Summer Solstice
The sad passing of the longest day
Today marks the Summer Solstice, the first day of summer and the longest day of the year. Up North, where I live, the sky will still be light close to midnight. I love this time of year, and I especially love this day, but it’s always tempered with a mix of sadness, because tomorrow the cycle reverses and the days will begin to grow shorter.
Solstice celebrations started with the Pagans, and then the Christians got into the act with St. John’s Day. In Finland, where my maternal ancestors are buried, Midsummer’s day is called Juhannus. It’s one of their major holidays. There they make huge bonfires out of any cast-off wood, including old boats, and the flames reach incredible heights (see bottom photo). They sing and dance and drink through the last light and beyond.
But it’s not just in Finland. In Finnish communities all over the country — where they can get away with building huge bonfires — they do the same thing.
In my earliest memories, I can see huge Juhannus bonfires (kokko) up and down a Lake Superior beach where the Finns, including my aunt and uncle, had summer camps. Singing and drinking went on far into the night, and we kids opened the windows to our room on the upper floor and fell asleep to the sounds of three-part harmonizing, as our parents and their camp friends pulled out their entire repertoire and sang, slowly, sweetly, a Capella.
Bonfires were not unknown on those beaches in Michigan’s Keweenaw peninsula, but the Juhunnus fires had to be the biggest and the best. They gathered firewood for weeks, sweeping the ever-present driftwood clean from the stony shores.
They’re all gone now, all those people so full of life and promise, but the memories live on. Will there be bonfires on that beach on this night, people gathered around singing and celebrating the longest day, the start of summer, the hope of new life springing from the earth?
I’m betting those bonfires are no longer allowed, but the ghosts of my people may make it through. Faint smoke, muffled singing, hearty laughter, the clink of bottles, wispy shadows of people dancing…
…under the midnight sun.
I'm The Boy Who Hated Summer (because of the humidity, the bugs, and I'm not a beach person) so the first day of summer to me is when I begin the countdown to the first day of fall. It's September 23 at 2:50 am ET and I can't wait for the crisp fall air, the hot tea, the smell of the heat coming on, and the days when I can wear pants again.
(Don't be funny, I mean I hate wearing shorts in the summer.)
What a lovely memory to have. Growing up, we had no community at all really. I've always envied those that did. I'm glad you did.