U.S. Memorial Day Means Different Strokes for Different Folks

ALA MOANA BEACH PARK FLOATING LANTERN CEREMONY

Shinnyo Lantern Floating Hawaii returns to Ala Moana Beach as an in-person ceremony for the first time since 2019.

Every year up to 40,000 Hawaiians and tourists gather at Ala Moana Beach Park in Oahu, to participate in Memorial Day Buddhist Shinnyo Lantern Floating. The first Shinnyo-en lantern festival held outside Japan was held 1999. This year’s ceremony will be the first hands-on float since the pandemic and preparations have been made to cater for an international group of personal ‘floaters’ bringing their own candles, writing messages and immersing themselves deeply in Oahu waters in the process.

Its goal is to commemorate loved ones and create hope for the future.

The floating lantern festival is accompanied by Japanese and Hawaiian music. This beautiful tradition can be watched from a distance or participated in individually by floating personal lanterns. Those who have attended this event describe it as a powerful and enl​igh​tening experience.

The specially crafted floating lanterns-inscribed by hand with prayers and personal messages on special paper affixed to each-are, after a beautiful ceremony of symbolic remembrance, launched lovingly into the waters as a touching show of personal dedication.

Ala Moana Beach Park Lantern Floating Ceremony Memorial Day Event

The ceremony always starts with the sounding of the Pū or Hawai’ian conch shell. This is a traditional signal for Hawai’ian people to gather their community together. It is an announcement that says an important ceremony is about to begin.

25th Annual Shinnyo Lantern Floating Ceremony will be held Ala Moana Beach, Oahu, HI between 6:30p.m.-7:30p.m. Hawai’i time

All reservations have been completed but individuals may submit using the Shinnyo Lantern Floating app for iPhone or Android.

iMac Apple OS & Android info

25th Annual Shinnyo Lantern Floating Ceremony will be held Ala Moana Beach, Oahu, HI between 6:30p.m.-7:30p.m.on Memorial Day 05/29/23 and individuals with reservations may pick up their lantern between 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Memorial Day, 05/29/23 at the Lantern Pickup Tent located at the fixed concession stand from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Hawai’i Summer Time.

The ceremony begins at 6:30p.m and ends 7:30p.m. HST.

All reserved lanterns will remain available through 5 p.m. on 5/29 at the Beach, regardless of which pickup date appears on proof of reservation.

Individuals may write personal remembrances to be placed in Collective Remembrance Lanterns that will be floated from canoes during the ceremony. The Collective Remembrance Tent will be open between 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Monday, May 29th, 2023.

Meanwhile—Across Another Ocean—Whitsun Bank Holiday

Aberdeen University’s 15thC Marischal College, left. currently combines architect Archibald Simpson’s Mitchell Tower [Univ.ABD historical collections] w/ Old Aberdeen’s granite-faced University campus

Below volunteer parents Lady Kintore, P. Ingleby & J. Pidcock assisting pupils Blaimore prep school Huntly, ABD; while Princess Anne/Princess Royal was chair Board of Governors Gordonstoun School for 30yrs.

Prince &Princess & of Wales [Wm & Catherine met at St.Andrew’s University below rt.

In the Church of England Calendar, the Whitsun holiday, or Monday after Pentecost was long held as a time when English schools had half term. Now Scotland, England & Wales celebrate last Monday in May as ‘Spring bank Holiday’, with some private aka ‘public’/boarding schools using the holiday as their half-term break. Pentecost connection is now merely a religious calculation.

Scotland’s private schools, like Gordonstoun in Moray; Cargilfield and Fettes [Edinburgh] and Ardvreck, Perthshire prepare both junior & senior children for British Universities including Aberdeen, St.Andrew’s, Edinburgh, Oxford & Cambridge. Their calendars tend to synch, therefore, with University term-times.

All of them use the Whitsun/Pentecost date as a Spring Holiday.

Vietnam Vets Applauded for Perseverance on Foreign Soil

Some WWII veterans have a [shaky] hold on the 21st Century, but the real heroes on U.S. soil, imho, are those airmen, sailors, army vets and [under-cover] Intelligence officers who penetrated behind enemy lines to assist their fellows in the field.

