03/05/2025
🕯️Golden light on honey dipped wicks
I have been experimenting with the slow ritual of hand dipped beeswax tapers today in an attempt to calm my mind which naturally lead to reflecting on the history of this practice.
🔥While hand-dipping beeswax candles seems to have emerged in Europe around the 8th century, the reverence for light and the ritual use of fire of course spans countless cultures and stretches back to the earliest expressions of human spirituality.
🌱I always ensure the children I teach learn about the folklore of the plants as (amongst many other things) these stories teach us to have reverence for nature. Celtic tradition honored both the bees and the light as sacred — symbols of community, growth, wisdom and the divine feminine.
❤️🔥Women who made hand-dipped beeswax candles weren’t just bringing light to their home, they were artisans and they were keepers of ancient seasonal rites.
Candles were made especially around key festivals in the Celtic Wheel of the Year — like Imbolc, a time to honor Brigid, goddess of hearth and home.
🌞The fires for Beltane (May 1st) celebrate fertility, abundance and the sun’s power. The word Beltane is believed to be derived from Bel, the Celtic sun god, and teine, meaning fire. The lighting of sacred fires protect the community and encourage the growth of crops and livestock.
Although a totally different landscape, we can see this reverence in the traditional custodians of this land and their care for country with fire.
🪞To craft a candle was to invite light, fertility, and protection into the home. Beeswax, rare and precious, burned cleaner and longer than tallow, making it ideal for sacred spaces and rituals.
It was a prayer in motion, a glowing thread connecting women to earth, cycle, and spirit.
