{"id":5132,"date":"2013-01-30T04:23:52","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T11:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5132"},"modified":"2013-01-29T18:30:23","modified_gmt":"2013-01-30T01:30:23","slug":"candles-and-the-eco-witch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5132","title":{"rendered":"Candles and the Eco-Witch"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

LED-light pseudo-pillar candles, with remote control.<\/p><\/div>\n

Homes with candles burning brightly<\/em>
\nare filled with sexy <\/em>wood nymphs nightly.<\/em><\/p>\n

As best I recall, that was a couplet from one of Al Manning’s<\/a> books. I never met him, but from his how-to books and particularly his early-1980s autobiography, Eye of Newt in My Martini<\/em>, I get the impression of a guy who could have been the house with of the Sterling Cooper Draper Price advertising agency<\/a>\u2014or perhaps of its hypothetical Los Angeles branch office.<\/p>\n

My first Craft teacher always had candles burning, and before then there had been the highly aesthetic literature professor at Reed College who held class in his home, where the walls were covered in black felt and racks of votive lights burned in every room.<\/p>\n

And I had my altar boy days behind me\u2014I liked <\/em>candles.<\/p>\n

When we got together, M. and I burned lots of candles: ritual candles, nightly dinner table candles, meditation candles, et cetera. But then she got religion about candles. Most of the candles you buy are petrochemical-based (parafin), and when you burn them, you are putting some unfriendly stuff into your household air.<\/a><\/p>\n

It is kind of like running a diesel engine indoors. So for some years, we cut way back on candle-burning except during (a) electrical blackouts and (b) outdoor use.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a friend gave us a big beeswax pillar candle, which is now on the dining table \u2014 kind of like this.<\/a> Nice, but not cheap. Maybe that is why St. Luke’s Episcopal Church always had donors for each week’s beeswax altar candles. (The big paschal candles<\/a> were probably partly parafin.)<\/p>\n

Another friend recently tossed in some soy-based tea candles as lagniappe on an order of \u2014 wait for it \u2014\u00a0 battery-powered LED candles<\/a>. (Suitable for homes with toddlers or in areas of high fire danger.) We use them indoors\u00a0 in one of our many votive-candle holders.<\/p>\n

At Natural Grocers<\/a> I recently picked up a box of palm oil-based tapers. But there are environmental issues connected with palm oil plantations too.<\/a> It’s another case where “green” is not as earth-friendly as you might hope.<\/p>\n

What is an environmentally conscious Witch to do?<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> A video on getting wax out of fabric<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Homes with candles burning brightly are filled with sexy wood nymphs nightly. As best I recall, that was a couplet from one of Al Manning’s books. I never met him, but from his how-to books and particularly his early-1980s autobiography, Eye of Newt in My Martini, I get the impression of a guy who could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-5132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1kM","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":92,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=92","url_meta":{"origin":5132,"position":0},"title":"Now It’s Candles","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 4, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"As one of those people who always liked candles, I hate to admit this, but it seems to be true. Burning parafin-based candles indoors might be bad for you. But how many candles are too many? From the linked risk-analysis paper: \"These results support the conclusion that the public health\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"California\"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=california"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12655,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12655","url_meta":{"origin":5132,"position":1},"title":"Your Candles Actually Are Good for You","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 19, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I find that having a candle burning on my desk helps me to focus. That goes back to when I was 17 or so. A few years later, I declared myself Pagan, which meant that I could have all the candles that I wanted! \"Homes with candles burning brightly are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"candles\"","block_context":{"text":"candles","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=candles"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/candles.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9820,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9820","url_meta":{"origin":5132,"position":2},"title":"You’re Using Too Many Cards and Other Tarot Stuff","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 24, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The title of this post was inspired by a recent post by Thorn Mooney on Oathbound: \"The Celtic Cross is Kind of Terrible.\" Near as anyone can tell, the Celtic Cross comes out of the assorted Golden Dawn materials and was propagated (if not totally invented) by A.E. Waite in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"divination\"","block_context":{"text":"divination","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=divination"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/too-many-cards.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/too-many-cards.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/too-many-cards.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":584,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=584","url_meta":{"origin":5132,"position":3},"title":"Candles for PagansI like candles.\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 23, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Candles for PagansI like candles. So did my mother, a life-long Episcopalian. To her, I suppose they suggested gracious living. She died ten years ago, and M. and I still have not used up all the candles that she left behind.Ever since our handfasting, we have been pretty well \"out\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3354,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3354","url_meta":{"origin":5132,"position":4},"title":"Quick Day of the Dead Instructions\u2014And How Things Change","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 29, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Last Monday a notice popped up in my university email: It's time to build an altar for the Day of the Dead. (And do it in the correct, traditional manner!) Several professors of Spanish have organized an altar-building event in the student center for a number of years now. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3391,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3391","url_meta":{"origin":5132,"position":5},"title":"The Campus Day of the Dead, 2011","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"As planned,\u00a0 I stopped by the Student Center on Wednesday to check out the Day of the Dead altars. No Vlad the Impaler altar this year! No altars to firefighters or Victorian writers either. Apparently Chicano Studies conformity was enforced, with Catholic Campus Ministries stepping in as a co-sponsor as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"Day of the Dead altar to Marilyn Monroe, CSU-Pueblo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/MarilynMonroeAltar_sm.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5132"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5169,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5132\/revisions\/5169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}