My first husband [Wm.M.Youngblood] was one of these latter—always on call, always ready to serve—as he did for all those years the U.S. maintained a military presence in the Western Pacific. While I loved him dearly—still do—I was new at the wifely game; quickly discovering basic flaws in U.S. Army quarters on the Tex-Mex border—no wonder current POTUS has difficulty maintaining a presence there! No joke.

I enjoyed being able to tag along on at least two other postings in U.S. [Baltimore, MD & San Francisco, CA]. But his enthusiasm for a job where little could be shared [Official Secrets Act] plus his decision after a second term on Vietnamese soil to return for a third was enough to dash my dreams of togetherness. We agreed to go our separate ways without malice and by the looks of his subsequent voyaging, it was just as well, as I turned out to be the first of four wives who filled a gap in his life. Thankfully the fourth also gave him a daughter! According to recent reports they all hang out in a nice estate in soCal—with all bills paid for by the U.S. Government.

So much for attempts by the poverty group, the homeless and unwanted camper-van resident crowd to share a little of American “bounty”. It goes first & foremost to the Military either in weaponry, in support of other ‘poor’ countries’ weaponry [yes, Ukraine] or, in this case—deservedly—to their own vets.

Capital Consciousness—Chicago/MidWest—Blinkered Attitude Sees No Other

POTUS is not alone in a D.C-conquers-all mentality. The rash of ‘most-important citizen’ spreads at least as far as Springfield, Ill. the capital of great citizens of times past: above from l. Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the U.S 1861-1865; 2, 1866 15c stamp President Lincoln; 3.1920 Lincoln’s 2nd inaugural address Springfield Ill. capital building where his statue remains to this day & 4. Springfield Ill’s “second-most-important son” ‘troubadour vocal poet/bard who “sang” his poems -aka ‘The Congo’, below.

Choral Balladeer Sang his Poetry to a Slavery-Conscious Population

Often decked out in exaggerated costumery with exaggerated blackening on his face, Nicholas Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931) sang his most famous ballad The Congo (A Study of the Negro Race) to white audiences unconscious of the damage done by its imagery to Chicago/DC/Maryland black audiences only recently freed from slavery themselves.

He was the son of a doctor who left his own medical studies to join Chicago School of Art, thus earning the rejection of both parents, themselves well-to-do citizens. He died by suicide attempt shortly after his 50th birthday following a series of bouts of depression.

While his troubadour technique was unprecedented in his time, this greatest of his masterpieces written 1913, has been adopted by friendly African-Americans AND by friendly African residents in the Democratic Republic of the Congo! Stage Direction/Sound Effects by Lindsay.

The Congo (A Study of the Negro Race) Lyrics

I. THEIR BASIC SAVAGERY

FAT black bucks in a wine-barrel room,
Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,
Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,

A deep rolling bass.

Pounded on the table,
Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,
Hard as they were able,
Boom, boom, BOOM,
With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.

THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision

THEN I SAW THE CONGO CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK

more deliberate solemn chanting

CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK

Then along that riverbank
A thousand miles
Tattooed cannibals danced in files;
Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song
And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong.

rapidly piling climax of speed & racket

And “BLOOD” screamed the whistles and the fifes of the warriors,
“BLOOD” screamed the skull-faced, lean witch-doctors,
“Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle,
Harry the uplands,
Steal all the cattle,
Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle,
Bing!
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM,”
A roaring, epic, rag-time tune

with a philosophic pause

From the mouth of the Congo
To the Mountains of the Moon.
Death is an Elephant,
Torch-eyed and horrible,

Shrilly and with a heavily accented meter

Foam-flanked and terrible.
BOOM, steal the pygmies,
BOOM, kill the Arabs,
BOOM, kill the white men,

Like wind in the chimney

HOO, HOO, HOO.
Listen to the yell of Leopold’s ghost
Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host.
Hear how the demons chuckle and yell
Cutting his hands off, down in Hell.
Listen to the creepy proclamation,
Blown through the lairs of the forest-nation,
Blown past the white-ants’ hill of clay,
Blown past the marsh where the butterflies play:
“Be careful what you do,
Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo,

All the o sounds very golden. Heavy accents very heavy. Light accents very light. Last line whispered

And all of the other
Gods of the Congo,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.”

