I have been meaning to write about this for a long time. These photos are from Julka, and she wrote about it on
elmtwig. I kind wish Julka could take all of the photographs for my blog, because now you can see that she is an amazing photographer (while my photographs are, er, taken with love). Anyway, at the beginning of the summer, Julka, Silvia, Jonas, and I created a makeshift ceremony (maybe to become a ritual) where we released lanterns that had our wishes taped on pieces of paper inside. It was amazing, and intense emotionally. Here is the story (from my point of view)...
It started one day a couple months before that night when I noticed that all of my fellow friends who are Leos (yes, I am dorkily into astrology) had seemed to have a long run of crap life experiences. It was going on for entirely too long. We had all been in the dumps for months. So I felt this crazy urge to make a fire. I gathered the lionesses (yes, also dorky, don't care) and we decided to make a fire at Corona del Mar and write things down that we wanted to get rid of and throw these things in the fire. We drank whiskey and wine, threw our lists in the fire, then jumped over the damn fire for good measure. I felt lighter, happier, and goofier than I had in a long time. While we were there, we saw something beautiful- a group released a red fire lantern, like a mini hot air balloon, and it floated up into the sky. It was captivating, especially in the middle of our "burn up the garbage" party and Julka jumped up to go investigate. She found out what they were and where to get them, and then we immediately hatched a plan to make a part 2 of our ceremony: we would come back, write the things that we really and truly wish for most, put them inside lanterns and send them up into the sky.
So Julka got the lanterns, and we went back to the beach. It was a beautiful evening. Just being by the water felt gorgeous- we sat on the wall by the jetty and watched party boats go in and out and drank whiskey from a flask and drank wine and smoked cigarettes and ate really good chocolate until it got dark. We were by the fire pits- there are a ton of fire pits all crowded together at Corona del Mar. It is kind of weird, because there are circles of people around all of the pits but they are close enough that there is like one big beach party of all these weird unconnected groups. We played a game called spot-the-church-youthgroup (not much of a game, it is too easy). Finally, we decided to release the lanterns. We all shared our wishes with each other, or most of them. It was funny to see how each of us organized and wrote out our wishes.
We started with Julka's lantern.
You have to light this candle thingy and let it burn until the lantern fills up with hot air. The lanterns are much bigger than you would expect, and very delicate. Lighting the lanterns was very delicate work, which was kind of surprising- we were all working together to get the candle lit, hold the lantern up, keep it steady, decide when there was enough hot air to release it...finally, julka let it go, and it kind of dipped way down over the water- I thought it was a goner- then made this parabola back up and off it was! It was amazing. My heart lifted right out of my chest. It was so beautiful, and you could see Julka's wishes taped inside the lantern still floating up. Then other people from the beach, which was packed, saw it, and a bunch of people started to cheer. Everyone was watching the lantern go up. It felt like we had done something beautiful for everyone to watch, which was unexpected and really nice.
Then we did Silvia's. People had come over to watch. There was a teenaged boy who just kind of enrolled himself as our assistant, and started helping us light the next lantern and hold it up. It was an even bigger team effort.
We let Silvia's lantern go too early. I'm telling you, this is seriously tricky stuff here. It went up...
then made this sad but pretty arc down into the water. The crowd literally boo'd en masse. It stayed lit up for a minute, floating on top of the water.
We made a snap decision to have Silvia re-write her wishes and send them up with my wishes in a shared lantern.
Then we lit Jonas' lantern. This one behaved just right: we had this shit DOWN. It filled up with air and Jonas let it go and it sailed up into the sky. There was a group of girls sitting and watching and one of them started asking us about what we were doing, so we came up with some impromptu explanation. She said "oh, are you guys going to write a book about the theme of release? you should." This girl totally smacked of valedictorianism. I like her idea, and it was funny that she came up with this really serious idea when we were doing this kind of goofy thing.
Then the cops came and started shining lights and saying we had to leave the beach. crap! We have to get this last one lit! So we ran around to get it all together. silvia and i taped our wishes inside, and it felt weirdly (nicely) intimate to place our wishes inside the same tissue-paper lantern. We got the candle lit and the lantern was filling up slowly, it felt like it was going to work!
Then the candle suddenly dropped out of the bottom.
oh crap! good thing we had one extra candle. the cops were still shouting through their megaphones though. we decided we couldn't possibly get kicked out in the midst of something that was so obviously adorable- i mean wish lanterns, for chrissake. that could melt even a cop's heart. So we got the candle jiggered up and lit it. Things were really intense by this point- my heart was beating really hard, we were all kind of collectively trying to make this thing work, there are two people's wishes inside, and this is actually a pretty delicate piece of work and under time pressure and megaphone shouting, no less. then, just as the lantern is almost full and the sides are getting nice and round, it happens again- the candle falls out. i couldn't believe it. i just stared at it burning on the ground. julka yells "let it go! there's some air in it!" so silvia and i run to the water edge and let it go, and it just kind of floated out and then settled quietly into the water.
This is when the candle fell and Silvia & I hadn't even noticed it yet.
Then we packed up our stuff to go. We got as far as the parking lot before I started crying. Embarrassing, yes, but true. We stood in a little circle, and everyone tried to make me feel better. It was weird though, I knew I was going to come to peace with the lantern not going up, I knew it was just the way it was meant to be, but there was something about how we had all been working so hard on this one thing, getting the lantern up in the air, and then to have it fall apart, well, it was hard for me. I was also just really wrung out, in a major way. I needed to cry. Then I was OK. I talked to Arden about it a few days later, and she pointed out that we had still released the lantern. Releasing something up into the sky is very masculine. Releasing something into the ocean to be carried on currents and tides and sink down and down into mysterious places and eroded by gentle ocean movements is another way of releasing things that is decidedly feminine, and she thinks my and Silvia's wishes needed to be released that way. When she said that, it made so much sense (have I mentioned that Arden is very wise?), i got tingles in my legs and my back. I still think of the sound of the ocean that particular night, and how the lantern looked floating away on the water.
