Light the Candles Today

Waiting to live is a weird symptom

As I lit each candle, I watched my mom’s candelabra come to life.

It was the centerpiece for my Winter Solstice ceremony last weekend - helping us burn what was holding us back and ignite inspiration to truly live.

But here’s the thing that got me:

My mom never lit those candles.

I watched that candelabra sit on her dresser, on different tables as she moved it around through different homes. She moved it a lot. She moved a lot. But she never lit the candles.

They stayed wrapped in plastic until the day of my ceremony.

This waiting to live is such a weird symptom of a culture that’s terrified of death.

We purposely exclude death from conversation. We’re obsessed with youthfulness, anti-aging, anything that lets us pretend death isn’t coming.

But that fear forces us to live disconnected from true life - because true life is inseparable from death.

Being dropped into an environment where death was in my face every single day during my mom’s final weeks was hard, primarily because nobody talks about it. We don’t prepare for it. So many BIG questions came up at the end of her life that I could tell she hadn’t thought about before.

That’s how our culture operates. And it’s one of the weirdest things about it.

As if, without saying a word, we’ve told the present moment that something else is more important.

That’s a crazy idea. Yet it’s normal.

It’s honestly something that comes up a lot as I integrate the profound experience of losing my mom - because I realized shortly after she transitioned that my time with her was my window to fully enjoy her presence in my life.

And after that experience, it became so obvious:

I’ll always wish I had loved more, even if I loved with all my heart.

In this brief life, it just doesn’t make sense to wait to light the candle. To love more. To come alive. To let go.

It might be normal, but it doesn’t make sense.

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Death as Teacher

In the weeks leading up to my mom’s passing, my perspective on death changed.

Between her strange nighttime behavior (termed “terminal agitation”) and eerily silent blank stares, I felt a profound message sinking into my bones about the fate we all share.

I began to wonder: What if death is life’s greatest gift - hidden in plain sight?

What if death is:

• An antidote to conditioned waiting

• An antidote to pretending there’s any other time but now to light the candles

• An antidote to holding back whatsoever

Death is the great cleanser of illusion.

And the only thing we can be certain of in this life.

Instead of something to fear, I’ve come to appreciate it as something to make peace with - in order to live more richly.

As I lean into understanding death with an open, curious mind, I hope to illuminate its beauty and liberation. To redefine the way it’s perceived.

I’m here for lives more fully lived.

So light the candles. Now.

Not when everything is perfect. Not when you have time. Not “someday.”

Now.

What are you saving for “someday” that’s actually meant to set your heart on fire today?