Journeying With Candlelight

Fire has always been a passage from one plane to another. The flicker evokes the border between worlds for mystics, shamans, and other people seeking knowledge. Candlelight helps open our way to other dimensions of consciousness.

For people who travel between planes and go into trance, candle flame can be an important helper, a guide through the veil that separates our plane and others.

Fire and Its Significance in Trance Work

Fire is an elemental force of transformation. With its help, the old becomes light and ash. While used in trance work as the center of attention, fire destroys the boundaries of ordinary consciousness and gives people access to other states.

Candlelight is small but vast; it can contain the entirety of a vision. It flickers, connecting two worlds, and therefore it becomes an ideal companion during the journey.

A Candlelight Journeying Ritual

The following ritual will lead you into a trance state with the help of candlelight. It can be performed alone or within a group ceremony.

What You Will Need:

• One candle (preferably beeswax or natural, unscented)
• Dark, quiet space
• Comfortable spot to sit or lie down
• Drumbeat or some kind of rhythmic music (optional, but it can help deepen trance state)

The Ritual:

1. Creating the Setting – Make sure that the lighting is dim and that your space is sacred. If you work with any spirits, guides, or deities, invite them to join your ceremony.
2. Formulating Your Intention – What are you looking for? A message, healing, enlightenment, etc. State your intention out loud or keep it in your mind.
3. Looking into the Flame – Light the candle and concentrate on the flame. Start synchronizing your breath with the movement of light.
4. Crossing Over the Plane – Soften your gaze till everything surrounding the flame blurs. If thoughts arise, just let them float away. Feel how your awareness opens, as if candlelight leads you both inside and outside of yourself.
5. Passing the Threshold – Once you realize the change (you may feel weightlessness, tingling sensations, loss of the sense of time, etc.), let the flame transform into a gate. Go inside it with your mind’s eye. Where does it lead you? Who greets you?
6. Reception and Memorization – Stay there as long as necessary. Accept any messages or images that come to you without forcing anything.
7. Coming Back – When you are ready to come back, turn your attention to physical candle flame. Blink slowly and return to your body.
8. Ending the Ceremony with Gratitude – Thank the flame for the experience and put it out with reverence. Write about it in your journal immediately if you keep one.

The Wisdom of the Flame

Fire is a guide, a teacher, and a presence. Through working with candlelight in journeying, we do not only watch flame; we participate in ancient conversation with spirit.

For all people who travel between worlds, candle provides a passage illuminated with fire and mystery, with the promise of wisdom beyond the veil.

The next time you light a candle, stop and listen to what stories it wants to tell you.

In the connection of liminal space,

Morgana, Modern Druid