Wax dripped over my fingers as I held the candle horizontal and tried to get the wick clear enough from the wax pooled around it so it could light.
The match burned down to my fingertips as I willed the wick to take the flame.
“MotherFUCKER,” I thought to myself, “Just light, would you?”
***
Let’s backtrack a moment.
I held a virtual solstice circle called Light + Turning at solstice this year. It was an idea I had about 3 weeks before the solstice, and it made my heart sing when I thought it up so I took that as a sign and started things in motion.
The whole time I was creating and promoting it, I felt like I was doing what I was meant to do. I was following my inner guidance, listening to my intuition, and taking action in the direction I was meant to go.
So why then, when the time came, was I fighting with a candle? Trying to light it, using match after match after match, dripping wax across my desk?
I’d lit the candle in my preparation time before the call, there was no issue then.
I’d described where the candle came from, what it signified, how special it was to be a keeper of this particular flame.
And yet.
When I went to light it, it was stubbornly just.not.happening.
I can’t lie: there was a small part of my head that was freaking the fuck out. This bit of me was embarrassed, mortified that the flame wasn’t taking. That I was fumbling around looking like an amateur when I really needed to look like a professional. That I was indeed a fraud like my mind told me sometimes, and that I was giving the world proof.
I could have made it mean that I wasn’t on track. That I wasn’t doing what I was ‘meant’ to be doing – that it was a huge message from Spirit/God/The Universe that I was not in favour, AT ALL.
I could have done all of that, but I didn’t. (Or at least, not for long.)
What I did was stop pouring excess wax onto my desk and trying to light something that just didn’t want to be lit.
And I said, “I’m not going to force something that’s so obviously not working. I’ll try again later in the call.”
And I moved on with the planned call schedule.
I tried again just before our guided meditation and the candle lit just fine.
The flame blazed up and cheerily flickered away, and I put it on a shelf behind me, so I didn’t accidentally knock it over during the rest of the call. At one point, I looked at it and realised it seemed to be out.
Oh no.
There was no flame visible. “MotherFUCKER,” I thought to myself.
But I got on with the call, we did our reflections and our meditations, and shared our realisations and I ended the call.
I was doing the post-call admin: uploading the video, making sure the replay page was looking ok, sending an email to my participants with the link, and I happened to go over to the candle to take a look at it.
It was still alight. It had the barest of blue flames just quietly flickering away.
MotherFUCKER.
I started laughing, and I couldn’t stop. I laughed there in my office, by myself, at solstice. Laughed at myself for being so invested in something external.
Laughed at my very human superstitions, about making up stories about events, about the tendency we all have to attach meaning to things that happen.
And I realised that I could find meaning in this too, even if I also found it hilarious. Maybe even especially because I found it hilarious.
What if I didn’t need a candle with a special flame to light for the event I was running to be a success?
What if me being me, being the guide for the circle, was enough?
What if the flame was teaching me that, in a very obvious and public sort of way?
What if I listened to that and allowed myself to be enough in that moment?
And there’s the big one: why did I imagine I might not be enough in that moment?
That’s what I’ll be allowing to percolate as I reflect on Light + Turning and what worked, what didn’t and why, so I can improve for next time.
And maybe I can remember in future that the light within me is enough, regardless of what’s going on outside myself.
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