Saturday, March 15, 2014

Visit New Harmony!

We had a lovely ceremony tonight in New Harmony, launching 200 of these lantern/teeny hot air balloon thingies to celebrate the launch of visitnewharmony.com. The lanterns were particularly beautiful and magical after the sun went down. Children squealed, strong men fainted (well, OK...children squealed...a lot). Lots of oohing and ahhing all around.

Light is such a powerful symbol, it’s odd looking at these pictures of people concentrating so intensely on these things as they hold them gently before letting them float away on the slight wind, like they’re holding something that belongs to a another, more magical world.

The children seemed so excited for the little floating critters to escape, as if they’d both won some small victory, running along after them for a while and hooting with joy. I think the lanterns are symbolic of good wishes—for us, and for others—sent out into the world. We can only hope that someone’s property isn’t currently ablaze across the river in southern Illinois, where they were all headed;)