candles – kosi

Ingredients:

leftover candle wax in a glass container
candle holder
prewaxed wicks w clips

Process:

Gather all the wax you want to melt into a small glass jar or container.

Fold up a wash cloth or a few sheets of paper towel and line the bottom of the pot before filling it up with water. Make sure the water level in the pot is at least an inch lower than the height of the jar. (This is a good opportunity to also do a bay leaf boil.)

Set the jar of wax in the pot, but don’t get any water into the jar. Set the water to boil, and once the water is boiling, turn the flame down to the lowest setting.

While the wax is melting, use a bit of melted wax to affix the clip end of the wick to the bottom of the candle holder. Wrap the top of the wick around a wooden dowel to stop it from falling in.

…or use a contraption like this one, made out of craft sticks and a little tiny clothes pin:

[image]

When the wax is melted, use pot holders to remove the jar from the pot and pour the wax into the candle holder.

If the candle is deep, it will almost certainly develop a hole near the wick when it cools. Plan for this. Wait for the hole to develop and pour in more wax. This is why when I make tall candles, I make them four or five at a time rather than one at a time.

Observation:

When you’re collecting your spare wax, do your best to keep them separated by color, unless the color of the finished product doesn’t matter to you. But don’t freak out if you don’t or can’t. A mishmash-colored candle can still be infused with intention by some other means, like for example, by bay leaf boil.

The perpetual black candle on the living room altar burned itself out shortly after I woke up, and I’ve replaced it with a blue candle for the full moon in Cancer.

Right now I’m making more candles out of leftover wax. I melt the wax by heating up the candle holder in a pot full of boiling water. I wrote “self love,” “power,” and “worship” on three bay leaves, and they are boiling in the pot. I thought about adding “money” and “protection” but as of now, I have not. Black candles are already for protection, and I’m still in deliberation with Money about what I want from her. Once I’m done, I’ll dry out the bay leaves and burn them.

So far I’ve made:

five black prayer candles for the living room altar. It’s a multi-step process to make these prayer candles, but today I’ve finished five.
a Jupiter-Saturn candle which is black on the bottom and blue on top. I meant to make such a candle for the Great Conjunction, but that’s already past, so I’ll maybe burn it on New Year’s or some similar occasion.
three tea candle/votive sized black candles because I had some still left over. Not sure what I’ll do with these, but I’m sure I’ll find a use for them. Also, I didn’t really have enough wax for them, so they’re a little lacking. But that might be exactly what I need later.
three love/self-love candles which are pink on the bottom and white vanilla on top. I had intended only to make one, but I had a looooot of wax. I’ll give one to Matt. I don’t know what I’ll do with the third one.

As I’m doing this, I’m thinking about this full moon, which will be at 10:28pm tomorrow (well…today, actually… I need to be less confusing with my naming days, but I’m actually up late, not up early). Astrologers are saying this is the first full moon in Cancer that’s free of negative aspects in Capricorn in about three years, but Pluto is still in Capricorn. It’s not a direct conjunction to this full moon, but it will be within 3 degrees conjunct on my lunar return, which will be on the 31st. I don’t think it will be a negative aspect though. I think it will be important. It might hurt, but it will be long term transformative.

Chani Nicholas’ advice to me in her 2021 horoscope email is “What you are used to sacrificing won’t actually help you get to where you need to go now.” [*] For me, that’s my home, personal comfort, and other Cancer moon things. This is the full moon of remembering what not to sacrifice. I’ve noticed that doing something for the house stresses me out less than doing something for the outside world. In fact, I’ve noticed that I can calm down my anxiety about outside-world-work by stopping and switching to candle making or some other such activity. Sometimes I think I should ignore other work altogether, but that feeling never lasts terribly long.

I’ve decided that I need to find a way to integrate Psalm 139 into my daily life, more than just reading it on facebook live. I read Psalm 91 twice per day; once on live and once in front of my living room altar when I do my offerings. I should similarly have Psalm 139 be a twice daily phenomenon. For one, it would familiarize me with the text enough that I won’t stumble through it anymore. For two, it’s an incredibly powerful and important text, which is why I’m reading it on live. If it’s important enough for live, it’s important enough for another daily reading as well.

Also, this full moon I’m attempting to make herbal moon water and apple scrap vinegar. The former because why the fuck not, and the latter… well for the same reason. But also, I use vinegar in a lot of things. If I’m able to make it out of apple scraps, 1. I’ll save a bit of money buying vinegar and 2. everything made with a witch’s hands increases the magical potency.