Sacred, or silly? Why Rituals Still Matter
There was a time when lighting a candle meant something. Nowadays, its a common household accessory that anyone can purchase for simply fragrancing the home or creating a Pinterest-worthy aesthetic. Ranging in price from a few pounds to a couple of thousand (yes, Lalique Epines candles sell for £2,190 in Harrods!) the average consumer in the UK purchases between five and seven candles each year. And whilst some consumers make these purchases as part of creating and promoting a sense of well-being, most people light a candle without pausing to consider the spiritual significance.
Candles as we know them likely originated around 3,000 BCE. Prior to that, the ritual use of flame had long been in existence in the form of oil lamps, torches and sacred fires. The first known use of candles in ritual can be found in Ancient Egypt, Ancient Judaism, Early Christianity, and Hinduism where they were used in temples and tombs as part of ritual, worship, and offerings. Candles are not just convenient light sources but archetypal tools. Here’s why they hold such potent ritual meaning:
· Flame = Divine presence, soul essence, consciousness
· Melting wax = Time passing, transformation, offering/sacrifice
· Smoke = Prayers rising, connection to spirit
· Light in darkness = Hope, truth, guidance, rebirth
· Fragility of flame = Mortality, mystery, sacred attention
Candles are liminal tools flickering at the edge between the seen and unseen, embodying that threshold where prayer becomes presence.
In the Zohar, a foundational text on Kabbalistic mysticism, flame is used as a metaphor for non-duality - for the interwoven dance of all things:
“Come and see: In the rising flame there are two lights. One is a white and luminous light; the other is a blue or black light to which the white light is linked. The white shining light is higher and direct. Underneath it is the blue or black light, which serves as a pedestal for the white.”
— Zohar, Bereshit B, Verse 249
Aside from church, in particular the Catholic tradition where votive candles are lit as a prayer offering to saints or in remembrance of the dead, our modern use of candles tends to be about mood: a romantic dinner, a calming bath, a moment of cosiness. We also light them for birthdays, placing candles on cakes - a ritual that originates in Ancient Greece, when round cakes were offered to Artemis, Goddess of the Moon.
And here’s the thing: birthday candles are ritual. So is “wetting the baby’s head.” So are weddings, funerals, and graduations. But in most cases, we’ve kept the outer shell and forgotten the inner fire.
We’ve reduced ritual to performance or trivialised it into clichés. The deeper purpose of ritual - to mark thresholds, to move energy, to bear witness to change - has been forgotten. And without that, we become unmoored. Drifting. Unseen even by ourselves. We’ll “wet the baby’s head” at the pub, but not hold a circle to bless the father’s transformation. We blow out candles but don’t name our wishes. We skip over the sacred pause, and so we skip over our souls.
When ritual isn’t normalised, it becomes “woo.” But when it is normalised, it becomes medicine.
But of course ritual isn’t just about candles. The oldest recorded form of ritual likely dates back over 70,000 years ago and cannot be found in written words but in archaeological traces - through symbolic objects, burial practices, and sacred spaces. The first rituals weren’t written - they were danced, painted, buried, sung, and felt. They involved death, fertility, seasons, stars, animals, blood, breath, and mystery. They were embodied technologies of connection - to the invisible, the ancestral, and the more-than-human world.
In Blombos Cave, South Africa, archaeologists discovered engraved stones and tools stained with red pigment suggesting the use of ochre (often symbolising blood, life force, or transformation) marking some of the earliest symbolic behaviours, indicating that ritual may have predated even language. Built 6,000 years before Stonehenge, Göbekli Temple in Turkey is the worlds oldest known ritual temple site. Its monumental T-shaped pillars are carved with animals and cosmic symbols and with no signs of permanent settlement, it appears to have been built purely for ceremony, gathering, and sacred rites. This challenges the idea that ritual followed agriculture - it may actually have been the driver for civilisation.
The fact that ritual may have preceded language and agriculture suggests that it isn’t just cultural, it’s biological, archetypal, and deeply human. If early humans carved sacred symbols into ochre before they spoke full sentences, or gathered to raise temples before they farmed, then ritual isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity for meaning-making, for belonging, for marking what matters. In modern society, where we’re surrounded by noise, speed, and disconnection, the impulse for ritual hasn’t disappeared - it’s just become buried. And yet, we still crave it. We light candles at vigils, we gather in circles during loss, and we return to breath and movement in yoga studios and temples. Beneath it all is the same longing our ancestors held: to feel connected.
Whilst we carry out daily unconscious rituals of waking up and brushing our teeth, showering, grabbing a Starbucks on the way to the office or pouring a glass of wine with our evening meal, because they’re carried our without much (if any) thought, they lack significance or meaning. And we are meaning-making creatures in essence. To connect ourselves back to the power of ritual is to connect ourselves back to the thread of who we are beneath the noise - to our ancestry, our aliveness, our soul. It is to reclaim the sacred pause in a world that constantly urges us to speed up.
When we ritualise even the smallest of acts such as lighting a candle with intention, drinking tea as a form of prayer, walking barefoot on the earth while whispering thanks, we begin to weave meaning back into matter. These aren't performances, but portals. In this way, ritual becomes less about what we’re doing, and more about how we’re being with what we do. It becomes both a remembering and a returning back to the heart of who are truly are.
If you would like to create a life that feels a little more symbolic and meaningful, here are 3 ways you can bring the beauty of ritual into your life:
1. What threshold are you crossing right now? Are you starting something? Ending something? In the unknown?
Create a ritual to honour this moment. It could be lighting a candle and naming what you're releasing, burying something in the earth, or writing a letter you never send.
2. What does your body need to feel anchored today?
Let your body lead a ritual: sway, shake, massage your skin with oil, or cocoon yourself in your favourite blanket. Turn a small gesture into devotion.
3. What emotion wants to be witnessed?
Create space for it. Grief? Sing to it. Anger? Drum it out with your hands or stamp it out with your feet. Joy? Dance it. Let the emotion move through a ritual form.
At its core, ritual is about embodiment. It is the language of the body speaking to the soul. Its not so much about what we do, but how we do it. Ritual is embodiment in sacred form. Its how we pray with our breath, and how we remember with our hands.