Imbolc Art Witching
Lighting a Candle to Art Magick
Art Witching is where I share creative prompts and rituals for illustrating, either through journalling, writing or decorating for the current Sabbat.
Today is August the 1st or Imbolc in the Southern Hemisphere. It is also thought of as a “Time of Awakening” and “First Light” / “Candlemas” or “Saint Brigid’s Day”.
Ignite a flame…
Create a candle, a series of candles for your journal, for your nature table, dining table or altar.
Candles are extremely symbolic with this time
While the days are slowly lengthening, our mornings and evenings are still dark and lighting a candle is a lovely simple way to make your breakfast or dinner time or another ritual feel more special. Remember you are deserving of taking the time to create and make even ordinary moments feel special.
Christians would traditionally take their candles to church to be blessed at Candlemas the official end to the Christmas season.
In many Spanish Catholic regions such as Puerto Rico and the Southern Americas, a procession carrying a statue representing the Virgin of Candelaria / Nuestra Señora de Candelaria (Our Lady of the Candle Light) is made to church, pilgrims following with lit candles before the mass is recalled.
The Sabbat Imbolc is thought of as a Celtic festival of fire and light. Celtic Pagans would dress their windows with candles to guide and welcome Saint Brigid home. The exact same reeds or rushes used to craft Saint Brigid crosses were used in ancient times as rushlights / thin reed candles, as wax was a rare and expensive resource for most people, the dried reeds were dipped in tallow / animal fat and set alight.
In te ao Māori the Fire Goddess Mahuika had candle like fingers with flaming nails, her grandson Māui later retrieved her fingernails and planted them in the trees to share the gift of igniting fire.
Birthday candles are used to make wishes and dreams come true - August is my birthday month! Squeeee!
My Art Witching practise is mostly as you may gather through what is also known art magick and junk journalling. Although as a family we also print out and create a seasonal mood board of photos with adhesive magnets on our freezer. Build and display a mini altar, you could call it a centrepiece, essentially an opshopped (thrifted) selection of things to create a Waldorf like celebration ring on our dining table each Sabbat.
With the full moon this week we will be hand dipping my upcoming birthday candles A fairly new family ritual, I regret somewhat not starting earlier when my older babes were younger. For my J’s recent birthday we made floating candles using melted beeswax and small wicks in walnut shells. You could create other more fragrant candles using citrus peel shells with wicks and spices, or use the shells from other gifts of nature, such as acorns or indeed seashells themselves. There are endless possibilities for homemade candles using various vessels, opshopped tea cups, upcycled and decorated jars together with melted wax and cotton wicks.
You may like to change up the colour of your candles with coloured wax, seals or melted down crayons. Some believe different colours hold various magical powers, meanings and elements.
Consider taking, placing your candles somewhere you love to be blessed, or perform a blessing ritual yourself. Anoint your candles with magical oils, Lunar / Moon water or water energised by Solar / Sun or a special crystal. When you go to use your candles you may like to perform an Imbolc candle lighting ritual similar to the one mentioned here.
Alternatively you could take the Light of a Candle to the page.
Either through illustration, painting, journalling, goal setting, inspirations or affirmations, spells and incantations.
How does your light feel? What do you want to ignite? Or set fire to?
You could seal your writing with a wax seal; strike a match or use a candle to set it alight and let go of something holding you ransom.
Use inspiration from Saint Brigid - Goddess of Poetry, te ao Māori Fire Deity Mahuika or the Spanish Lady of the Candle Light / Nuestra Señora de Candelaria to ignite the words for a poem and this time.
If you are a writer this post has some more great creative writing prompts and ideas for Imbolc.
Molly Roberts is a huge inspiration to me in all things Art Witchy / Art Magick you can find a free printable with some of her Imbolc ideas here.
I would like to mentioned that I have a friend here in Aotearoa, New Zealand who makes the most magical and fun candles. I try not to “commercialise” my celebrations or prompts as I firmly believe in ultilising what you already have and that we need not purchase or create waste to celebrate. However, Amelia runs a small witchy business called Darling Darklings on Instagram that I adore, and her Lilith’s Wicks candles are indeed very special.
These are simply my current sparks and embers to ignite some Imbolc Art Witching However if you have another idea, or if any of these prompts resonated with you and you go on to make a candle, or series of candles, and if you are willing, I would so dearly love you to share them with me.
You can share where ever you feel most comfortable, either here on Substack by restacking, Notes or through our chat. Or email me, tag me publicly or message me privately on Instagram. I look forward to seeing them so much and thank you for being here!
Seasons Blessings 💫
Bron
What beautiful, creative ideas Bron ✨ Imbolc is one of my most favourite seasonal shifts. I will be returning to these ideas you share 🙏