In Defense of Candles

Living by candlelight offers lessons in darkness, self-reflection, and peace.

Candlelight offers a way of experiencing the world that the modern day tends to overlook. Biba Kayewich

A few months ago, my wife and I tried an experiment: one week during which we used no electric lights, computers, or TVs after 6 p.m. Our only illumination after the sunset came from candles.

We made it six days.

As it turned out, denying ourselves even such a small thing as electric lights and computer screens for one week proved more challenging than expected—and more than we could do (or chose to do). But there were benefits to the experience as well.

Readers may wonder why we would impose this inconvenience on ourselves in the first place.

The main reason for the experiment was to engage in an exercise in simplicity and a meditation on electricity itself—both what it means to have it and what it means not to.

Learning From Darkness

The experience of light and darkness has, throughout history, profoundly shaped the human consciousness. Light and dark are archetypal symbols and are frequently used as such in our language. If someone says, “It was a dark time in my life,” he speaks metaphorically, yet we instantly understand the meaning. We know what internal darkness is, based on our experience of external, physical darkness.

Darkness is associated variously with sorrow, despair, guilt, uncertainty, ignorance, and evil. Light corresponds to joy, hope, holiness, beauty, truth, innocence, and goodness. I maintain that these aren’t merely products of linguistic usage but that, in some manner, the symbolism of light and darkness is inherently real and true. Why else would this symbolism be so universally acknowledged throughout time and place?

One result of our little candle experiment was to bring home the reality of darkness in a way that our ancestors would have experienced it and that would have shaped their thinking about what darkness means. With modern technology, it’s possible to artificially prolong the day, to artificially banish the nighttime and the domain of darkness indefinitely, if one desires. In a similar way, our electronic devices—phones, tablets, computers, TVs—can, by distracting us, banish the darker thoughts that might come to our minds in the quiet moments.

But when you rely only on fragile, flickering candles and long shadows growing in the house, you suddenly realize how much you are at the mercy of the sun. You realize your smallness and lack of control. And that isn’t a bad thing. When we denied ourselves both antidotes to darkness (light and technological distractions), we were left to the quiet of our thoughts as the sunbeams blinked out behind the hills.

Candlelight offers a way of experiencing the world that the modern day tends to overlook. Biba Kayewich

The Benefits of Boredom

One of those thoughts harkened back to the centuries upon centuries during which our ancestors lived without electricity—lived just like we were, in that moment, subject to the passage of day and night, like the bird and the bat and the bear. At best, they could light a fire, but even the glow of the brightest fire doesn’t compare to a modern chandelier. I think it instilled a certain humility and resignation in them that we can never fully know ourselves.

It wasn’t as gloomy as it might sound, however. Though quiet and darkness may bring negative thoughts, fears, and uncertainties, sometimes it’s necessary to process those thoughts to deal with them in a healthy manner.

In her book, “Reclaiming Conversation,” sociologist and MIT professor Sherry Turkle makes the point that technology too easily eliminates silence, stillness, and even boredom from our lives, when, in reality, these are necessary precursors to introspective thought that can deepen our self-knowledge and help us to process unpleasant emotions or experiences. She writes, “To reclaim solitude, we have to learn to experience a moment of boredom as a reason to turn inward, to defer going ‘elsewhere’ at least some of the time.”

Peace

And what I noticed more than any particularly heavy thoughts or overbearing boredom was simply a distinct peace. The night settled sweet and serene over the valley, bringing with it a kind of music that was normally swallowed and obscured by our glaring electric lights and flashing electric screens.

Without the usual distractions and without our artificial globe of daylight inside the house, our attention was naturally drawn out of doors. We watched the blue of the gloaming, the slow blurring of trees, fields, and the backbone of the hills, as evening softened all of the outlines of things. This caused, I think, a slower winding down of our bodies as well, after the day’s work, a softening of the edges of activity. Normally, we go from full light to full darkness in an instant, a kind of shock to our systems. But this natural progression slowly led us to rest.

We went to bed earlier during that week, and, to be frank, this was partly a result of boredom (I know—I’m not proud of my dependence on screens). But it was also, I think, our bodies reacting to the darkness and our own greater awareness of our fatigue. Screen time can fool you into thinking you’re more awake than you actually are. During that week, we fell more easily into the rhythm of the natural world outside, which lulled us gently to sleep as the night arrived.

The Connectedness of Candles

The candle is a venerable tool. It’s elevated and honored by the sediments of time, the countless ages when those who came before lived a great portion of their lives huddled within its little glow, trying to keep out the dark.

When your eyes adjust to the real, natural light of the flame, a candle casts off a surprising amount of light. You cling to it. You depend on it just to make your way around the house. The symbolic significance of it springs to your mind and impresses itself much more deeply on your mind. Few people have waxed poetic about a light bulb, yet there’s no end to the great poetry written about the dancing of a little flame that keeps the dark at bay.

Without having tried using candles as one’s sole light source, one’s understanding of, for example, this line from Shakespeare—“How far that little candle throws its beam, so shines a good deed in a naughty world.”—will only be notional, surface-level. If you’ve used candles in a practical way, though, Shakespeare’s lines suddenly become real and much richer than they would otherwise be.

I’m not against electricity, of course. But, for all that we’ve gained in efficiency and comfort through electricity, I do sometimes wonder what we’ve lost in our understanding of time, our knowledge of metaphor, our synchronization with the natural world, and even our connection to one another.

A few days ago, I used my wood stove for the first time this year. This experience, too, is like reaching through the watery web of time to touch the fingers of one’s ancestors, who lived—quite literally—by the light and heat of such stoves. After using a wood stove, particularly with all of the lights turned off, I understand now why people once placed so much emphasis on “the hearth”—indeed, the word became a metonymy for “home” itself.

In the black, bitter, biting winters of Wisconsin, everyone would naturally gather around the comforting warmth and mesmerizing dance of the flames, accompanied by a gentle roar and the sighing and popping of the wood. Where else would one go, in a world deprived of light and heat, but for that one spot? And there, gathered at the hearth, people would find one another, too. And they'd talk, and tell stories, and sing. And the family would be one.