Arcata’s 35th Annual Lantern Floating Ceremony Is This Saturday at the Arcata Marsh

This is a press release from the City of Arcata:

The 35th annual Arcata Lantern Floating Ceremony will take place on Saturday, August 12, 2017, from 7:30 to 10 p.m. at Klopp Lake in the Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary. Everyone is invited to attend the program and witness the launching of lighted lanterns on the lake.Except for handicap parking, there will be no parking or vehicle access to the Klopp Lake parking lot. Visitors are encouraged to walk, bike or ride a shuttle van from the parking lot at Samoa and I Streets or the Arcata Marsh Interpretive Center parking lot on South G Street. A Friends of the Arcata Marsh guide will lead walkers from the G Street location at 7 p.m. and will guide people back at the conclusion of the ceremony.Lanterns can be made on the day of the ceremony from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on the northwest quadrant of the Arcata Plaza during the Farmers Market.

The City of Arcata’s Nuclear Free Zone Committee began this ceremony 35 years ago to commemorate the U. S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and to affirm our dedication as a community to the cause of peace. In recent years, the meaning of the ceremony has grown to include the original, ancient Japanese custom of floating lanterns to honor the memory of departed loved ones.

Sponsors of the event now also include the GI Rights Hotline, Humboldt Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Humboldt Friends Meeting (Quakers), Humboldt Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Social Action Committee, Veterans For Peace Humboldt Bay Chapter 56, U.S. Servas, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

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Duke Nuke'em
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Duke Nuke'em
6 years ago

Wonder when the anti nuke folks will get a protest from the eco warriors. Carbon releasing trash rafts sinking in the marsh. Sounds pretty green to me. Im bringing my geiger counter.

Duke Nuke'em
Guest
Duke Nuke'em
6 years ago

BTW….. “In loving memory of the victims of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” When was the last time we floated burning trash for the victims of Pearl Harbor or any WW2 casualty? Another example of self loathing American apologists.

Thinking allowed
Guest
Thinking allowed
6 years ago

Why is this not littering and water/air pollution?

Sweet
Guest
Sweet
6 years ago

Uh because people in kayaks collect every one of the lanterns afterwards. This is Arcata, no one would just leave them all there.
Youre really missing the point if thats what you got out of this article.
Its a beautiful ceremony. Paper attached to wood with fire (not real candles these days) inside set out on water with a prayer for those we’ve lost.
How much more elemental can you get?

Thinking allowed
Guest
Thinking allowed
6 years ago
Reply to  Sweet

Because it read in the article as if it was a political commentary. Since my loved one, my father, was a soldier, in the middle of the Pacific on a ship, heading to Japan to be part of the planned invasion, after having survived 2 years in Europe fighting the Germans, my ideas might just be a little different. If my father had died in that invasion, most of my family including myself would not exist. His ship turned around and he came home right after the Japanese surrendered.

But don’t worry. In a very few years those of us who know just how complicated the real world is will have died off, leaving those who always rise up to lecture everyone else on right an open field to offer their simplified revised reality without contradiction. Or at least it won’t be contradicted until it bumps against another reality.

Antichrist
Guest
Antichrist
6 years ago

Dont worry, i am a few gens behind you, history is important to many of my gen. We will not allow it to fade. We also teach our children reguardless of the washed brain washing they are taught in public schools. My kids all learn how to think for themselves and never trust anything that they havent fully researched.

shawn the fisherman
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shawn the fisherman
6 years ago

I read somewhere the Japanese dropped bombs full of Fleas that had some biological diseases on the Chinese in Manchuria.

Antichrist
Guest
Antichrist
6 years ago

Very few realise just how nasty the japanese were during the war. Their medical , chemicial , and bio weapon testing programs rivialed thst of hitlers, only much worst as they would test on villages without telling anyone. They traded their knowlege in exchange for freedom at the end of the war. To this day i fail to understand why people arent outraged by this .

Honeydew Bridge C.H.U.M.P.
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Honeydew Bridge C.H.U.M.P.
6 years ago
Reply to  Antichrist

This is a fascinating video on their paper balloon bombs, in fact they were far more advanced than I thought.

https://youtu.be/dGWvyhYActc

Antichrist
Guest
Antichrist
6 years ago

Look up unit 731, it will blow your mind

hmm
Guest
hmm
6 years ago

I do not see how remembering those killed by nuclear weapons in any way dishonors the American servicemen who died in WWII.

Antichrist
Guest
Antichrist
6 years ago
Reply to  hmm

Well their loss of life did end the war. How many others would have died if it werent for those that the bombs killed ? We can never know , but thankfully it was us dropping on them and not the other way around .

Thinking allowed
Guest
Thinking allowed
6 years ago
Reply to  hmm

It is not the service men who died or even the ones currently alive that are the issue. They carry their own honor. It is those now living who need as full an understanding as possible of how wars are started, conducted and ended in order to understand the meaning of political choices before they lead to war.

It is the simplification and sanitizing of the Japanese actions in what happened during the war that offends. Somehow the US is turned into a evil war monger in these stories because the ugliness of the Japanese war machine is never part of the story. All that is left to mention is The Bomb. Japan tends to like this version. It is the version in the Japanese education system. And more and more, in the American education system too. Those who want to object and have all the information out there are dismissed and disregarded.

War is like disease. You’ll hardly find anyone who speaks in favor of it. Yet both continue to happen. Knowledge can stop it. Not incantations. And certainly not Japanese ceremonies where the beauty of the current tradition neatly buries the ugly reality of the past. When both can be part of remembrance then maybe humans can advance a bit.

So yes, I guess in the end commemorating the victims of atomic bombs without a full discussion does disrespect the value of those who fought, whether they lived or died. Any time their risks and losses are conveniently ignored in pursuit of an agenda, the agenda is useless.

groba dude osnt trustafarian
Guest
groba dude osnt trustafarian
6 years ago

Gotta love those bizarre, quirky, colorful Arcata Hippies… All I have to say is, whatever! Nice to spread some positive vibes in the universe…