Old mommy blogger panel of one of the directors going through the beats of the original show and before they cut the mini lanterns, started off with the lotuses, and describing a stronger connection to the Tree of Life Awakens show in that mystical fireflies living in the tree are involved in both.
The basic gist of things is that the Shamans call upon the animal spirits to take us on a magical mystery tour through the natural world before ascending to the aurora borealis (which as Inuit myth and Brother Bear will tell you, is an animal spirit realm) and the constellations, which are just as full of animal stories. While the animal spirits appear to us in the form of the barges at first, they break free from them at the end of the opening sequence, becoming lights dancing among the lotuses, before taking us through their different habitats and you have moments of the shaman teams interacting with the spirits like Team Fire playing a horn to cue the tiger leaping through the lotuses or Team Water releasing the owl from their boat to kick off the Alaskan tundra segment.
Tapestry of Nations started similarly vague 20 years ago, but they quickly fixed it in a couple of months with additional narration to explain the Sage, drums, and even the torches. No idea why the Rivers of Light team didn't think of doing something similar.