Candle reading

Lighting a candle and sitting with it is one of the oldest customs there is, and one of the most widespread: it is done around the Mediterranean, in the Balkans and across half of Latin America, with more or less ceremony depending on the house. The idea is always the same: once lit, the candle starts saying things — how the flame rises, whether it trembles, whether it splits, what smoke it gives off, how the wax runs.

The reading has two halves. You supply the first: the colour of the candle is your question. Red burns for love and for courage, green for money and health, blue for calm, black for whatever needs cutting off. White does for anything, when you are not sure what colour the thing troubling you actually is. The candle supplies the second half: how it burns and what it leaves behind.

A tall, still flame is one of the best signs there is. If it trembles with no draught in the room, tradition says somebody else is involved; if it splits in two, that there are two paths or two wills; if it goes out by itself, it is not a no, it is a not now. Pick your candle, light it and watch.