{"id":136,"date":"2024-06-04T21:59:07","date_gmt":"2024-06-04T21:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/?p=136"},"modified":"2024-06-06T22:26:30","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T22:26:30","slug":"lantern-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/2024\/06\/04\/lantern-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"31st Annual Winter Solstice Lantern Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Journey through an illuminated labyrinth at this magical Vancouver event<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>By Elana Shepert<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.vmcdn.ca\/files\/texttospeech\/7874904-9ae52051-fde5-49ff-87b2-b4c80650e205.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Long dark nights encourage people&nbsp;from around the world to come together and celebrate&nbsp;life &#8211; and each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Naomi Singer, who is the&nbsp;Creative Director of Vancouver&#8217;s Secret&nbsp;Lantern&nbsp;Society, says&nbsp;winter solstice celebrations unify cultures from around the world because the holiday is based on the Earth&#8217;s movement in the galaxy rather than a &#8220;man-made&#8221; holiday.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Throughout history, groups of people on every continent found ways to &#8220;drive out the darkness&#8221; by coming together.&nbsp;In North America, the annual mid-winter holiday takes place on Thursday, Dec. 21. Since Earth&#8217;s&nbsp;northern pole&nbsp;reaches its furthest&nbsp;tilt away from the Sun, it is&nbsp;the shortest day of the year.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Singer\u00a0is in charge of the annual\u00a0Winter Solstice\u00a0Lantern\u00a0Festival and has\u00a0been running the annual event for three decades in the city. She says she&#8217;s always inspired by the positive feelings people take from the events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/552c7190b61f6585f6c76e8b095f4f99-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-251\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/552c7190b61f6585f6c76e8b095f4f99-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/552c7190b61f6585f6c76e8b095f4f99-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/552c7190b61f6585f6c76e8b095f4f99-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/552c7190b61f6585f6c76e8b095f4f99-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/552c7190b61f6585f6c76e8b095f4f99-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/552c7190b61f6585f6c76e8b095f4f99-360x240.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Pinterest.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They have the most beautiful experiences when they&nbsp;walk&nbsp;through the labyrinth,&#8221; she tells V.I.A., adding that some of them have even decided they wanted to marry someone based on their experience. Other people cry, while some simply have a lovely, peaceful experience.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Singer says&nbsp;the space is&nbsp;a deeply meditative, &#8220;candle-lit sanctuary&#8221; where&nbsp;people learn how cultures across the globe celebrate the longest night of the year. In Persian culture, for example, they&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/list\/7-winter-solstice-celebrations-from-around-the-world?utm_source=vancouver%20is%20awesome&amp;utm_campaign=vancouver%20is%20awesome%3A%20outbound&amp;utm_medium=referral\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">celebrate Yalda<\/a>, which marks the victory of light prevailing over the darkness and the birth of the sun god.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They stay up all night to drive the dark away with&nbsp;positivity, music, and food. They also keep each other awake by&nbsp;reciting&nbsp;poetry,&#8221; she explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This year, the event has expanded to include four intimate events leading up to the grand finale on Dec. 21 which will take place on three Saturdays and one&nbsp;Thursday over December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Have a look at the four events taking place over December and details for the night of Winter Solstice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized is-style-default\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"677\" src=\"https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/elana-shepert-1024x677.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-252\" style=\"width:201px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/elana-shepert-1024x677.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/elana-shepert-300x198.jpg 300w, https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/elana-shepert-768x508.jpg 768w, https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/elana-shepert.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Elana is a reporter for Vancouver Is Awesome who currently lives in Vancouver. She covers everything from travel to health care, the film industry to social issues, and writes breaking news, regular updates and feature stories. Before she started working for V.I.A., Elana was the managing editor at 604 Now. Prior to that, she worked as a travel agent and travel writer, where she visited 19 countries across the globe. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Simon Fraser University with a double major in English and Political Science, as well as a certificate in New Media Journalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Journey through an illuminated labyrinth at this magical Vancouver event By Elana Shepert Long dark nights encourage people&nbsp;from around the world to come together and celebrate&nbsp;life &#8211; and each other. Naomi Singer, who is the&nbsp;Creative Director of Vancouver&#8217;s Secret&nbsp;Lantern&nbsp;Society, says&nbsp;winter solstice celebrations unify cultures from around the world because the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parkoutdoor_activities","category-what_to_visit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253,"href":"https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions\/253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jrodriguez.vccdigitalmedia.ca\/VancityPodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}