ALL GODS CANDLE READINGS

Finding Comfort & Meaning through Candle Burning

My candle burning videos add a little peace, a little relaxation, to every day. Simply watch the candle melt by Vesta’s flame and lose yourself in the beautiful process.  We all need to take time out for ourselves each day to relax and stay grounded.

Yet if you want to bring a bit more meaning and purpose to this time, you might want to focus on the unique aspects of each candle’s color, which corresponds to the aspects of the ancient Roman god or goddess associated with it.

For example, purple is the color associated with the god Jupiter and represents power. As you watch the purple candle burn, you can reflect upon the role of power in your life. Are you empowered? Or is someone or something holding too much power over you?

Similarly, yellow is the color associated with the god Apollo and represents things like creativity and healing. During the candle burn, you may wish to focus on channeling more of these in your life. Red is the color of Mars and represents conflict—an unavoidable aspect of life that we all need to deal with. In this way, each color and each god can help you reflect on your own life...the good and the bad, the past, present and future.

Because this is such a useful exercise, I’ve included specific pages for each candle’s color and its accompanying god (see below list). You can start with the first video - Jupiter, which you can burn for power and strength - or go to the candle / god whose aspects you feel most resonate with you right now.

Click on each color / god to visit that page. There, you’ll find a description of each god or goddess’s key aspects (e.g. wisdom, love, abundance, etc.) and some probing questions to ask yourself about each of these as you watch the accompanying candle burning video - after all, things like strength, creativity, wisdom, love, abundance and so on, are also aspects of our lives as human beings.

The Roman Gods - From Jupiter to Pluto

Each god in the Roman pantheon was associated with a particular color.

Going a Step Further - Simple Candle Reading

To add yet another layer of purpose and meaning to your god-specific or color-specific candle burn, you can also do a candle reading. Candle reading is an ancient divination practice that involves burning down a candle and looking for meaning in the melted wax, not unlike the way astrologers look for meaning in the stars. It is performed in various ways by many cultures and belief systems.

You can perform an informal candle reading by simply watching the wax movements and formations that you see in the candles as and after they burn. Do you see any shapes that have meaning to you, especially in light of the candle’s qualities (that is, what color it is and what god it is associated with) and what might be going on in your life right now? Does the wax shift, congeal or move just as you are thinking a certain thought or feeing a certain emotion?  Perhaps there is meaning in that.

Candle reading: look for meaning in the melted wax.

Keep a specific question in mind and look for the answers during the candle burn. These might come in the form of a sudden flare, a tenacious wax spike, a steady dripping or the formation of a dramatic wax river or pool. Use your intuition to observe and interpret what you see, and to find the answers you’re looking for. Make the screen full size and pause the video to more closely study and consider the candle’s melting and read the wax as it changes. Depending on what is happening in your life, and on what issues or questions are on your mind, you will see different signs—different answers—in the wax.  That’s how intuition works.

Structured Candle Reading - A More Formal Method

Yet candle reading is a practice that can also be very formal and methodical.  When I began writing my historical fiction novels about the Vestal Virgins of ancient Rome, I realized that the Vestals—those priestesses charged with keeping the eternal flame alight in Vesta’s temple—would certainly have had their own secret and highly ritualized way of reading the sacred flame and the wood in its hearth to look for signs from the goddess.

This led me to research and create a structured system of fire reading based on the principles of ancient Roman augury and other ancient religious elements.

I then adapted that system into a candle-reading method that is similarly based on ancient augury, an approach that I believe has historical and religious merit, and that lets a person read candles in a way that is truly “ancient.”

If you are interested in learning more about it, you may wish to read my book Divining Your Life: Candle Readings with the Flame of Vesta. Whether your questions are big or small, serious or irreverent, Vesta’s illuminating flame can help you tap into your own intuition and discover the answers.