June begins quietly each year. My theory about this? Well, historically speaking, June is the height of planting season in most parts of the Northern Hemisphere, and so there just never was much time for celebrating. The first somewhat major thing to come up on the calendar each June is the Feast of St. Anthony of Padua toward the middle of the month. I always figure, then, there is no rush to load the month’s calendar, and but here it comes now, a few days late… but that is by design. And so, here you go: your Convivio Book of Days calendar for June. It is, as usual, a PDF document, ready to print on standard letter size paper, and a fine companion to this blog.
Our cover star this month is a painting from 1900 called “Midsommar.” Eva Bonnier (1857–1909) is the artist, depicting a scene perhaps common to June in Sweden a century ago, and, I’d like to think, still today. The old midsummer celebrations that come around the summer solstice and St. John’s Eve are important to a land of midnight suns. And why wouldn’t they be? Come solstice time the sun will rise over Stockholm at about 3:40 AM and not set again until two hours before midnight. That’s a good 19 hours of daylight. Of course, at midwinter the opposite is true. Stockholm and Oslo and Helsinki and Lapland and all the areas around the Arctic Circle are places of extreme when it comes to darkness and light. It’s only natural that these auspicious solar demarkations are met with celebration. It is something that has always fascinated me, here at the 25th parallel, where things are on a much more even keel throughout the year.
It is the month of Bloomsday and of midsummer night’s dreams, and the month we honor our fathers here in the States. It is when the first mown hay is brought in, and when the water is finally warm enough for swimming. June is our welcome to the gentle time of year.
SUMMER SALE
At the catalog, all summer long, we’ll take $5 off your purchase of $35 when you enter discount code HIGH5 at checkout: it’s our Summer High Five Sale. Get your total to $50 and you’ll earn free domestic shipping, too, for a total savings of $13.50. We’ve also received our last shipment of protective face masks from Chiapas and reduced the price, too: Originally $16.50, now $10. Three cheers for science! Hurrah for vaccinations! Vaccinated though we are, we are still wearing our masks in public settings. It’s been awfully nice not catching even a simple head cold this past year. We’ve been adding other new things, too, mostly new embroidered textiles from that same family in Chiapas, as they transition from mask-making to their more traditional woven and embroidered wares. There are new loom-woven market bags with their signature Otomi hand embroidery, and embroidered table runners, and a delightful new pom pom garland that makes us so happy to behold. Everything they make is really beautiful. Click here to shop!
Convivio Book of Days cover star image: “Midsommar” by Eva Bonnier. Oil on canvas, 1900 [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons. Summer High Five Sale image: my mom, Millie, fishing on a lake.