Memorial Day Lantern Lighting Celebration

Join Us for a Memorial celebration to honor our ancestors before us with a lantern lighting celebration and ancestorial offering. This tradition is celebrating annually in Hawaii to honor loved ones who have passed on and to bring hope and manifest intentions for the future. With the pandemic they will not be doing the celebration in person, so we wanted to do one of our own and share it with you virtually for us to all take a moment of remembrance.

We will be making a floating lantern and doing a short ritual and offering for the ancestors to honor and remember them and all the blessings and sacrifices they made for us.

To make your own lantern:

Supplies needed:

1- 4"x4" corkboard square

4- popcicle sticks or small wood dowls 

kite paper or vellum paper

permanent marker

Hot glue gun and glue

Waterproof votive or tea light (can use a regular tea light candle just be mindful of the hazards of real fire as supplies are not fire proof)

We will not be leaving our lantern floating in the ocean or water, so be mindful if you are going to that you use biodegradable items and reef safe alternative supplies, but we recommend just retrieving your lantern after you have completed your ritual or offering for future use.

Instructions:

1.) Use a craft knife to cut down your wood dowls or popcicle sticks to a height of 4-5" inches.

2.) Use the craft knife to make a small hole or slit in the corkboard that you can stick your popcicle sticks or wood dowl into making a square structure. To make structure sturdier use a small amount of glue on the end of the sticks before placing in the cut holes. 

3.) Cut and measure kite paper or vellum paper to fit between the wood sticks as a wall of the square structure ensuring to make the vellum paper height as tall as the wood dowls at least the 4"-5". 

4.) If you want to write prayers or offerings, intentions or gratitudes for those ancestors you are honoring then do this now using the permanent marker on the kite paper or vellum first before secureing in place as it is harder to do after you have glued the paper to the dowls. 

5.) Put glue on the edges of the wood dowls to secure the paper in place. Continue on all edges of the square structure making all four walls. You can also add a long line of glue up the seams of the corners of the square lantern to reinforce the edges. 

6.) Place your waterproof votive or tea light in the center of the lantern on the corkboard and your lantern is complete.