II. THEIR IRREPRESSIBLE HIGH SPIRITS

Wild crap-shooters with a whoop and a call

Rather shrill and high

Danced the juba in their gambling-hall
And laughed fit to kill, and shook the town,
And guyed the policemen and laughed them down
With a boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM….
THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,

Read as in first section

CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK.
A negro fairyland swung into view,

Lay emphasis on the delicate ideas-keep as light-footed as possible

A minstrel river
Where dreams come true.
The ebony palace soared on high
Through the blossoming trees to the evening sky.
The inlaid porches and casements shone
With gold and ivory and elephant-bone.
And the black crowd laughed till their sides were sore
At the baboon butler in the agate door,
And the well-known tunes of the parrot band
That trilled on the bushes of that magic land.
A troupe of skull-faced witch-men came

With pomposity; rather shrill and high.

Danced the juba in their gambling-hall
And laughed fit to kill, and shook the town,
And guyed the policemen and laughed them down
With a boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM….
THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,

Read exactly as in first section.

CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK.
A negro fairyland swung into view,

Lay emphasis on the delicate ideas. Keep as light-footed as possible.

A minstrel river
Where dreams come true.
The ebony palace soared on high
Through the blossoming trees to the evening sky.
The inlaid porches and casements shone
With gold and ivory and elephant-bone.
And the black crowd laughed till their sides were sore
At the baboon butler in the agate door,
And the well-known tunes of the parrot band
That trilled on the bushes of that magic land.
A troupe of skull-faced witch-men came

With pomposity.

Through the agate doorway in suits of flame,
Yea, long-tailed coats with a gold-leaf crust
And hats that were covered with diamond-dust.
And the crowd in the court gave a whoop and a call
And danced the juba from wall to wall.
But the witch-men suddenly stilled the throng

With a great deliberation and ghostliness.

With a stern cold glare, and a stern old song:—
“Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.”…
Just then from the doorway, as fat as shotes,

With overwhelming assurance, good cheer, and pomp

Came the cake-walk princes in their long red coats,
Shoes with a patent leather shine,
And tall silk hats that were red as wine.

And they pranced with their butterfly partners there,

With growing speed and sharply marked dance-rhythm.

Coal-black maidens with pearls in their hair,
Knee-skirts trimmed with the jessamine sweet,
And bells on their ankles and little black feet.
And the couples railed at the chant and the frown
Of the witch-men lean, and laughed them down.
(O rare was the revel, and well worth while
That made those glowering witch-men smile.)

The cake-walk royalty then began
To walk for a cake that was tall as a man
To the tune of “Boomlay, boomlay, BOOM,”
While the witch-men laughed, with a sinister air,

With a touch of negro dialect, and as rapidly as possible toward the end.

And sang with the scalawags prancing there:—
Walk with care, walk with care,
Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo,
And all of the other
Gods of the Congo,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.
Beware, beware, walk with care,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom.
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay,
BOOM.”
Oh rare was the revel, and well worth while

Slow philosophic calm.

That made those glowering witch-men smile.

Rather shrill and high.

Danced the juba in their gambling-hall
And laughed fit to kill, and shook the town,
And guyed the policemen and laughed them down
With a boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM….
THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,

Read exactly as in first section.

CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK.
A negro fairyland swung into view,

Lay emphasis on the delicate ideas. Keep as light-footed as possible.

A minstrel river
Where dreams come true.
The ebony palace soared on high
Through the blossoming trees to the evening sky.
The inlaid porches and casements shone
With gold and ivory and elephant-bone.
And the black crowd laughed till their sides were sore
At the baboon butler in the agate door,
And the well-known tunes of the parrot band
That trilled on the bushes of that magic land.
A troupe of skull-faced witch-men came

With pomposity.

Through the agate doorway in suits of flame,
Yea, long-tailed coats with a gold-leaf crust
And hats that were covered with diamond-dust.
And the crowd in the court gave a whoop and a call
And danced the juba from wall to wall.
But the witch-men suddenly stilled the throng

With a great deliberation and ghostliness.

With a stern cold glare, and a stern old song:—
“Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.”…
Just then from the doorway, as fat as shotes,

With overwhelming assurance, good cheer, and pomp.

