{"id":1453,"date":"2014-10-23T13:52:29","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T03:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/?p=1453"},"modified":"2014-10-23T13:52:29","modified_gmt":"2014-10-23T03:52:29","slug":"twenty-two-the-wax-the-wick-the-flame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/?p=1453","title":{"rendered":"Twenty-two (the wax, the wick, the flame)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Marianne<\/a>
Marianne Stokes<\/a>, Candlemas Day, c. 1901<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the afternoon of\u00a0February second, you brought snowdrops into the house. Armfuls of them, their heads shyly drooping. Every empty jar\u00a0in the house was\u00a0filled with them. Then you set\u00a0freshly-blessed candles\u00a0on the tables and\u00a0windowsills alongside the flowers. The scent of flowers and beeswax warmed the house.’They must burn all night,’ you said, shaking out the match’s flame, ‘to keep the wolves away.’<\/p>\n

This was in the days when it was still cold in February, when the world was full of forests, and those forests full of wolves.<\/p>\n

Your hands often smelt of honey, of bees. The candles were ones you had rolled yourself. The wax stolen from your precious hives; the wicks soaked in salt and acid. Saint Anselm of Canterbury once said there were three parts to consider when meditating upon a blessed candle: the wax, the wick and the flame. The wax, he claimed, produced by the virginal bee’s congress with the flowers, is\u00a0the Flesh of the Lord. The wick, held like a secret within the Flesh, is his Eternal Soul; the flame that burns is his divinity.*<\/p>\n

The next day, when the candles had burned away, you were the one who illuminated the rooms, whose blush heated the air. Your flame, banked low, burned steadily throughout the year. You were everything to me: wax, and wick, and flame.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

The source for Saint Anselm<\/a>‘s statement about\u00a0meditating on blessed candles during Candlemas <\/a>(February 2nd)\u00a0is L’Ann\u00e9e Liturgique<\/em> (The Liturgical Year<\/em>)\u00a0by Prosper Louis Pascal Gu\u00e9ranger<\/span> <\/a>(Dom Gu\u00e9ranger, abbot of Solesmes), nine volumes of which he\u00a0wrote between 1841 and his death in 1875; the remaining six volumes were written by another, unknown, Benedictine monk.<\/p>\n

According to tradition, in many European countries, snowdrops (also called Candlemas bells)\u00a0should not be brought into the house before Candlemas. The link between Candlemas Day and snowdrops relies partly on a folkloric\/apocryphal story about Eve. After being cast out of Eden, Eve weeps when she first encounters cold, and most particuarly, snow. An angel appeared, and, according to\u00a0the poem ‘Origin of the Snowdrop’\u00a0by the Scotsman George Wilson, the angel ‘bade her cheer \/ Her drooping heart, and banish fear:’<\/p>\n

And catching, as he gently spake,
\nA flake of falling snow
\nHe breathed on it, and bade it take,
\nA form, and bud and blow;
\nAnd ere the flake had reached the earth,
\nEve smiled upon the beauteous birth,
\nThat seemed, amid the general dearth
\nOf living things, a greater prize
\nThan all her flowers in Paradise.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

And thus the snowdrop, like the bow
\nThat spans the cloudy sky,
\nBecomes a symbol whence we know
\nThat brighter days are nigh;
\nThat circling seasons, in a race
\nThat knows no lagging, lingering pace,
\nShall each the other\u00a0nimbly chase,
\nTill Time’s departing final day
\nSweep snowdrops and the world away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the afternoon of\u00a0February second, you brought snowdrops into the house. Armfuls of them, their heads shyly drooping. Every empty jar\u00a0in the house was\u00a0filled with them. Then you set\u00a0freshly-blessed candles\u00a0on the tables and\u00a0windowsills alongside the flowers. The scent of flowers and beeswax warmed the house.’They must burn all night,’ you said, shaking out the match’s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[725,167,288],"tags":[799,805,803,807,801,802,806,804,798,800],"class_list":["post-1453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-200-words-200-days","category-on-writing","category-short-works","tag-candlemas","tag-candlemas-bells","tag-candlemas-day","tag-george-wilson","tag-lannee-liturgique","tag-marianne-stokes","tag-origin-of-the-snowdrop","tag-snowdrops","tag-st-anselm","tag-the-liturgical-year"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4LH1G-nr","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/CandlemasDay.jpg?fit=417%2C513","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1453"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1456,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1453\/revisions\/1456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}