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Question: My question is about the lantern floating on Memorial Day. What happens to those lanterns after they float in the ocean? Do they end up in the rubbish or what?
Answer: No. The lanterns are retrieved from the water, cleaned and stored for future use. The personal remembrances affixed to them are removed and carefully disposed of after being blessed at a temple, a spokeswoman said.
Thousands of Oahu residents and visitors participate in Lantern Floating Hawaii, which is organized annually at Ala Moana Beach Park by the Shinnyo-en Buddhist denomination and its affiliated nonprofit organization, Na Lei Aloha Foundation.
The 18th annual ceremony on Monday distributed about 6,000 lanterns to the public to personalize and set afloat in remembrance of deceased loved ones. Each participant may choose to write notes or poems, draw pictures or tape photographs to the paper sides of the lantern to memorialize departed family members and friends.
After the evening ceremony ends, volunteers spring into action to ensure that the ocean is clear and that the remembrances are treated properly, said Charlene Ide Flanter of the Na Lei Aloha Foundation, who explained the process to Kokua Line.
“The lantern retrieval team combed the beach the night of the ceremony and the following morning to ensure that nothing was left behind in the waters off Ala Moana Beach,” she said.
“For the remembrances, we work with our volunteers so they understand the careful handling of the remembrances. Each is carefully removed from the lanterns that night and transported back to the temple, where they receive a blessing for the people being remembered, as well as those who wrote the remembrance. Following the blessings, the physical paper is then shredded for privacy and then disposed of.”
The need to prevent lanterns from floating out to sea is one reason participants are discouraged from bringing their own lanterns to the ceremony. “Our lanterns are tested for flammability in all weather conditions and are designed in conjunction with special lines strung across the water to ensure they will not float out to sea,” notes the event’s website, which says that every effort is made to retrieve every lantern from the water.
The website also says that “remembrances and prayers are removed and handled in a proper and spiritually respectful way.”
Auwe
Late Tuesday afternoon I saw a black pickup parked in the first handicap space fronting a drugstore. The problem was there were two dogs left in the front seat, and smoke was filling the cab. So two strikes: leaving a cigarette burning with their two dogs in the cab. How sad. — R.T.
Mahalo
On May 25 at Kahala Mall, I stumbled on the carpet and crashed head-first/left-shoulder onto the floor. A very gracious and concerned lady (an “angel”) came to my aid and stayed with me while I sat bewildered and somewhat stunned on the floor for nearly three minutes. She helped me back on my feet, continuing to be by my side a few more minutes until assuring that I was able to help myself. … I failed to get her name. … Via Kokua Line, I would like to express to her my great respect, high esteem, appreciation and gratitude for being such a wonderfully caring person! — Thank you, MHS
Write to “Kokua Line” at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu 96813; call 529-4773; fax 529-4750; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.
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