🎐🎐When The World Turns On A Light🎐🎐

[JamiPozcord]

Something very true is that no matter how different the cultures are, almost everyone ends up doing the same thing. People get together, light something, sing, dance, remember someone, give thanks, make a wish or simply celebrate that they have reached that day.
A festival is not just a party. Many times it is the way a town found to turn its history into a tradition. Some were born from old harvests, others from religious beliefs, changes of season, historical events or legends that were passed from one generation to another. Although many things have changed over the centuries, the essence remains: bringing people together around something that has meaning.

But among all of them there is one that I have always found especially beautiful: the Chinese Lantern Festival, originally known as Yuan Xiao Jie (元宵节).

His name has some poetry. Yuan is related to the first lunar month and xiao to the night. That's why Yuan Xiao refers to the night of the first full moon of the year. It is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month of the lunar calendar and traditionally marks the close of the Chinese New Year celebrations.
Here begins a story that I find fascinating.
The night when the darkness was filled with lights.
There is no single explanation for who invented the Lantern Festival. Its roots go back more than two thousand years and there are different stories about its origin.
One of the best-known traditions relates to Emperor Ming of the Eastern Han dynasty. According to tradition, the emperor learned that Buddhist monks lit lamps on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month to honor the Buddha. Then he ordered the imperial palace and the temples to be illuminated that night.
What began as a practice associated with the court and temples ended up spreading among the population. With the Sui and Tang dynasties, lantern celebrations became increasingly larger, and during the Song Dynasty the famous written riddles about lanterns also appeared. Thus, a night that began illuminating temples ended up illuminating entire cities.
I imagine those old streets covered in red, gold and yellow. Families walking together, children looking at the huge paper figures, people trying to solve puzzles and vendors offering yuanxiao or tangyuan, those small glutinous rice balls that are also related to family reunion and harmony. It was as if for one night no one wanted the darkness to have the last word.
But there is a light that learned to fly.
This is where we often mix two different traditions.
Yuan Xiao Jie is the Chinese Lantern Festival, dominated by decorative lanterns, parades, family gatherings and riddles.
But the famous paper lanterns that we see slowly rising into the sky are especially associated with Kongming lanterns, called Kongming deng (孔明灯), and regional celebrations such as the famous Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival in Taiwan.

Tradition attributes Kongming lanterns to the strategist Zhuge Liang, whose courtesy name was Kongming, during the Three Kingdoms period. According to legend, they were initially used to send signals. The story also tells that Zhuge Liang would have used the wind and these small lanterns to call for help when he was surrounded by his enemies. We don't know how much is history and how much is legend, but perhaps that is precisely the beauty.
Because legends don't need to prove every detail to survive. They just need someone to remember them.
And what does it mean to throw a lantern into the sky?
For me, this is the most beautiful part.
A flashlight of this type works by hot air: a small heat source heats the air inside the paper structure and causes it to rise. It is traditionally constructed of paper and a light frame.
But when a person writes a wish on it and lets it rise, it stops being just paper, fire and air.
It becomes a message.
In Pingxi, Taiwan, for example, there is an ancient tradition involving lanterns that served as signals to communicate that it was safe to return to the villages after hiding in the mountains. As time went by, that sign became a celebration and the lanterns began to represent peace, good fortune and wishes.
That's why I like to think that when someone holds a flashlight in their hands and lets it escape, they're not just releasing a light.
You are letting go of something you want to leave behind. A wish that perhaps he would never dare to say out loud.
Today I want to celebrate that we are here.
Because after so many centuries, we continue doing the same thing our ancestors did: we look for a way to illuminate the night. Maybe because light has always represented something bigger than itself. Maybe that's the real reason why festivals never go away. Because generations change, cities change and the world changes, but we continue to need exactly the same thing: a reason to get together, a story to tell and a small light that reminds us that even after the night there is always something capable of illuminating it.