midsummer dreams

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Photo: stonehenge.co.uk

If I were in Finland right now, I’d be celebrating Juhannus at someone’s summer cottage by a bonfire next to the water.
Many Finns start their summer holidays this week.
I remember one year celebrating ‘midsommer’ first in Denmark, then in Sweden and at last in Finland!
If I were in Lapland* or the Yukon I’d stay up all night watching the sun never set.
If I were in England, I’d be at Stonehenge for the pagan ritual of watching the sun rise through the alignment of the standing stones.
If I could I would make the summer solstice a holiday in Canada too (another northern nation), so we can all mark the passage of the seasons and the ancient rituals of our ancestors, thus capturing a little of the magic of the past.
But I can and do wish everyone a happy summer solstice! Hauskaa Juhannusta!

(* expired link, thus removed)

June 21, 2006 in Culture, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric by Marja-Leena