Candles are great but logistics sometimes rule them out. One case, given in the “Candle 'Gainst the Dark” candle making instructions, is when the smoke would damage something like the interior of a cairn, but there are several others. The ring of candles from Jack Gale's “Circle and the Square” is beautiful and works very well, but can occasionally be dangerous; Norwegian cruise boats have very sensitive fire detectors in the cabins. The simple logistics may be too complex, or in certain cases it may simply be difficult to keep a candle alight.
Although the “Flowing Well” sequence is complete I'm working on a few odds and ends that are essentially Madeleine meets the Flowing Well (see “Draught of Love”). If they work out, they will eventually form a mini-sequence, tentatively called Coda in reference to the Flowing Well from which they will draw.
Trick of the Trade
I'd made a start but hit a block when I realised that I needed something to represent Madeleine's lantern, with no other triggers present. The lantern is fine in the pathworking, but not in the ritual version, so I was stumped. It's fitting that a trickster provided the real-life solution. A colleague is an inveterate joker and occasionally “salts” my jacket with some piece of simple electronics when I leave it in the workshop. This almost backfired once when I failed to spot the device before attempting to board a flight to Frankfurt, but even that's a funny war story in retrospect and I'd willingly go through all that hassle again in the light of what follows.
The latest device was a simple battery and LED bound into a clear plastic 35mm film canister. Covered in brown parcel tape it actually provided a gentle light so I sat it by the bedside, where it looked good. This would make a really simple solution for, say, a ring of light at a sacred site. For that, you don't even need to be able to solder: my colleague has in the past simply used tape. Of course in that case there's no way to switch it on and off and it's not quite as reliable, but my soldering is so bad that it's how I'd make them if I had to do a lot. Anyone should be able to manage one with a little perseverance and the perseverance will make it more special.
I figured that with a simple addition, it would make a pretty good ritual tool, but it took several hours to work out just how good. All I suggested was to add a tilt switch so that the light switches off when one turns it upside down. Then it would be a meditative focus that isn't likely to be found anywhere else and can thus be used as a single trigger. I wrote up the notes and posted them. The trickster reads my site without branding me terminally insane or worse, and the same day, when I left the workshop, the he presented me with a pack containing parts. It turns out that he and his friends use them, referring to them as LEDlights.
Generous Gesture
The kit was a very generous gesture but it was only when I got home that I realised it was also very tactful. There was an error in the posted notes and I was able to correct them before anyone fell into the trap for real. (Well, hopefully so. I apologise if anyone in Australia or New Zealand rushed out to the shops in the five or six hours they were up.)
My basic rebuild runs as follows. Take one Lithium AA cell as the power source: this will be quite expensive but with the inclusion of the switch it'll last a very long time. In addition, you'll need one tilt switch and one green LED. I used a 12mm long encapsulated non-mercury switch and a super-bright green diffuse LED, total cost less than the bus fare to the shop.
Now, I'm probably not the worst solderer in the world, but I may be the worst who actually owns a soldering iron. This is presented in the spirit that what one complete duffer can do, another can repeat. Or, you can find a competent friend who'll knock the thing off in a couple of minutes. The first mechanism took me a while and was rough and ready. The second went more easily, but took as long because I had ideas above my station.
To make the basic device, tin both ends of the battery and cut the tags off. Solder the edge pin of the tilt switch to the negative terminal. Bend both legs of the LED through ninety degrees so that they're in a straight line. Now bend the end five mil of the long end of the LED through ninety degrees so that it points down again. Solder this short piece to the positive terminal. Now bend the short end so that it touches the centre pin of the tilt switch and solder it in place. With the LED pointing upwards, it should light: pointing downwards, it should go out. The whole thing should fit, negative terminal first, into a translucent film case.
My original idea was to fit the LED at the end, but with an AA cell it'll only fit to one side, which will work fine for illumination in a cairn or whatever, but isn't quite right for a meditation focus. This version, closer to The Joker's original, works well on a soft or uneven surface but has the single flaw that it won't stay switched off on a smooth surface. I wanted to fit one in so that it would stand up lit, and this is how I made my LEDLantern.
Start with three AAA cells. Tape them into a triangle and solder two positives and negatives together to make a chain of three cells. This is rough and ready and when I work out how to make a holder for three rechargeable NiMHs I'll post the result here, but I wanted mine now.
Now tin five mil of the long end of the LED. Tin five mil of both ends of two pieces of wire about 8cm long, preferably one red and one black but otherwise make one about 10cm so you can tell them apart. Crop the long leg of the LED short and attach the red (or longer) wire. Crop one pin of the tilt switch (the inner one if there's only one edge pin and attach the other wire. Solder the other leg of the tilt switch to the short leg of the LED so that the top of the switch (the end away from the legs, which is actually the bottom in the “off” position) is just shy of the bottom of the LED, partly between the legs of the LED, as compact as you can make it. Now crop the soldered legs to about 1cm. This orientation prevents the legs of the LED shorting.
Solder the red wire to positive on the battery chain, black to negative. If you hold the LED up, it should light. Hold it down and it'll go out. Open the tape oround the battery cluster, position the tilt switch and LED assembly in the centre. Cut the little blip out of the canister lid and place the entire assembly inside with the LED in contact with the cut hole. I covered the top with clear tape and sealed it with masking taperound the cannister, the effect looks vaguely like a candle. Voila. Stand the can on its base, it'll glow. Turn it onto its lid and it goes out.
Magic Lantern
Stand the can on its base, it'll glow. Turn it onto its lid and it goes out. Stand the can on its base, it'll glow. Turn it onto its lid and it goes out. I was insanely pleased for some reason. It felt like the bit in Twelve Maidens where Margaret has made her own talisman: "The result was hardly professional, but she had never made anything with her hands which pleased her so much." I've made other ritual objects before, but never an electronic one. This is definitely Madeleine's Lantern.
I'd actually toyed with LED candle designs before, but always made complicated designs that needed PCBs or specially modified batteries. It took a trickster to show me how simple this sort of thing can be.
For the more adventurous, two other ideas strike me, but I haven't tried either so let me know if you do and you make them work (or not). The first thing is that if you want to make it even smaller, stripping a PP9 rechargeable apart will yield six very small flat cells: indoor electric flight people do this to reduce the weight of their models. The second is that there would be room for a 555-timer circuit to automatically switch the thing off. This has obvious uses in ritual but it's over-complicated for what I need at the moment.
My colleague knows who he is, (as does at least one other reader). Thank you, my friend.
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