June hardly sleeps

Daisies in an abandoned quarry

Summer solstice at 1:45 a.m. EDT tonight.

Then the days will begin to get shorter by a minute or two and eventually I'll get some sleep.

Is there a name for the condition of wakefulness whenever it's light out? I couldn't take naps after the age of 2 either. And I still hold a grudge for being put to bed as a child in summer before dark.

Sunrise at 5:04 a.m. this morning at our lat/long. But the birds and I detect the faintest of early dawn light around 4 a.m.

Some year I would like to spend midsummer at a high latitude where people (like me) go officially mad for a few days, drunk on the year's high tide of sunlight.

John came home from his last trip the other day with news that airline employees could get cheap standby tickets to Iceland this summer. "Let's go. Let's go on Saturday!"

My manic, giddy plan doesn't fit into the family schedule. But I can dream...

How to celebrate summer solstice in Iceland

Stalk the elves. Believe in ghosts. Burn stuff. Imbibe. Know that if you wash your face in the cold dew next morning you will stay healthy all year.

Flickr: "midsummer iceland"

The truth is, I don't miss sleep. I don't want to roll back down the hill of the solar year into darkness quite yet.

Midsummer and it's celebrations around the world...

In Italy, the Feast of St. John the Baptist is celebrated. Multiple saints are feted in Portugal with street festivals, grilled sardines and red wine.

In Bulgaria they gather healing herbs at sunrise. In Denmark and Finland, it's bonfires on the beaches. In Poland, girls dress in polka costumes and throw wreaths into the Baltic Sea.

In Ireland, midsummer is the feast of Áine, the goddess of love, growth and cattle.

The Eve of Ivan Kupala (St. John the Baptist) is celebrated in Russia and the Ukraine with rites of fertility and purification - floating flower garlands on rivers, telling fortunes, jumping through flames, and nude bathing.

The Yakut people race reindeer or horses, and make bets. In Sweden they dance around the maypole.

In Germany, on June 20, 1653 the Nuremberg town council gave in and issued the following order:

"Where experience herefore have shown, that after the old heathen use, on John's day in every year, in the country, as well in towns as villages, money and wood have been gathered by young folk, and there upon the so-called sonnenwendt or zimmet fire kindled, and thereat winebibbing, dancing about the said fire, leaping over the same, with burning of sundry herbs and flowers, and setting of brands from the said fire in the fields, and in many other ways all manner of superstitious work carried on---Therefore the Hon. Council of Nürnberg town neither can nor ought to forbear to do away with all such unbecoming superstition, paganism, and peril of fire on this coming day of St. John."

The Midsummer Fires

People in Norway thought that the fires banished sickness from among the cattle. Even yet the fires are said to be lighted all over Norway on Midsummer Eve. They are kindled in order to keep off the witches, who are said to be flying from all parts that night to the Blocksberg, where the big witch lives. In Sweden the Eve of St. John (St. Hans) is the most joyous night of the whole year. Throughout some parts of the country, especially in the provinces of Bohus and Scania and in districts bordering on Norway, it is celebrated by the frequent discharge of firearms and by huge bonfires, formerly called Balder's Balefires, which are kindled at dusk on hills and eminences and throw a glare of light over the surrounding landscape. The people dance round the fires and leap over or through them. In parts of Norrland on St. John's Eve the bonfires are lit at the cross-roads. The fuel consists of nine different sorts of wood, and the spectators cast into the flames a kind of toad-stool in order to counteract the power of the Trolls and other evil spirits, who are believed to be abroad that night; for at that mystic season the mountains open and from their cavernous depths the uncanny crew pours forth to dance and disport themselves for a time.

Orkney Isles: "The sky was a vivid crimson in every airt. Great bonfires flamed and the bairns were delirious with delight."