Paper Lanterns

I started thinking about luminaria this week.

First, it’s a beautiful word.

Luminaria.

So graceful. Poetic, and full of vowels. It comes from classical Latin luminare—meaning “window,” and from lumen, meaning “light.”

These paper lanterns are also stunning—lit from within.

I started thinking about them this week because I saw someone had described themselves as a luminary on their website. I thought, how lovely! To be a lamplighter, moving through life illuminating that which needs to be seen.
Luminarias originated in the 16th century, as part of the last days of prayer of Las Posadas. Travelers in Mexico were guided by the light of small piles, criss-crossed piñon branches that stacked about three feet high. Luminarias were known to light the way for the Christ child, creating a welcoming path for Him to join the world.

My mother taught our Girl Scout troop how to make luminarias—in the form of tin can lanterns. We would take large tomato or coffee cans and soak off the labels, scrubbing them until they were shiny. I learned fast that the best cans are smooth—not ridged or bumpy. We would fill the cans with water and freeze it to ice.

Then, we would draw intricate patterns on thin sheets of paper, tape it to the cans, and then pound nails into the can along the pattern marks to create tiny holes.

Ice was critical because otherwise the can could crush or dent when we tried to pierce it. And adult supervision, of course.

When finished, we would drop a small tea light inside each can and light them. During Thursday overnights at day camp, we lined the pond at Camp Anne Jackson. Or we put them on our back porch or in our back yards. Once it was dark, we would light the lanterns, and then stand back and admire.

“Ahh,” we would say.

So delicate. Yet so durable, and lovely.

Og Mandino, one of my favorite parable writers, once said, “I will love the light for it shows me the way. Yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.”

We needed darkness to see the luminarias' stars. And the cans needed holes to create their second life—and those holes were needed to let the light out.

The holes or lines were the negative space where the light shines through.

What are the holes in your life that have led to your light shining?

What is the negative space in your life right now?

My son and I were talking about writing this week, and I shared that writers say We write from our scars, not from our wounds.

This made me think of luminarias—the creativity is not so much in the drawing of a pretty pattern for the paper lantern. It’s not in the satisfying pounding of nails in the side of a frozen tin can. It’s not even the feeling of brushing fingertips against the sharp edges of those tiny holes.

The joy comes when you allow the ice to melt inside. Only then can you allow the light to come out.