Category Archives: Midsummer

Jun 04 2024
4 Comments
Book of Days Calendar, Midsummer, Summer

Summertime, or Your June Book of Days

It was in 1935 that Billie Holiday recorded a song with Teddy Wilson and his Orchestra; a song called “It’s too Hot for Words,” and though it is not the official State Song of my home state of Florida, I think perhaps it should be. And I think the sleeping woman in this iconic painting of summer understands this, too. The painting, called “Flaming June,” is by Frederic Lord Leighton.  The sun shimmering on the distant water, and its stillness, and the flush on the cheek of the sleeping woman in orange… all these things suggest that it was the very height of summer, perhaps Midsummer Day itself, when Frederic Lord Leighton painted this image in 1895. Whatever summer day it was obviously was too hot for words and, by the looks of things, too hot for pretty much anything.

And “Flaming June” is the cover star this month for your Convivio Book of Days calendar. The calendar for June is, as usual, a printable PDF. It is the month of St. Anthony of Padua’s Day on the 13th: a favorite saint of both my grandmothers and perhaps all Italian grandmothers, for that matter. And then comes Bloomsday, one of our favorite literary holidays, then Father’s Day and Juneteenth, the freedom celebration that is our newest national holiday. The solstice arrives this year on the 20th, and a few days later come the celebrations of Old Midsummer. Mostly ignored in this country, Midsummer will pass largely unnoticed. But these longest days of the year in the Northern Hemisphere are magical days, with daylight well into the evening hours. In Sweden and Germany and other places folks stay out well into those nights and there are songs to sing and dances to dance beneath a Midsommar pole and they will don flowers in their hair and laugh and love while here in the States we will just go to bed early and wake up early and go to work diligently and that is that.

Ah, but these lovely lengthy languid days are the polar opposite spoke in the Wheel of the Year to the celebrations of Midwinter, which we do celebrate most joyously. That is Christmas, when the days are short and the nights are long, and these summery days are the mirror to Christmas. Ages ago, the Church placed the birth of Christ at the Midwinter solstice and the birth of his cousin, St. John the Baptist, at the Midsummer solstice. This, for powerful symbolism: John is born at Midsummer, just as light begins to decrease. “He must increase, but I must decrease,” we read in John 3:30. Conversely, Christ is born at Midwinter, just as light begins to increase. Again, in John 8:12: “I am the light of the world.”

There are other traditional bits of magic in the air this time of year, too. While there is one school of thought that says William Shakespeare set his comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Eve of May, there is another that places it at St. John’s Eve. That’s the school of thought I subscribe to. St. John’s Eve, on the 23rd of June, mirrors Christmas Eve in that Wheel of the Year, and we all know about the particular magic of that long night. So on the short night, too.

Do with all this what you may. Go to work if you must… but honor these magical days as best you can. This is what we do, and this, I think, is a very good approach.

COME SEE OUR NEW SHOP!
We’ll be open this Saturday, June 8, and next Saturday, June 15, for Father’s Day shopping (and any kind of shopping) from 11 AM to 4 PM, and, in fact, these are the hours we’ve decided to keep all year long. Unless otherwise noted, we’ll be open every Saturday from 11 to 4. We both work full time, so Saturday hours are the best we can do for now. We’ll also gladly open for you by appointment, should Saturdays not work for you. Just write us. The new shop is at 1110 North G Street, Suite D, Lake Worth Beach, FL 33460. From I-95, exit 10th Avenue North eastbound; make a left at the first traffic signal onto North A Street, then at the first stop sign, turn right onto 13th Avenue North. Cross the railroad tracks and turn right again onto North G Street. We’re a couple blocks down on your left side in a blue-roofed building. Plenty of street parking on G Street and there are a few spots in our little parking lot, too.

COME TO OUR GRAND OPENING!
It’s a Midsummer celebration! Official ribbon cutting with City officials on Friday June 21 at 3:30 PM, and we’ll be open all that weekend (Friday June 21 from 3 to 8 PM, Saturday June 22 from 11 AM to 7 PM, and Sunday June 23 from 10 AM to 4 PM) with lots of Midsummer fun: We’ll teach you how to make a floral crown; You can print your own letterpress printed Glad Midsommar card; Enjoy a free tasting event featuring many of our Scandinavian specialty foods, and, of course, there will be great shopping and good company. The new shop is at 1110 North G Street, Suite D, Lake Worth Beach, FL 33460. From I-95, exit 10th Avenue North eastbound; make a left at the first traffic signal onto North A Street, then at the first stop sign, turn right onto 13th Avenue North. Cross the railroad tracks and turn right again onto North G Street. We’re a couple blocks down on your left side in a blue-roofed building. Plenty of street parking on G Street and there are a few spots in our little parking lot, too.

