Loy Krathong 2018: Wash~it Away

The highlight of this retreat, one of the original reasons I chose to attend and a day that I will never forget was Loy Krathong. We spent the day of the festival and overnight at Wat Tamai. This video gives a wonderful explanation of the festival, illustrates a bit of the temple and it was by pure coincidence/synchronicity that we got to be featured in it (you can ask me about that story when you’re asking for my autograph 😝)

Wat Tamai is a temple in Krathum Baen and is about a 2 hour drive from Vimok. The abbott of Wat Tamai (who is one of the youngest, highest ranking monks in Thailand and is about my age!) basically built Wat Tamai up from nothing. I’m not 100% sure of the connection with Vimok, but I know he is also in charge of this temple which is how we ended up spending time at both. Our Thai organizer for the retreat (Gait) works quite closely with the abbott. She is so down to earth and humble that it wasn’t until we got to Wat Tamai that we realized how highly ranked she is at these temples. Our first clue was this . . . . . hi Gait!! 👋🏽Gait appears to be respected and trusted which is how we were basically given VIP treatment while we were there. The experiences we had at the temple and the access we had to some of these things as foreigners would not have been possible without her.

The first thing we did upon our arrival (after dropping our stuff at our accommodation for the night) was choose our krathong.Loy Krathong is about the river, but it’s also about the moon. So, we had to wait until the sun set before partaking in any of the main events. That gave us time to wander around the temple compound (which is quite big) and check out some of the activities that were going on.

Around Wat Tamai: *** this statue is made with jade from Canada!Loy Krathong is about the river, so that is where the main events happened. First, we asked for forgiveness for our sins over the past year (the water will wash it away), made a wish and set our krathong free into the river.Then we celebrated with some dinner.Finally, we partook in the ceremony. I don’t really have many pictures from this part (and honestly some of the best pictures are the ones that live solely in your mind), but here’s a video that was captured by the temple photographer of the beginning of the ceremony.

Again, thanks to Gait we got seats directly up front. I can not even begin to explain how powerful it was to be sitting in front of monks feeling the vibration of their chanting. The chanting went on for what seemed like forever (and I mean that in a good way . . .  I could have sat forever like that!) and then the main monk (unfortunately the abbot was sick, so there was another monk performing the duties in his place) went down to the river. If you scroll to then end of the video, you’ll see him dunking in the water with what is later to be revealed as amulets. We got one of these amulets as we needed it for what would happen next. The number 3 appears to be important in Buddhism, so there were three more stages to go through. We were given the freedom to fully participate or to simply observe. Not making the decision lightly, I chose to go all in as I do feel drawn to the teachings of Buddhism and I wanted to experience for myself this important Thai ceremony.

1. Where the monk dunked in the water is where we went and did the same thing. Having Gait VIP treatment we went next. Gait and Julia (the retreat yoga teacher) went first and then J-bird and I had our turn. With the amulet in our mouth, we asked for forgiveness and made a wish. We then went into the water and fully submerged once . . . twice . . . three times before coming out.
2. We were then given an opened coconut, held it up to the moon, said a moon chant (can’t remember if it was in Thai or Sanskrit) and then poured the water over our head (it is believed that coconut water is pure and therefore purifying).
3. I believe the video shows what looks like rain barrels of water (with herbs and candles burning and dropping wax into the water). I’ll assume (because I can’t remember) that this is blessed water. The final stage was to go to these barrels of water, again make our wish and then scoop out water 3 times and pour it over ourselves.

By the end we were cleansed! It was around 10:30-11pm by this time and most of us felt completely energized, so we simply hung out in our dampened glory and bathed in the power of the moon.

The next morning I got up early, saw the sun rise over the river at Wat Tamai and felt cleansed, lighter and incredibly grateful and blessed. Satoo.