It is Friday the 19th of November, two nights shy of yet another year’s 12th full moon. According to my watch the time is 10 of 8 in the pm. More important, though, than the time, is my actual location in space-time at this very special moment. I’ve found myself among the merry multitudes whov’e traveled far and wide to the storied city of Chiang Mai, Thailand. It is a gloriously warm evening [1] on what happens to be the opening night of Thailands most widely celebrated festival, Loy Krathong, known to the West as The Festival of Lights.
In Chiang Mai the highlight[2] are the thousands of Khom Fai, or ‘sky-lanterns’, meter high candle-lit paper cylinders which are continuously made aloft to fill the vastness of the night like a kaleidoscope of red planets. Indeed they are planets, for each and every sattelite embodies the repentance’s, hopes and wishes, and the forgiven sins of the past year. All across the city families and friends gather to air their grievances in a most literal sense.
As I sit at my table at Daret’s Guest House my gaze rises from my heavily sweating bottle of Chang (half full) and crosses a busy street past the blur of tuk tuks, old vw’s and scooters ferrying entire families to fall on a small crowd which has gathered near the bank of the Old City moat. They are watching a man light his lantern and gently hold it out over the moat balanced, just barely, on outstretched hands. The flame is brilliant and surprisingly fiery- more like a fledgling inferno than a mere “candle”. He is lifting it in tiny, cautious tosses, like a new parent their toddler, testing its readiness of flight. Besides saying his prayers he must also gauge whether the flame is hot enough to take it quickly aloft above the reach of tree tops and temple spires.
The crowd waits as if frozen in time. He tosses it now just a bit higher and a flurry of cameras shutters crackle like sparklers, a collective nervous tic. At last he releases it, sending it up high beyond his grasp, his arms outstretched as if in rapture. The flicker of orange firelight washes over his whole body. But alas, something is wrong; the lantern reaches its zenith a mere five meters above the moat and the crowd gasps in horror as it makes a slowmotion descent into the dark water. There it pauses once more as though in a final mocking salute, sputters and sinks out of sight.
The poor[3] man is now on his knees. Silently he stares at where his hopes for the next year have just disappeared. This is an unexpected turn of events, and clearly not a good sign. No one has dared approach him, and the crowd quietly, awkwardly drifts away. I too am shocked, and wonder what thoughts, if any, he could be thinking now. I think, all of a sudden about my future, what will happen to me this next year, and all that has happened just this last year. Not just where I’ve been and what I’ve done but how my attitudes, interests, and even my spiritual beliefs have changed. I realize that no matter how many lanterns we light or how many stars we wish on, ours is a future filled with a cosmic mixture of all our past decisions, and of our parents before us, and the constant implication of circumstance on the course of all our lives.
The man is totally alone now, though people and traffic still rush past all around him. He has risen to his feet now but has not moved from the very spot where he launched his sky-lantern. But now his gaze is turned skyward and I can tell he has left his grief and has joined the rest of us now, to watch in wonder all the other beacons which have begun to fill the sky. For his dreams, he must realize, are all our dreams, his losses we pine for too, and his joy’s we share in shouts triumphant the whole world over. As massive fireworks begin to explode around us and the shockwaves ripple through hearts and minds alike, I take off my glasses and set down my pen, as all lights blur into one.
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