The Power of Lighting Candles at Every Meal, Even a Snack

Candles are alive and ancient. They awaken the senses of sight, touch, and smell. Like the ocean, they demand respect for their danger as well as their beauty. A time traveler would note that even in this age of widely available electricity, candles, like horses, are still with us.

This month’s phenomenon: incorporating the flame of a candle into your at-home food and drink rituals. I have been practicing this for years. Before each meal, I light candles, and after the meal, I blow them out. I use beeswax taper candles and light them with a disposable plastic lighter (a red “Bic”).

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Beeswax candles last longer than paraffin, and are unscented but still smell good. Taper candles (long and narrow) are brighter because they don’t shade the flame’s “ball of light”.

I grew up with a lot of candlelight: my parents would light candles at dinner (and earlier in the day if it was rainy). Then, in 2019, I spent the entire month of February by candlelight only.

This is how the experiment worked: after dusk each night, I looked at no electric lights or screens and didn’t leave the house. I hung blackout curtains to keep out the light pollution (which I missed once it was gone). Literally nothing but candlelight reached my eyes from nightfall to dawn.

I wrote about the project on my blog: “Blackout and Candles: A Dark Night Experiment” and “How to Live by Candlelight” on Medium, then repeated the experiment in February of 2020 and 2021.

Years later, I no longer spend February, or any month, under such a strict light regimen, much to the relief of those around me. But the experience did change my life. I still use warm, dim lighting at night: red and orange bulbs for background lighting and candles for meals.

I have become so used to their warmth and glow that if I run out of candles, am too distracted, or for whatever reason don’t light them, the meal has a certain coldness.

It’s as if a place that is usually full of music is unexpectedly silent. Nothing is wrong, but it’s like a life force is missing.

The more minor the occasion relative to the number of candles, the better. No meal is too small for candlelight. When I’m like cutting up a banana for a snack, I pretend I’m setting the table for an honored guest and lighting candles to make it as special as possible for them.

Open flames atop tall candles are not necessary to bring candlelight into your life. Prayer-style candles come in a glass for extra safety and are easy to find at corner stores. If an actual flame is out of the question, may I suggest a vintage plastic Christmas candle with a Halloween-style flickering bulb?

If it’s a Monday morning before work, or if I’m dreading the upcoming day, I sometimes up the dosage, burning four or even five candles.

It brings a little bit of sadness to the table, as if it’s a hard day I experienced years ago and I’m looking back as a comforting force.

Candlelight dining offers a connection to the distant past and to everyone who has lived before us. I recently happened to see two period movies: “Wuthering Heights”, set in the late 1700s, and Hamnet, set in the late 1500s/early 1600s. Both movies had a top notch candle game, with flaming chandeliers, reflective wall sconces, and wax flowing over every desk and table.

The differences between night and day scenes were much more extreme than they are in modern movies or in modern life, a simulation of how much more visually extreme the rhythms of life used to be.

Dining by candlelight changes the atmosphere. For me, it sends a message to a deeper part of myself that can’t hear my thoughts: that I’m thriving.

Incorporating this phenomenon into your daily life offers a glimpse of the ancient past, a wild elemental force in domesticated form, connecting you with every human who has ever stared across a table at a flame.

All Photographs By Emily Wick