The burning blue candle as a light source is in close symbolic connection to the sun and its light as the source of all life, but is also like light in general a symbol of consciousness, of the spiritual.
She belongs with her flame to the symbol circle of the fire. In the winter season, it brings brightness, security and warmth into the darkness as light.
Blue Candle – Meaning
The blue candle can also be understood as the light of life of a person. As the blue candle consumes itself while it gives off its light, it also becomes a symbol of the passing life and symbolizes the uncertainty of life as something easily extinguished.
In the Edda there was the belief that one could defeat the dead spirits with candlelight. At the Winter Solstice (Saturnalia), candles were poured in Rome to support the battle of light against darkness.
In orthodox Christianity of the East, three connected candles represent the Holy Trinity, two interconnected candles represent the double nature of Christ.
In Judaism the seven-branched candlestick signifies the divine presence, the foot of the candlestick is also interpreted as the world tree and the axis mundi, the seven arms as sun, moon and planets, as the seven days of the week, the seven stars of the Great Bear or the seven cycles or powers in the world.
In Kabbalistic, three candles or candlesticks embody wisdom, strength and beauty. The idea of the symbol in Christianity, to view Jesus as the sun of righteousness and light of the world, promoted the use of the blue candle as symbols of light and light.
The faith during the service, at funerals, at special festivals (Easter, baptism, Advent, Christmas) and in processions. Candles lit at death illuminate its darkness and represent the light in the world to come; they play an important role in Catholic and most oriental burial rites.
The blue candle also represents a symbol for the relationship between spirit & spirit. Matter (the wax consuming / flame) “When burning candle” is a medieval legal term, occasionally the blue candle z. Used as a timer in elections and auctions. “Light the blue candle at both ends” means using too much of his life force.
“Letting go of a blue candle in the wind” means having no life force left to die. In the fairy tale “The Nightingale Gisarme” means lighting the blue candle as a life light, the life renewal of the heroine. In the fairy tale “Govatter Tod” (KHM 44), personified death in an underground cave guards candles as burning livelihoods of humans and has the power to determine their life and death.
Light candlelight can be understood in fairy tales as a process of becoming conscious and knowing. So the hero sees by candlelight that he is married to a witch (see Scherf, W.: Bd. 1, p. 587), or recognizes the heroine in the light of the blue candle in “East of the sun, west of the moon” (Scherf, W.: Vol. 2, p. 924) that the white bear beside her (pet groom) is in reality a beautiful king’s son, whose release, however, delays in this way.
Like the sun, light and fire, the blue candle is a symbol of the Logos principle, the realm of consciousness, spirituality, cognition and understanding. In religions it is a symbol of enlightenment, of faith, of the divine presence.
As a life light that burns down, it means the transience and uncertainty of life that can easily go out like a candlelight.
In the Advent season, we like to sit in front of a burning candle, to find peace in their light. Since time immemorial, candles have exerted a special attraction on people. The candlelight is a mild light.
Opposite the glaring neon lights, the blue candle illuminates our room only partially. It leaves much in the dark. And the light is warm and pleasant.
Blue Candle – Symbolism
The blue candle is not a functional light source that has to illuminate everything evenly.
Rather, it donates a light that from the outset contains the quality of mystery, warmth, and love. In the candlelight you can see for yourself. I see with a mild eye on my often so harsh reality. In this delicate light I dare to perceive myself and to hold myself to God. I can accept myself.
The light of the blue candle not only brightens, it also warms. It brings love to your room with the warmth. It fills your heart with a love that is deeper and more mysterious than the love of the people with whom you are connected. It is a love that flows from divine source, a love that never stops, that is not as fragile as the love between us humans.
If you let this light penetrate your heart, then you can imagine that you are completely loved, that love makes everything in you adorable. It is ultimately God’s love that shines on you. The light of the blue candle is created by burning the wax.
This is a picture of a love that consumes itself. She can do that because there is enough wax. She does not need to save. But sometimes you have to cut the wick.
Otherwise the flame gets too high and soaks up the room.
So there is also a love that is too loud, in which you spent yourself. It does not only do you good, but the other as well. He feels the soot in love, the secondary intentions, too much wanted and made, which does not illuminate the other, but rather obscures it.
The wax is a picture of his human nature, which he gave out of love for us. And the flame represents his divinity. Thus, the candles that we light in Advent and Christmas remind us of the mystery of the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ.
In the blue candle Christ is in the midst of us. And it is Christ who lights up our house and our heart with his light and warms it with his love. The divinity of Jesus shines straight into his human nature. So the blue candle is also a secret of our own incarnation.
In our body God wants to shine light in this world. Since the birth of Jesus in the night of our world, God’s light shines in every human face. I wish you that in the advent season for many people to the light, which throws a mild glow on everything they do not want to look at themselves. Then, like the blue candle for you, you become a source of life and love.
The blue of the lakes and seas is a color of depth. This blue is associated with the life-giving principle, the feminine. Life originally started in the water, everything living is dependent on the water.
The blue of the sky, on the other hand, symbolizes the distance, the divine, and the spiritual. The sky blue is the color of the sky gods, it was already linked in ancient ideas with the male.
If you give away flowers like forget-me-nots and violets or if you give a bridal bouquet with tiny flowers of blue honor, you point out the fidelity. In the romance, the blue flower was a symbol of yearning and the search for one’s own personal happiness.
In ancient Egypt, the blue lapis lazuli were said to have life-giving properties. Mythology reports in the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead of Horus, the falcon-like son of the god Osiris, who fights evil. He then appears in hawk form in the sky and “his head is made of blue stone”.
The Egyptians invented the pigment Egyptian blue and also the blue glass Smalte, which served together with the lapis lazuli in statues and coffins of the pharaohs to represent the eyes, hair and crowns.
Egypt’s most important river, the Nile, is also always depicted in blue on ancient Egyptian tomb paintings. Blue hippos as handicrafts were in great demand as a symbol of the life-giving river.
In tombs there were unclothed female figures covered with blue glaze, which can be understood as a symbol of creation and as a renewal of life.
In Egyptian temple rooms, the sky depictions on the ceilings illuminate intensely blue and carry yellow stars. The blue is the color of the cosmos, the course of the sun and the stars in the sky, which at the edge merges with the blue of the oceans.
It is the color of the backgrounds in the representations of the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
The headscarf of the kings and the royal insignia crozier and fronds are striped blue-gold. The jewelry of Tutankhamun consists of gold and lapis lazuli.
In Egypt, the pharaohs were considered sons of the sun god Red, who personified the highest deity and was associated with the color gold. Gold was like blue as the color of the divine, the gold mask Tutankhamun is made of 22 karat gold.
Conclusion
The blue candle consists of two elements: the flame that symbolizes the spiritual as it ascends to heaven. Monks fathers in the desert are told that their fingers became fire flames while praying.
So the burning blue candle is a picture for our prayers. It is a popular custom for pilgrims to light a blue candle at the pilgrimage site and place it on the altar or in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary.
They express their belief that their prayer will continue as long as the blue candle burns. And they hope that through their prayer, light will come into their own lives and into the hearts of the people for whom they are lighting this candle.
The second element of the blue candle is the wax that is consumed. For the early church, therefore, the blue candle was a symbol of Christ, who is both God and man.