The Guttering Hour is a cleansing candle spell for shedding the weight of a difficult year. It is a slow, deliberate rite in which a single black candle stands in your stead, taking your grievances upon its wick and burning them down to a cold grey pool. As the working itself remembers: at the witching hour the day has died and the next is not yet born, and a black candle burns in that no-man’s-land like a small and willing sacrifice. Each burden is named aloud as the flame lowers, until nothing is left to burn and nothing left for you to carry.
Correspondences for This Spell
The traditional cleansing correspondences that tune this working to the waning Moon:
- Colours: white with light blue, for clarity and calm (this rite uses a black candle to absorb; see below)
- Herbs: sage, rosemary, and hyssop
- Crystals: selenite, clear quartz, and black tourmaline
- Day: Monday
- Planet: the Moon
- Element: Water
- Moon phase: the waning moon, which draws power away and clears the slate
For a fuller table of magical associations, see the correspondences guide.
What You Will Need
- One black candle — a taper or slim pillar you can watch burn to the end. Black is chosen here to absorb and carry away what you name, echoing the black tourmaline above.
- A dish of salt (sea or rock) to cast the containing circle on the plate.
- A small bell to call the hour to witness.
- A heatproof plate to hold the salt ring and catch the spent wax.
- A single match, to be struck only once.
- Optional: a sprig of rosemary or dried sage set nearby, and a piece of selenite to steady your intent.
The Best Time to Cast
Cast at midnight — the guttering hour between one day and the next, when the old is spent and the new has not yet begun. For the deepest effect, work on a Monday, the Moon’s own day, while the waning moon hangs in the sky. As the Moon shrinks toward dark it lends its pull to whatever you wish to release, so your burdens fall away on an ebbing tide rather than against a rising one.
The Working
- At midnight, ring a circle of salt upon a plate and stand the black candle at its center.
- Light the wick from a match struck only once.
- Ring the bell thrice to call the hour to witness.
- As the flame settles, name each burden of the year, one by one, into the light.
- Sit with the candle and let it burn without hurry toward its own extinction.
- When the flame at last drowns in its wax, sweep the salt away without touching the cold remains.
- Carry the spent wax and swept salt past your gate and leave them where you need not pass again.
The Incantation
Little flame, burn low and true,
I give this weary year to you.
Take each grief and take each slight,
eat them down and dim your light.
When you gutter, when you’re gone,
I am lightened, I go on.
The spell is sealed when the flame drowns itself in wax, and released when the cold remains are carried beyond your gate at first light.
Variations & Substitutions
- No black candle? A plain white candle will serve, especially if you prefer to picture the work as light clearing shadow rather than dark drinking it down; a light blue candle is a gentle third choice for calm.
- No bell? Three clean taps on the rim of a glass, or three slow claps of the hands, will call the hour to witness just as well.
- Salt you cannot leave outside? Cast the circle on the plate as written, then dissolve the swept salt in running water rather than laying it in the earth.
A Word on Intent
Cleansing is gentle magic, but it is magic still, and the Wiccan Rede holds: an it harm none, do what ye will. Name only your own burdens here — your griefs, your grudges, the year’s small wounds — never another person, and never a curse dressed up as a clearing. This working is meant to lighten you, not to bind or banish anyone else. Cleanse what is yours to cleanse — with consent where another’s life is touched by it — and let the rest go with good will.
Related Cleansing Spells
Found your way here by candlelight? Wander deeper into the Grimoire, or begin your own Book of Shadows to keep the workings that answer you.