HumanLight Candle-lighting Ceremony –suggested text:
Many people enjoy lighting symbolic HumanLight candles as part of their holiday celebration. So we’d like to share with everyone the text of a candle-lighting ceremony that was developed years ago. The brief ceremony is done at the start of the event and it involves having a different person actually lighting each candle in turn, while someone reads out the text. This can be done in a public group event, or in the home/family setting as well. We hope many of you appreciate and enjoy this. Feel free to use it!
Text:
“To help express the meaning of this holiday, we light candles, rather than curse the darkness.
We light candles to symbolize lighting the way forward to a better future for humanity and for the planet.
We believe that people can build this future by working together, drawing upon the best of our capacities and the better parts of our human nature.
Celebrating HumanLight helps express our belief that the hope for our future rests on human accomplishments, guided by the unique human capacities for reason and compassion.
Please light the first candle, symbolizing the light of Reason.
Now please light the next candle, symbolizing the warmth of Compassion.
Please light the next candle, symbolizing the glow of Hope.
(With a 4 candle design):
And please light the next candle symbolizing the heart of Humanity.”
****** Notes on Candle ceremony designs:
– Either 3 or 4 values candles may be used, as described above. For a 3 candle design, we suggest using Reason, Compassion, and Hope as the symbolic values. An optional fourth value candle may be added representing Humanity, as mentioned above.
– About HumanLight decoration colors (red, blue and gold/yellow): This holiday decoration color scheme is based on the 3 colors of the HumanLight symbol and can be used at group events or in the home. It looks great! These colors may be applied to the candles as well, with candles in the three colors of red, blue, and yellow/gold, when using the three-candle design. If using a fourth value candle, we suggest a white or rainbow-colored candle, or a second red/blue/yellow candle.
NOTE: The colors are Not tied to any specific values. No color is meant to represent a certain value, so it’s your choice of which color candle to assign to each value during the candle lighting.