Candle flame flickering
A candle flame flickering and flaring is often overfed, its wick too long to burn all the wax it draws up. It is a neat image for whatever in your life gets more fuel than it can burn cleanly.
What it may mean
A candle flame that jumps, flares and throws off dark wisps is rarely starving. Far more often it is overfed. A wick left long after the last burn draws up more melted wax than the flame can use, so the extra fuel flares and smokes and the flame never settles. Trim the wick to about a quarter inch, and the same candle often stands still. That makes a useful picture for a crowded week. Things that dance and sputter in your life (a project, a household schedule, a friendship) are not always short of care; some are being fed more than they can take in, and they would burn cleaner with less. An old English weather writer read a waving flame in a still room as a sign of wind, and the ancient Greeks watched sacrificial flames for signs.
Depending on how you saw it
A tall flame that smokes
A flame twice its usual height, with a thread of smoke, almost always sits on a wick that needs trimming. The fix takes ten seconds and a pair of scissors. What would you trim back if you wanted something in your days to burn steadier?
A thief in the candle
In 1665 the scientist Robert Boyle wrote a meditation on what people called a thief in a candle: a stray bit of wick that makes the flame blaze unevenly and melts the wax on one side. Remove it, and the candle recovers. What small stray thing is making your days burn unevenly?
Flickering at a memorial or prayer candle
Memorial and prayer candles often seem to move just when words are spoken, simply because breath and nearby movement stir the air. Still, it can feel as if the flame answers. When a flame seems to respond, what were you asking for at that moment?
Why it happens in nature
A flame flickers when its supply of fuel or air changes quickly. A long or curled wick pulls up more wax than can burn cleanly, so the flame grows, wavers and smokes; drafts, narrow jars and air pockets in the wax do the same. Trimming the wick to about a quarter inch before lighting steadies it.
What folk beliefs say
England
Willsford's Nature's Secrets, a 1658 English book of weather signs quoted by Brand, says that if the flame of a candle, lamp or fire waves or winds itself with no visible cause, windy weather is coming.
Source: John Brand; Henry Ellis (ed.), Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 3 (1849), vol. 3, pp. 181-182. View the page
Ancient Greece
Among the ancient Greeks, Brand notes, a worshiper judged whether a prayer was accepted by the way the sacrificial flame darted up: a bright flame was a good omen, a sullen, smoky one the reverse.
Source: John Brand; Henry Ellis (ed.), Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 3 (1849), vol. 3, p. 181. View the page
To reflect on
Where are you feeding something more than it can burn cleanly?