Wax Oracle: Midnight Reading

Midnight, a candle, a basin of cold water. Melt the wax, pour it, and read what it becomes.

Wax pouring is one of the oldest winter divinations: on Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve and the nights between the years, families in Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, the Baltics and beyond drip molten wax into water and read the frozen shape. Since lead pouring was banned in the EU, wax is how it is done.

THE POUR
• Choose what you ask about: the year ahead, love, money and work, or a wish. Pick white, red or gold wax.
• Hold the old silver spoon over the flame until the wax softens and runs.
• Tip your phone to pour. How fast you tip, and where you lean, shapes the piece: a slow pour sets into a smooth round, a quick moving one throws arms, loops and runners across the water.
• Watch it hiss and freeze. Lift it out.

THE READING
• Every piece is measured: its roundness, holes, arms, symmetry and length. It is read against a traditional dictionary of 28 symbols: the ring, the ship, the key, the star, the spider, the snake, the heart and more.
• Turn the piece in the candlelight and watch its shadow move on the wall. The shadow has its own meaning.
• The same pour always gives the same piece, so a reading is truly yours.

FEATURES
• Photographed antique brass basin and silver spoon by candlelight, with real-time wax shading: warm translucency, gloss, the glow of hot wax cooling.
• Synthesised sound: winter wind, the candle, wax starting to bubble, the hiss as it hits cold water.
• Haptics as the wax runs and the drops land.
• Readings journal with a picture of every piece.
• Pour by tilting, or with a finger if you prefer.
• Nine languages. No account, no server: everything stays on your phone.
• Three pours a night. A fresh candle (short optional video) gives three more. Ads only on the home and journal screens and before a new pour.

Best on New Year's Eve, with the lights off.

For entertainment purposes.