During this festive season, I have been enjoying the look of candlelight in my apartment. (See pictures, above.) I have ten candles set in various places, and I make a ceremony of lighting them first thing in the morning and then in the evening when darkness comes on. It’s actually an important ceremony to me. It’s rather like welcoming the blessedness of light into my life, and being grateful for it. I love walking through the dark apartment at 5:00 am (or earlier), carefully placing new tea lights in the candleholders and then lighting each one. I do it slowly and attentively, sort of as a way of welcoming the coming of the daylight. As I sit at my desk for my morning reading and writing, the candles glow quietly around the apartment, perhaps as a symbol of the essential and eternal quietness of life. In the evening (and it comes early these days), I again make a ritual of the candle-lighting. As the daylight in the windows fades, the soft, persistent light of the candles takes it place. On a frosty winter’s night, there’s something cheerful and buoyant about candle flames. I often look up from my reading just to see them again in their silent steadiness.
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