https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=ivjmVT33wF4
Norm Grandin says, can you speak up to the symbolism of Advent wreath and candles? Also any recommendations of things to do, not to do during the Advent season? I think the symbolism of candles, let’s say, are pretty much always the same, just depending on the circumstance. They usually have to do with focusing in terms of, you focus something, you focus your intention on a candle, you light the candle, and then that flame going up is carrying your intentions up to heaven. I mean, obviously, it’s a symbolic gesture. So you focus your attention, you light the candle, and then that candle, that flicker becomes a spark, becomes that spark of your intention, which is now being carried up in a prayer. All right? And so that’s usually what candles in the religious sense have to do, but they can also be related to memory. And it’s very close, like it’s very close in the sense that we light a candle to remember the dead, and I think that we light a candle also to remember in the time of Advent. If you see the wreath and the candle together, you can kind of understand what it’s about in the sense that it also has to do with this darkening. You know, I talk about this all the time in my videos about the idea that from, you know, as we move towards Christmas, we’re moving towards the solstice, we’re moving towards the shortest days, and so lighting candles in that time has to do with a kind of preserving of memory, preserving of the memory of light, and a preserving of, it’s almost like a preserving of hope, you could say, something like that. So lighting a candle can also be a sign of hope. Hope, like hope and memory are related. It’s weird for people to think that, but hope and memory are related in the sense that it’s like keeping today that which was in the past or that which will come in the future. It’s like you’re keeping it today. You’re mindful of it now. And so that, I think, is what lighting candles are. And so the candle and the wreath, so the wreath seems to have to do with the idea of something green in a time where everything’s dying, like to have something green to remember as you’re moving towards the solstice, as you’re moving towards death, you’re preparing the notion of this light that’s going to be, it’s going to come in the darkness, that this new light which is going to appear at Christmas, all of these images seem to be related to each other. I’m sure the wreath has a lot of other connotations that I’m missing now and that if I thought about it, they would probably come to me. And so what to do, not to do during Advent. I think you have to follow the tradition of your church. Different people do different things. In the Orthodox Church, there’s actually a fast during Advent, which is not as strict and is not as practiced. I find the Advent fast very difficult to follow just because all my family is in Orthodox and then people start having holiday season way before the 24th. They start having parties and you’re invited and so you engage with people more than, it’s more important to engage with people rather than fasting. I find the fast, Advent fast, very difficult. Lent is easier for me at least. But yeah, people fast. And it’s difficult. Even for me, I can see in my family, I’ve been trying with my kids to remind them that preparing for the Christmas season, Advent is like a time of, it’s not a time of celebration yet. It’s a time of meditative calling, of preparing yourself for the celebration. But everything is all mixed up now. So it’s just Christmas, like right away. It’s all Christmas because we’re all decorating and getting ready. So it’s tough. It’s tough to have actual Advent practices.