And now it is Old Midsummer: St. John’s Eve. It is a night that will go by unnoticed by most Americans, but in other cultures it is the beginning of the midsummer revels with good food, storytelling, divination and games, and, most especially, bonfires. This is especially true in Scandinavia, where the days at this time of year are particularly long. In Helsinki, the sun will shine for nearly 19 hours today. The sun has just passed its northernmost point in the sky with the solstice two days ago, and already it is progressing toward the opposite of that. Come December, that 19 hours in Helsinki will be of darkness. And in these Lands of the Midnight Sun, these lands of polar opposites, a celebration marking each of these events should come as no surprise.
While we in the States (at least in the Lower 49) are all too familiar with the celebration surrounding the Winter Solstice, the celebration of St. John’s Eve and St. John’s Day at the summer solstice has never gained much of a foothold here. My partner’s cousin married a woman from Sweden and they settled in California and when Ulrika’s first St. John’s Eve in the States arrived, she was pretty disappointed. Yes, she could create a celebration of her own, but part of the charm of most St. John’s Eve celebrations is the communal atmosphere. Folks from the community typically gather and celebrate together, outdoors in the night filled with sunlight, at a communal bonfire, and there was none of that for Ulrika in California.
Even here in Lake Worth, where businesses like Polar Bakery and Midnight Sun Motel are signs of the largest community of Finns outside of Finland, not much will be happening tonight that I am aware of. There was a bonfire on Saturday, the night of the solstice this year, at the American-Finnish Community Club west of town. But that was on Saturday and tonight, as far as I know, the field out behind the Club will remain dark.
Community or not, the power to celebrate a day is within each of us. Lighting a fire in your own backyard fire pit or even just lighting a candle is, I think, a fine way of honoring this ancient celebration. I hope Ulrika is doing at least as much. I hope she is serving pickled herring and new potatoes with sour cream, and eating strawberries by the fire, all part of the traditions in her Swedish homeland.
In other parts of Europe, St. John’s Eve is a night to go and gather fern seed for its magical properties. Gathered at the proper time, fern seed was thought to confer the power of invisibility upon the person who held it. Gathering it comes not without some peril, however: the seeds are fiercely guarded by the fairy folk. Be that as it may, this is the only night to do so for their magical properties. And of course the gathering of St. John’s Wort would be done tonight. Hang a clump of this herb at windows and doors to keep evil away.
As with Christmas in December, it is the eve that is the period of the holiday that is more charged with magic and mystery. And for St. John’s Eve, no one has done a better job of conjuring that magic than William Shakespeare. His comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream is set on this night and tunes into folk belief that the portals between worlds are more easily transgressed on nights just like this. There is no better time of year to read his play again or to watch the film (the 1999 adaptation by Michael Hoffman, starring Michelle Pfeiffer as Titania and Rupert Everett as Oberon is really quite good), and if you are in a place where the play is being performed tonight, well, you should not even think twice about what to do: go.
Even if all you do is eat a fresh strawberry, do something to mark this magical night, and if you can, do it outdoors. To take part in marking this night is to take part in something bigger than ourselves, bigger than our problems and cares. It is to take part in the community of folks marking this night across the centuries, and that is community indeed. Happy Midsummer.
Image: Last year’s solstice bonfire at the American-Finnish Community Club. Even in the heat of a Florida summer night, we love a good bonfire.