SHOP OUR SUMMER DAY SALE!
At our online catalog right now, you may use discount code BLOSSOM to save $10 on your $85 purchase, plus get free domestic shipping, too. That’s a total savings of $19.50. Spend less than $85 and our flat rate shipping fee of $9.50 applies. CLICK HERE to shop; you know we appreciate your support immensely. And yes, you may use that $10 discount when you visit us in the store, too!

Image: “Flaming June” by Frederic Lord Leighton. Oil on canvas, 1895 [Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]. Click on each image to make them larger!

 

 

Jun 21 2023
7 Comments
Midsummer, Solstice, St. John's Day, St. John's Eve

Midsummer Solstice

June 21 this year brings the June Solstice: Midsummer in the Northern Hemisphere, Midwinter in the Southern. As precision goes, the solstice moment this time around, more or less (for there are variations east and west within time zones), is 10:57 AM here in US Eastern Daylight Time. That is the moment when the sun’s rays strike the Tropic of Cancer, 23.5° north of the Equator. It is our longest day in the Northern Hemisphere. And for a lovely explanation of why (by way of a fresh lemon representing Earth), I invite you to watch a short video by one of the people on this planet that I really admire: Lia Leendertz, author of The Almanac, which you might think of as a Book of Days with a British focus, explains the celestial mechanics while offering some thoughts on Midsummer in a charming video she released just yesterday.

This 23.5° tilt of the Earth brings us our seasons, and today, we reach the extreme that brings the most sunlight to the Northern Hemisphere. It is the start of summer by the almanac, but our ancestors saw this as the height of summer, hence its older monicker: Midsummer. And just as the Midwinter solstice in December is soon followed by Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so too is the Midsummer solstice soon followed by St. John’s Eve and St. John’s Day. St. John’s Eve will come on Friday, the evening of the 23rd, and St. John’s Day on the 24th. This St. John is John the Baptist: the cousin of Jesus, he who was sent to prepare his way. All those feast days of saints that we celebrate throughout the year… like when we eat zeppole on St. Joseph’s Day, or minne de virgine on St. Agatha’s Day, or soda bread on St. Patrick’s Day: all these feasts commemorate the day each of these people left this earthly life. There are only three birthdays the Church celebrates each year: Jesus, Mary, and John the Baptist. It’s the two cousins that are the more fascinating here, because the Church placed their birthdates at the solstices. No one knows for sure when they were actually born, but they are placed in this particular order in the round of the year for metaphoric reasons: St. John is born at the brightest time of the year, the time of our longest days. But what happens immediately after the Midsummer solstice? Sunlight begins to decrease a little bit each day. It is the Constant Rearrange: no day exactly like the one that came before or the one that follows. John himself tells us something to the effect of, “I must decrease so he may increase.” John prepares the way for Jesus, the Light of the World. And Jesus is born then, at the opposite pole of the year, the time of our darkest days, our longest nights, just as sunlight is again increasing.

That is one version, anyway. It is the old old story and a fascinating one: the story of our planet and its place in the universe and it is our story, too, no matter which players you place in the roles. The planet continues its journey around the sun at its 23.5° tilt and with it comes summer and fall and winter and spring and therein, in this simplicity, lies the mystery. The mystery of our unfolding days and the spiraling circular nature of our existence.

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SPEND MIDSUMMER WITH US
Join me on Friday, June 23, in the afternoon hours before St. John’s Eve begins, for the Real Mail Fridays Midsummer Social on Zoom. This online social runs from 2 to 5 Eastern, and you may come and go as you please for time to get things done (letter writing or otherwise) in the company of friends from around the globe. We will feature music by Felix Mendelssohn and readings from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, mixed in with some other music fitting for the height of summer, and once an hour we’ll take a little break for some casual banter. We welcome you to join us from wherever you are by clicking here. Real Mail Fridays is always a very heartwarming time and this week it’s a midsummery time, too.

Saturday evening, St. John’s Night, Seth & I are thinking about going to the Midsummer Fest––the Juhannusjuhla––outdoors at Finnish-American Village, weather permitting. There’ll be a traditional midsummer bonfire! Entry is $5. Finnish American Village is at 1800 South Drive here in Lake Worth, Florida. The festivities begin at 6 PM, but if we go, we’ll be going later, as I am teaching a workshop that day at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts called Book Arts 101: Midsummer Night’s Dream and then we’ll be having a traditional Swedish Midsommar feast, of the carry-out sort, from our friends at Johan’s Jöe in West Palm Beach. They are accepting Midsommar catering orders through Thursday. Everything at Johan’s is always delicious! Here’s a link to order your own Midsommar feast from Johan’s. Highly recommended!

