MountainWitch ⛤
Sometimes the tiniest plants and flowers hold the greatest secrets. Bealtaine Blessings from my yard to yours.
This full moon owl has come to visit me...
The seeker of truth and clarity in confusing times.
Transformation is on the horizon, embrace with courage and wisdom.
Guidance and protection from the spiritual realm.
Deep knowledge and the ability to see beyond illusions.
It’s that cold November rain thing happening outside this week. So dark and unpleasant to be doing anything outside. This is what my kitchen looks like when I pour candles. My witchy-prepper combo task. Even tho I’m a beekeeper, I don’t use my own beeswax for candles. I am very careful to not mess up the frames too much when extracting honey as it takes a lot of bee energy to make wax and I would rather they didn’t have to do much wax making in the spring. I use what little wax I get for salve and things like that. I do occasionally buy beeswax tapers from a local candle company because they are so nice but they are expensive. There is a time and place for all things tho. I make these candles out of vegetable wax, there is a good source for quantity buying in Vancouver. I reuse the little tin cups over and over until they are un-usable. I’ve had the glass votive containers for years. I buy pre-made tabbed wicks and use old beeswax candle stubs melted down to stick them to the containers prior to pouring the veg wax.
In a couple of puttering-around hours, I can make enough candles to last the winter. The tea lights are for offerings and shrines mostly, but are handy when the power is out. The votives give good light and last a long time, usually through several long power outages. I have given this a lot of thought over the years. I use flashlights etc. as well during power outages but batteries are expensive, resource intensive and not very sustainable. Of course using soy and veg wax would not be sustainable in a total collapse either. In that situation I’d be using tallow and very frugally at that. But all things considered, for now I feel that pouring my own veg wax candles is the lightest consumable footprint.
This ended up making about 110 tea lights and 14 votives from about 3/4 of a bag of soy wax flakes.
