A Candle Flame Holding Steady

Find a position that lets your body settle — weight dropping into whatever is beneath you, hands resting somewhere they don't need to hold anything.

Let your eyes close, or soften until the room loses its hard edges.

In the space behind your closed eyes, there is a candle. A single white taper on a plain surface — wax just barely warm to the touch.

And at the top of it, a flame. Small. Upright. Burning with an almost unreasonable steadiness.

Notice the shape of it — a soft point at the top, widening through the middle, narrowing again where it meets the wick.

And the color isn't one color. Near the wick, a pale blue, almost invisible. Above that, deep amber. At the very tip, something transparent — where fire becomes heat and heat becomes air.

The room around the candle is dim, and the flame holds a small circle of warm light — touching the surface below, casting a faint shadow behind it.

It is moving constantly — a slow lean to one side, a return, a slight tremor at the tip. And yet it never stops being itself.

Your breath moves through the room too. A soft sway as you exhale. A settling as you breathe back in. You aren't disturbing it — you're in conversation with it.

Watch how the flame handles the air. It doesn't resist — it accommodates, bends, comes back.

The wax has melted into a shallow pool at the top — clear and still, a tiny mirror of the flame above it. The wick glows just beneath its darkened tip, being consumed, feeding the fire. A complete arrangement.

Rest your attention here. Not gripping the image — just staying with it the way you'd sit beside a fire you didn't need to tend.

Let the image soften now. The flame is still there — you're just stepping back, letting the darkness around it widen.

Come back to the weight of your body, the cool air at your nose, the sounds in the room.

And when you're ready, let your eyes open — quietly, as if stepping out of one good place and into another.