Floating Light

Floating Lantern, Morikami Park, Delray Beach, FL

Lately I have begun to think a great deal about different customs of honoring or remembering the dead in various cultures.  We were lucky enough this past weekend to attend one such ceremony at Morikami Museum in Delray Beach, Florida. (Okay, some of us weren't quite as lucky as others; they sacrificed their option of exploring the festival by reserving the wonderful photo spot we had staked out early in the evening.) 

It was a lovely event, spoiled only by a sudden thunderstorm at the very moment the lanterns were being released to the lake. Paper lanterns were floated on the lake in honor of the dead. There were messages written on some of them, others were plain. Hundreds of them were being released last night.

The park itself is lovely and made up of different Japanese gardens from different time periods. It is a place I would like to revisit without the accompaniment of the thousands of other tourists who were trying also to enjoy the area.  The photos were plentiful and lovely. I have about 1500 to edit from the weekend, including photos also from the American Orchid Society, and Blowing Rocks in Jupiter, Florida.

The lantern ceremony, as brief as the weather made it, was the most influential on me. It floats in my memory, much as the lanterns themselves. The symbolism, I hope, will remain with me as a spur to research and begin a visual journey down the road of remembrances of those passed on to the next realm.

Stay tuned for occasional and infrequent updates and photos.

Peace,

B