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| Loy Krathong - Thailand's water festival. |
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| The River Jordan |
November 25 was the annual Loy Krathong festival this week in Thailand. My understanding is that it coincides with the first full moon after rainy season which means late November. Rainy season is the time for growing rice, an essential to life here. Loy Krathong is then the festival for giving thanks for the rice crop and all blessings of life in the past year, while also asking for continued blessings and the banishing of any bad luck. Luck is an important concept here, or that is how I experience it.
This festival is just wonderful. I love it as does everyone in Thailand. It is celebrated by going to the water - a river, a canal, a lake - and setting free your krathong which is a float full of symbols of yourself. These symbols are a strand of your hair, a fingernail and one baht. The krathong becomes like a floating altar that symbolises you and you send it off into the water praying that all good things come your way and givng thanks for all past blessings. It is a life giving celebration centred on water. It is an annual highlight of life that sees crowds flocking to waterways to float their krathong and enjoy the festival with all its charm, song and grace.
In the Holy Land, one of the 'must do' sites is to visit the River Jordan. When going there, what I saw was a muddy river that was more like a creek. Yet this river gives life to the land and was central in the life and story of Jesus as here he was baptized by John the baptist. When going there, an optional activity was to bathe in the river. I forewent the pleasure but there were ones very keen to dive in for reasons that spoke not of a muddy creek but of giving life and energy to oneself. The experience was a spiritual one, full of meaning.
Water does give life and not just by drinking it as we do every day. Its symbolism is universal. Its power to give life, physical and spiritual, cannot be denied.
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