The Candle

A Star Story about The Candle: Many years ago, my aspect found herself in the house of a person who had candles absolutely everywhere - hundreds of them, and all of them had never been lit.

There were many among them which had gone all dusty, fuzzy, sort of semi-slimy and grey, like very old candles tend to do, and I picked one of them up and looked at it, and I felt very sad all of sudden, close to tears sad.

The person said to me, "I can't bear to light them. As soon as you light them, it's the first step to the beginning of the end, and I just can't do it."

They went on to explain that people must have started to think they were collecting candles, and so more and more candles arrived as gifts, every birthday and every Christmas, and that's why they had so many.

I said to them, "The whole purpose of its very being for any candle is to bring the light. You take that away from them, what do you have left?"

The person looked at me, wide eyes, for a moment; then they went to their kitchen, came back with a lighter, took the candle I was holding, placed it in the middle of the coffee table, and set light to it.

The Candle - Vector Symbol Hybrid, Silvia Hartmann 2015-2020

Corollary: The Candle story sounds like a metaphor, but that really happened.

After the candle had been lit, we turned out the lights, a bottle of red wine was was produced, and an amazing evening/night was had, where we set the world to rights. In those far away days without mobile phones, when people still did that sort of thing ...

This night was also remembered in this photograph (from my phase of taking photographs so they looked like oil paintings, without using filters or photoshop): The Origins of Philosophy.

"The Origins of Philosophy" Old glass photograph by Silvia Hartmann