Being the lucky recipient of Nancy's lovely hurricane lamps has reminded me of the role of fire in table setting. Candles are so ubiquitous on company tables that we hardly notice them, but the presence of fire is an elemental energy straight from our deepest memory. Gathering around the campfire to share food, stories and warmth, with faces illuminated by the glow and the black night pushed back behind us, is an experience as old as our species. It is an archetype of communal life that we all recognize instinctively. Firelight is comforting and flattering in a way that other light sources cannot achieve...a universal symbol of home.
It is also sacred. The mystery of fire....its heat and light, its power and fascination, its flickering mutability, its undercurrent of danger.... is essential to our spiritual ceremonies. A fragment of the solar furnace, it represents that source of life and the inevitability of change. It is used to indicate the presence of God among us and to facilitate the transmission of our prayers across time, space and religious boundaries. Lighting a candle is the quickest way to create a sense of intention and occasion, and concentrate diffuse thoughts into reverence.
No wonder we use candles to invoke the power of fire and make our gatherings special. When we moved away from the conflagration of the campfire to the more formal atmosphere of the table we knew we needed to bring it with us. Real fire. We have fashioned holders, sometimes out of crystal and silver, to display and contain the flame, but even the smallest ember carries an implication of all that we do not control. The more refined we think we are, the more we need it to remind us of our origins and of how we are (still) connected to the earth, the sky, the unseen and each other.