Musician, Loi Krathong Festival, Ban Sop Ruak

Musician, Loi Krathong Festival, Ban Sop Ruak

This young musician plays a traditional Thai instrument in a ceremony celebrating the Loi Krathong festival. "Loi" means to float, and "Krathong" describes a receptacle made of banana leaves fastened with bamboo pins to hold flowers, food, candles and incense. The Loi Krathong celebration is held on the full moon day of the 12th lunar month. Thai couples build Krathongs, then symbolically, laden with their wishes and worries, float them down river after sunset.

"Ritual is the way you carry the presence of the sacred. Ritual is the spark that must not go out." -Christina Baldwin-