Quick Specs
- Brand: Sonavi
- Type: Hand-rolled beeswax candles
- Wax: Natural beeswax
- Color: Black
- Height: 8 inches
- Base: About 1 inch across
- Set: 5 candles
Five Tall Black Candles With a Honeycomb Surface
Stand one of these candles upright and it reads as a column: a slim black cylinder with honeycomb cells running its whole length, each hexagon catching a little light on its raised edge, and a white wick at the top. The height changes how the candle sits on an altar. A short candle works at the level of your bowls and stones, while this one rises above them, so the flame becomes the highest point in the arrangement and stays in view from across the room. Every candle is rolled by hand, which means the edges, the seam and the finish vary slightly, and you’ll see that when you line all five up. Side by side they make a row of dark posts, a useful shape when the working is about drawing a line: this is the edge, and nothing crosses it. Against a pale altar cloth, that row becomes the axis of the table. The extra length also gives you plenty of wax to work through, so one candle can stay with a working that you return to over several sittings.
Black has several jobs in candle magic. Guides group it around protection and banishing, and they also list releasing what you’ve outgrown, breaking a pattern, marking a transformation and sitting with grief. Some authors add shadow work, the practice of looking at the parts of yourself you’d rather skip. The lists differ from author to author, none of them promises an outcome, and your own reading of the color has the final say. What the lists share is a direction: black is the color for closing something or standing guard over it. That suits the slow end of candle work. A grief you’re carrying, a habit you’re retiring or a boundary you’re learning to hold rarely resolves in one evening, and a tall candle lets you light the same flame on several nights. The honeycomb cells add an image of their own, since bees build their comb from this wax. Say your purpose aloud when you light it, because a candle lit to guard a household is a protective candle.
Practical Ritual Applications
One candle can carry a whole working. For a release, write what you’re setting down on a slip of paper, light the candle for a few minutes each evening, read the paper once and snuff the flame; after five evenings the candle has shortened as the work has, and the set holds five such workings. For protection, stand a candle at the back of the altar or reading table and say aloud what the space should keep out. For a boundary working, set three in a row on a heat-safe tray with three inches between them, and write the limit you plan to hold on a card in front of the middle candle. A tall candle needs clear space overhead, so keep shelves and hanging decorations well above the flame. Browse my snuffers and candle accessories for something to put the flame out cleanly.
How to Set Up and Burn a Tall Black Beeswax Candle
These three steps take a candle from the box to a working you can pick up again.
- Trim the Wick and Seat the Base
Trim the white wick to about a quarter inch, then check the base before you light anything. Stand the candle in a holder whose opening grips it without forcing, or on a flat heat-safe dish, and look at it from two sides to confirm it's upright. A tall candle that leans melts unevenly, runs down one side and is more likely to tip. Set it on a stable surface.
- Light It and Name What It Guards
Light the wick and say one sentence aloud about what the candle is for: a boundary, a habit you're closing, a space you want kept safe. Keep the flame away from drafts, curtains and paper, and stay in the room while it burns. You set the length of the working yourself, and a short sitting is enough, because the candle will still be there for the next one.
- Snuff It and Come Back Later
Use a snuffer to put the flame out when you finish, and always before you leave the room or go to bed. Let the wax set before you move the candle, then keep it in a cool place out of direct sun. When you return, trim the wick again, relight the candle and say your sentence once more, so each evening picks up where the last one stopped.
The Tarot Fellow Standard
Black suits the slow workings: releasing, closing, holding a boundary. That’s why I stock the tall candle in it, since a flame you can return to across several evenings suits those jobs, and one candle can carry the whole working. The set comes as five matching candles in one color, so a black working means opening one box of black, and there’s room to repeat the work or share it. For other rolled and taper candles, look through my household and taper candles.
Frequently Asked Questions
Drips usually trace back to the wick and the air around the flame. Candle-industry guidance says wicks left long or crooked cause uneven burning and dripping, and moving air from fans, vents or open windows disturbs the flame. Trim the wick to a quarter inch before you light it and set the candle out of the draft. Beeswax tends to drip less than paraffin, though it can still run when the wick or the air isn't right.
There's no single date, but beeswax candles are ancient. The Romans made wicked candles from beeswax and tallow. Through the Middle Ages the wax stayed expensive, so beeswax candles lit churches and wealthy homes while most people burned tallow. Paraffin candles followed in the 1850s, after chemists learned to refine the wax from petroleum.
Fire services say a candle should fit snugly in its holder and be unable to tip over, on a heat-resistant surface. If a candle sits loose, press a small pea of sticky putty onto the flat center of its base, push it into the holder and press down firmly for ten seconds. Another method is to drip a little melted wax into the empty cup and set the candle in straight while the wax is still liquid.
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