Also online, I invite you to watch the episode of Stay Awake Bedtime Stories that I recorded last year for Midsummer: It’s my own retelling of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, an adaptation of the 1899 story version by Edith Nesbit. It’s a fun time. And in the video, I’m wearing an awesome floral crown that Seth made for me. Click here to watch.

 

MIDSUMMER SALE
At our online catalog, use discount code BLOSSOM to take $10 off your order of $85 or more, plus get free domestic shipping. Good on everything in the shop! Click here to shop! Happy Midsummer to you all. Glad Midsommar. Hyvää Juhannusta.

 

Image: “Summer Night (Sommernatt)” by Harald Sohlberg. Oil on canvas, 1899. National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design. [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Jun 16 2023
2 Comments
Bloomsday, Juneteenth, Midsummer

June’s Bookish Days

And now we enter mid-June and with that entrance come three wonderful celebrations, all of which have at least some literary connexion. First comes Bloomsday on this 16th of June. Ulysses, the stream-of-consciousness novel by James Joyce, was no small feat to write and nor is it so to read. The Modern Library edition I have in my bookcase is 783 pages long. What is perhaps most astounding about Ulysses is the entire journey through those 783 pages takes place all on one day and all in one place: Dublin on the 16th of June, 1904. If you are in Dublin, you can expect to see many people about today in Edwardian garb, following the path that Leopold Bloom took through the city in the novel. The serious ones will eat fried pork kidney for breakfast and they will stop at the apothecary to buy lemon soap and have lunch at Davy Burne’s pub on Duke Street: a Gorgonzola sandwich and a good glass of burgundy.

I am an English major; I love the idea of a literary pilgrimage. Those of us not in Dublin, though, can still make a day of it: you might read some Joyce. If Ulysses is too much for you, may I suggest Dubliners: a collection of short stories also set in Dublin. James Joyce gave us with Ulysses what many consider the greatest novel in the English language, but with Dubliners, he gives us what may very well be the language’s greatest story: its the closing story of the book, a story called “The Dead.” It’s set at midwinter, not midsummer, but still works well for a day honoring Joyce. If you’re not up for reading the story, watch the film adaptation created by John Huston in 1987. It’s excellent. Huston taps into Joyce’s writing style by making the camera practically another character. Another fine thing to do to mark the day: listen to Kate Bush sing a song she recorded in 1989 called “The Sensual World.” It’s based on the closing words of Ulysses, a soliloquy by Molly Bloom, Leopold’s wife:

… and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

Ralph Ellison, he gave us his own stream-of-consciousness novel in an unfinished work called Juneteenth, a book I read a couple of Junes ago for that sacred day on the 19th of June. Our newest national holiday is not new at all: it may have been given official designation as a federal holiday just two years ago, but the celebration goes back to June 19, 1865, the day when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned that they were free. The roots of Juneteenth lie in the Emancipation Proclamation, two years into the Civil War. The Proclamation, on the First of January, 1863, freed “all enslaved people in the states currently engaged in rebellion against the Union.” Soldiers of the Union Army made their way across the cities and plantations of the South, reading the Proclamation and spreading the news. In places still under Confederate control, though, the news would take longer to spread. Emancipation Day here in Florida, for instance, came on May 20, 1865, when the news was read in Tallahassee, eleven days after the war had ended.

In Texas, the westernmost Confederate State, Emancipation came a month later. Union troops arrived on Galveston Island on the 18th of June and the next day, June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger read this proclamation from a Galveston balcony:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

By 1866, Juneteenth celebrations were sprouting up all over Texas and continued spreading, mostly among African American communities, throughout the country. These earliest Juneteenth celebrations brought folks out in their finest clothes for parades and barbecue and music. Juneteenth has since become a celebration of hard-earned freedoms, and a celebration of African-American culture. A day for family and friends to gather, a day to share stories, and to learn. And now, for these past two years, a national holiday. The road getting here has never been easy, and so it is as well a day to reassure each other against adversity and challenge. The fact that the road is still being forged is all too evident these days, as we continue to work through our troubled history and find paths forward, paths toward true equality, and toward the elimination of racism at levels to which society seems at times blind. Here in Florida these days, things are only regressing. For those of us who work in state-sponsored education, the limits imposed by state law in the last year on what we can discuss with our students is truly disheartening.

I like to think of Juneteenth as another shot at making things right and Lord knows we need that now. If it helps, think of Juneteenth as this country’s second independence day: independence from backwards thinking. We all have to play our part in making wrongs right.

And in a week’s time it will be Midsummer: St. John’s Eve on the 23rd of June, followed by St. John’s Day on the 24th. It is the setting of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. That’s a night of some powerful magic, and that, my friends, deserves its own chapter in this Book of Days, even though it is a time not held in much reverence here in the US. But that it our loss. Midsummer is yet another June celebration that steps off the pages of books. How wonderful to have our breath still taken away by the things of this world.

 

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