Mid-Summer is a celebration that takes place on the first day of Summer each year in Sweden. It is a national holiday and is celebrated all over the country with many small gatherings that include dancing, wagon rides, picnics and other fun activities. There are traditional foods and costumes too. We are near a town called Aspered and another town called Boras which are about 45 minutes north of Gotenburg.

This celebration is to welcome the new season of growing and is a celebration of fertility. The main activity is dancing around the mid-summer pole.At this time of year in Sweden, the sun doesn't go down till about 11pm and comes up again about 3am. In between it is twilight, so it really doesn't get dark at night. Here are some pictures.

Mid-Summer Pole, note the circles
It is traditional for the women to ware flower head bands.

Dancing around the mid-summer pole.

Traditional meal: beer, snaps, fresh potatos,
sour cream and chives, watermelon, sill (pickled herring).

Traditional mid-summer cake.
Strawberries, cream, and white cake layered with strawberry cream inside.

Torpa Stenhus, a castle built in the
14th century where the King of Sweden lived.

I went to Sweden to teach a couple of Reiki classes.

Building where the Reiki class was taught.

Reiki Class. Students were from
Sweden, Belgium, Italy, India and England.

Tolkin Lake where the class was held.

The couple who sponsored my Reiki classes,
Peter and Gun Moss Bjerling.
I stayed with them and spent mid-summer with their family including their parents.

The Moss Bjerling family.

This is a receipt for a cake that Peter's mother brought to the mid-summer celebration.

Grandma Gudmun's Apple Cake

1 egg
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup white flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 apple pealed and sliced
1/8-cup bread crumbs

Mix egg, sugar and butter
Mix flour and baking powder
Mix the two together

Cover a baking pan with a thick layer of butter and sprinkle on the breadcrumbs.
Fill the pan with the mixture and place the apple slices into it.
Spread cinnamon over the top.
Bake at 350 F about 25 minutes.

Midsummer in Sweden

A maid wanted to know to whom she would marry.
She asked her master how to know
Her master explained - you should go out on midsummer night,
"Run 3 times around the well when the sun has set", he said.
"You will then meet your future husband BUT
YOU HAVE TO BE COMPLETELY NAKED!"

The maid waited in anticipation for the sun to set on Midsummer Eve.
When at last it got dark she left for the well. She was slightly frightened, looking around to make sure she was alone. Then she undressed and started to run around the well.

Already during the second turn the girl panicked and fled back to the house.
Why? ---- Because the master turned up.

It's a cute little story, and somehow it is significant to Midsummer Eve in Nordic countries. Dark and cold winters has a depressive effect on people and that, in turn, produces superstitiousness. Then, when Midsummer arrives the sense of revival and freedom is so strong that it creates the feeling of being released from prison. Everybody and everything is being released and the various imaginative stories that come with it are endless.

There is for example another way for the maid to find out about her future husband. She just picks seven different flowers in full silence, puts them under her pillow on Midsummer Night and she will dream about "the only one".

Midsummer night is the shortest night and Midsummer Day the longest day of of the year, wherever you are north of the equator. The further north, the longer the sun stays up. And the further up you come the more intense are the celebrations at this very night. During Midsummer we all tend to relax from our silly national seriousness.
Nature at it's best, it's most powerful period, everybody full of life and joy, and many in their local folk costumes. Giggling comely maidens, barefoot in the grass and crowned in floral garlands in their most sexy thin summer dresses. Boys and men slightly overindulged in drink. Laughter, singing and dancing, eating and drinking. Everything sparkling with life, energy and possibilities.

The centre symbol in Sweden of this all is the Midsummer Pole, actually a huge cross covered with leaves, with two flowered rings hanging on each side. It has nothing to do with religion but is rather considered being a fertility pole. It's a time for lovers. An old Swedish proverb says "Midsummer Night is not long but it sets many cradles rocking".

It's around this pole that we grown-ups turn into children and all our childhood memories from ages of Midsummer celebrations come out in full. We are back there again! Already the music makes us goosy. We dance around the pole in long chains everybody grabbing hands, circling, bending, kneeling jumping and of course, singing to the accordion and violins. Regardless of age, nobody ever gets tired of this music and pole dancing. The elderly, who can hardly walk sit watching with a smile, remembering. The smallest kids are happily giggling from their parents shoulders. Everybody is in it. We are all participating.

And at the end of such a night, when the sun has already risen well above the horizon and nature is absolutely quiet - apart from the birds who have just started their morning concert - …..Exhaustion sets in. I usually stroll into a field somewhere, lie down on my back in a morning chilled field, stretching my arms saying ……………"Thank you God for giving this to me - you can let the winter come now - I am prepared!

Then I would fall asleep and when I wake up … a feeling of loss sets in, although the longest day has only just about started. The same feeling as when your dearest love is about to leave on a long trip and you are still holding her in your arms. The feeling of dark times ahead.

But unlike the often somewhat distressing feeling with your dearest love, it's a blessing to know that Midsummer, after all, WILL come back.

Guest speech by Paul van der Vliet