Add Meaning to Your Life with a Candle Ritual

Add Meaning with a Family Candle

Adding meaning and purpose to my life has always been important to me.  As a teen I remember writing poetry and painting with plenty of symbolism woven in. 

In college, I served as the Keeper of the Ritual in my sorority.  Looking back on it now, it was the perfect position for me. 

So, it was natural that I would want to continue to add meaning to life and I wanted to share that beautiful wealth with my family. 

Here is one of the ways that I figured out how to add more meaning to life.  This family ritual started several years ago when the advent season was over and my kids still wanted to light candles every night. 

So, I came up with what I call our Family Candle.  The center candle symbolizes our family, it is surrounded by 4 individual candles for each member of our family, and all of these are in a large circle dish, with stones.

I wish I could say that the stones were intentional and symbolize the strong foundation of our family and faith with love weaving in between, but actually I just liked the natural element.

Before dinner, we light the center family candle first.  Then we each light our own candle from it. As we light our individual candles, we state an intention or prayer for the day.

If one of us is missing, we leave it unlit.  But, as I think about my oldest son going off to college in the fall, I may want to light his candle, to show that we are still together in some way. 

Candles are warm pools of light and one of my favorite Soul Soothers, things that make me happy and help me to feel really good about myself.

It’s easy to create your own family or individual candle ritual.

Step 1: Decide on Candle Symbolism

Who or what do you want to assign a candle to?   We use a family candle and individual candles, but you could have one for pets or important people in your life that don’t live with you or have passed on.  You can intentionally light it for them.

Step 2: Choose When to Regularly Light the Candles

We light ours during dinner.  But, it could be while you are doing anything that you want to make more meaningful.  Cooking meals, doing dishes, meditating, watching TV, whatever fits your lifestyle. 

Step 3: Shop for Candles! 
 
At the bottom of this post you can find everything you need to create your own candle ritual and start adding meaning to your life.  

Step 4: Start 

All that is left to start adding meaning to your life is to start your ritual.  Put your candles in a pretty spot where you will remember to light them.  Keep a lighter or matches around too, so it will be easy.  Try to be consistent, but if you miss a day or two, just start again.  We all have the beautiful opportunity to start again. 

I’d love to hear how you would use or already use a candle ritual to add meaning to your life!

Choose what you like to build your candle...​