud on the way down the hill to my pine trees. I can feel the magic building within me as I walk, an energy that feels half emotional and half Knowing, if that makes any sense…I can’t explain it any better than that. Like a wave swelling before the break, I am drawn as much as I go. The trees are calling me. I take in their immensity, the majestic sweep of them, dominating my view of that quadrant of our yard. Strength and resilience…I need this.