Create a Candle Lighting Ceremony

Candles Can Help to Focus, Reduce Stress or Remember a Loved One

Apr 18, 2008
Kirsti A. Dyer

Candle - © Naveena Santhkumar. Royalty Free Use.

Lighting a candle is one of the simplest ways to reduce stress, help a person focus or to put together a ritual or ceremony to remember someone who has died.

There are many examples of people from different traditions and cultures lighting candles. Candles are lit for hope when someone is ill, for peace during wartime or for luck when facing challenges. Candles are lit as part of a prayer. Candles are also lit as a meaningful way to honor the memory of a loved one, dear friend or patient.

A Candle Lighting Ceremony can be as simple or elaborate as the person wishes.

The main point in creating a Candle Lighting Ceremony is that the Candle Lighting Ritual needs to have some significant meaning for the person conducting the observance.

History of Candle Lighting

Candle lighting has a long tradition with people around the world. For centuries people have burned candles as part of ceremonies, religious rituals, during celebrations, to remember loved ones who have died, and as a way of healing and bringing hope.

The simple ritual of lighting a candle and watching the hypnotic flickering flame is calming and relaxing. A lit candle can produce a meditative, reflective soothing and comforting effect. One can easily become hypnotized staring at the movements of a lit candle flame; this mesmerizing effect can be calming and healing.

Candle Lighting Can Help Focus Thoughts

Lighting a candle can also be used as a meditation device. The lit candle becomes a place on which a person can focus his or her intention. During challenging or stressful times lighting a candle gives the distressed person something to do; candle lighting helps to focus their thoughts, intention or prayers on a problem or a person.

Thus, a burning candle can be used as a source of focus to aid in meditation, or a source of inspiration. There is a soothing, healing effect in lighting a candle.

Creating a Candle Lighting Ceremony

Planning a Candle Lighting Ceremony or Candle Lighting Ritual can be as simple or as elaborate as the person wishes. Here are some tips for getting started:

Choose a favorite candle with an appropriate scent. An energizing or uplifting scent like citrus is a good scent for focusing energy, whereas a more soothing, calming scent like lavender might be better for remembering a loved one.
Find a favorite quote, poem or passage that you would want to read as the candle burns.
Light the candle.
Focus on the flame burning.
Read the selected quote, passage or poem.
Watch the candle flame burn for awhile longer.
Focus on breathing deeply and relaxing and on the intention for lighting the candle.
When ready, blow the flame out.
Take a moment to reflect about the candle lighting.

Rituals Help to Cope with Loss and Death

Rosen in his book Families Facing Death: A Guide for Healthcare Professionals and Volunteers discusses the many benefits of rituals in a section on “Healing Through Ritual.” Rituals can serve as a way of helping families cope with loss and with death. Candle lighting is one of the simplest and easiest rituals to create.

In addition to using a candle lighting ceremony during a funeral or memorial service, candles can also be used to remember loved ones during holiday celebrations, on anniversaries or birthdays and other special occasions. Lighting a candle to honor the memory of the person or with a special intention or prayer can be a simple, but very meaningful way of remembering.

Putting out the Flame

A candle is often used in ceremonies, in remembrance or incorporated into funeral services. A single candle serves as a luminous symbol of the human spirit and as a way of representing a human life.

During the ceremony a candle is lit and the flame flickers as life begins. Participants can watch the candle burn for a time—representing the course of a person’s life--and then watch the ‘life end’ as the flame goes out or is extinguished.

Death is not extinguishing the light; It is putting out the lamp because the Dawn has come.

These words of Nobel Prize Winner and poet Rabindranath Tagore about light and death may be beneficial for those participating in a candle lighting ritual to cope with death of a loved one to have a visual concept of the transition that occurs when a person moves from one to another part of the life cycle to another.