Came the cake-walk princes in their long red coats,
Shoes with a patent leather shine,
And tall silk hats that were red as wine.
And they pranced with their butterfly partners there,

With growing speed and sharply marked dance-rhythm.

Coal-black maidens with pearls in their hair,
Knee-skirts trimmed with the jessamine sweet,
And bells on their ankles and little black feet.
And the couples railed at the chant and the frown
Of the witch-men lean, and laughed them down.
(O rare was the revel, and well worth while
That made those glowering witch-men smile.)

The cake-walk royalty then began
To walk for a cake that was tall as a man
To the tune of “Boomlay, boomlay, BOOM,”
While the witch-men laughed, with a sinister air,

With a touch of negro dialect, and as rapidly as possible toward the end.

And sang with the scalawags prancing there:—
Walk with care, walk with care,
Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo,
And all of the other
Gods of the Congo,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.
Beware, beware, walk with care,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom.
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay,
BOOM.”
Oh rare was the revel, and well worth while

Slow philosophic calm.

That made those glowering witch-men smile.

III. THE HOPE OF THEIR RELIGION

A good old negro in the slums of the town

Heavy bass. With a literal imitation of camp-meeting racket, and trance.

Preached at a sister for her velvet gown.
Howled at a brother for his low-down ways,
His prowling, guzzling, sneak-thief days.
Beat on the Bible till he wore it out,
Starting the jubilee revival shout.
And some had visions, as they stood on chairs,
And sang of Jacob, and the golden stairs.
And they all repented, a thousand strong,
From their stupor and savagery and sin and wrong
And slammed their hymn books till they shook the room
With “Glory, glory, glory,”
And “Boom, boom, BOOM.”
THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,

Exactly as in the first section.

CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK.
And the gray sky opened like a new-rent veil
And showed the apostles with their coats of mail.
In bright white steel they were seated round
And their fire-eyes watched where the Congo wound.
And the twelve apostles, from their thrones on high,
Thrilled all the forest with their heavenly cry:—
“Mumbo-Jumbo will die in the jungle.

Pic left. satellite image 2001 Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Africa

Sung to the tune of “Hark, ten thousand harps and voices.”

Never again will he hoo-doo you,
Never again will he hoo-doo you.”

Then along that river, a thousand miles,

With growing deliberation and joy.

The vine-snared trees fell down in files.
Pioneer angels cleared the way
For a Congo paradise, for babes at play,
For sacred capitals, for temples clean.
Gone were the skull-faced witch-men lean.
There, where the wild ghost-gods had wailed

In a rather high key—as delicately as possible.

A million boats of the angels sailed
With oars of silver, and prows of blue
And silken pennants that the sun shone through.
‘Twas a land transfigured, ’twas a new creation.
Oh, a singing wind swept the negro nation;
And on through the backwoods clearing flew:—
“Mumbo-Jumbo is dead in the jungle.

To the tune of “Hark, ten thousand harps and voices.”

Never again will he hoo-doo you.
Never again will he hoo-doo you.”

Redeemed were the forests, the beasts and the men,
And only the vulture dared again
By the far, lone mountains of the moon
To cry, in the silence, the Congo tune:—
“Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.

Dying off into a penetrating, terrified whisper.

Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,
Mumbo … Jumbo … will … hoo-doo … you.” Vachel Lindsay, 1913

From Illinois’ Second-Most-Important Son to 21stC Cross-Culture Beacon

Writers are traditionally most tolerant of all species. It is said if you can lay down your arms to put pen to paper—or fingertap the keyboard to get a message across, your voice of calm will affect others striving to overcome prejudice. Past enflamed rhetoric has no place this new world of peace & love. Because sharing joy and spreading gratitude has a daunting effect on the Universal Mind—our Human Selves on a Higher Plain. Let us begin with a forgiving glance at Lindsay’s direction.

Just like Bad Robot & New Age fantasy masques cover current multi-color skin tones with white paint to fake pretend ‘ghostly’ figures, Lindsay faked with black paint to illustrate his Golden Track through the Black [Jungle] of a river he never visited.

We need patience, but our souls are capable of following the Hawai’ian example of spreading love & joy & tolerance in our community by forgiving/understanding ancestral differences. Laughter IS the best medicine. ©May2023 MarianCYoungblood