cerulean blue

New Orleans. 30.0N, 90.0W. Sunset 20:04, Sunrise 04:43

Summertime

And the livin' is easy

Fish are jumpin'

And the cotton is high

Your daddy's rich

And your mamma's good lookin'

So hush little baby

Don't you cry

London. 51.5N, 0.0W. Sunset 21.21, Sunrise 04:43

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Skagen. 57.4N, 10.3E Sunset 22.22, Sunrise 04:16

Now the midsummer comes to Denmark's homesteads

Larks are twitt'ring underneath the eaves

And the eye can wander contented

'Twixt the meadow, fjord and field

Everything around

Wears its summer's dress.

Scent of clover and breezes from the seashore

Float across this bright and sunny home

Do you hear the leaves softly whispering?

Love is summer's welcome guest

Laughter here and there

In the summer air.

¶ Above the rooftops the sky remains azure blue. An airplane trails its history as it catches the last golden moments of the longest day. Down here the buildings are already fading to grey, silhouettes against the summer sky.

The vespers ring,

The nightingale's waiting to sing,

The rest of us wait on a string.

Perpetual sunset

Is rather an unsettling thing.

The magical night that never quite comes. A twilight of dreams, of transformations, of a secret world, delved in moonlight under a cerulean sky. A night when fairies and mischievous creatures of the underworld become visible for a moment, when we imagine we can acquire some of that magic: a midsummer's dream time.

A time when the eternal spheres pause for a moment, before turning back towards winter on their infinite cycle.

For once no-one sleeps through the dark hours: it is a time of smiles in a summer night, a time for romance, for secret meetings in noctilucent glades, for mystery, for lovers to entwine and for a poet to immortalize his unrequited gilded youth, for indiscretion, for infidelity, for dreams fulfilled.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.

Why, this is very midsummer madness.

A time of plenty, to luxuriate in the warmth that lingers from a summer's day, a time for ease and comfort, to satiate, to pamper, to indulge.

Earth's increase, foison plenty,
Barns and garners never empty,
Vines and clustering bunches growing,
Plants with goodly burthen bowing.

¶ Now the vault above us slips a shade darker, dark enough for the first stars. Mercury, trailing and still faint. And then Jupiter low in the east.

Here in the northern lands, people have always known this time was special. All across the world they have watched and waited for the sun to turn, and they have celebrated. They have kept watch through the night, waiting for the early dawn. They have built fires to keep the other world at arms length while attempting to steal some of its magic.

At the northernmost tip of Denmark, looking out over the still distinct glow on the northern horizon the poets and artists gathered and built a great fire and sang their song of summer and homesteads. And now on every beach, by every lake, across the country, people sing their Midsommervise in the glow of their fires.

And across all the countries of the north they go to their summer houses and build their fires and celebrate the endless cycle of the seasons and of life in a tradition we share with the earliest people.

¶ Another hour, and still there is a glow as the stars wink in one by one. Saturn follows Jupiter and then there is a growing aura, a false dawn as the gibbous moon rises, indulgently smiling down tonight on this dissembling world.

In Finland, it was named Ukon juhla – Ukko's celebration – to honour the god of the sky, of thunder – and the harvest.

For Estonians it is Suvepööripäev – Summer Solstice Day – their biggest festival of the year. They gather with their families, or at larger events to celebrate this important day with singing and dancing throughout the night, as they always have.

Across Europe, the early christians commandeered the pagan festivals of course, and it became le feu de Saint-Jean, Jaaniõhtu, Jaanipäev, o dia de San Xoan, the fires of Saint John the Baptist, celebrated on the night before 24^th June.

In Slovenia, the communists moved the festivities to May 1^st , International Workers Day. Originally Kresna noč – Midsummer's Night – was dedicated to Kresnik, the god of fire, storms and of summer, who travels across the sky on his golden chariot.

In Britain, the puritans moved it a second time, from St John's Eve to November 5^th and saw it as an opportunity to attack the catholics. It had been a strong tradition before. In the late 14th-century

men stay up at night and make three kinds of fires: one is of clean bones and no wood and is called a bonnefyre; another is of clean wood and no bones, and is called a wakefyre, because men stay awake by it all night; and the third is made of both bones and wood and is called St. John's fire.

There is even evidence of huge midsummer feasts and bones at Stonehenge, the monument that points to the rising sun on midsummer day, thousands of years ago. The burning of bones in a bone-fire to produce lots of smoke seems to have been an important element, and had the power to drive away the spirits or the dragons or whatever evil thing lurked locally.

¶ Now the sky is at its darkest, but the moon near its zenith casts a wan light on the scurrying comings and goings below. Soon it will descend and the sky will begin to glow again in the east.

Fire not only drives away evil, but purifies. People put summer flowers and herbs on the fires, and in very many countries people jump through the fire as the flames die late into the night, to purify themselves and to increase their fertility. In Spain

when it is relatively safe to jump over the bonfire, it is done three times (although it could also be nine or any odd number) for good luck at the cry of meigas fora (witches off!)

In Norway it was said that, if a girl did this and then put flowers under her pillow on Midsummer's Night, she would dream of her future husband.

In Bulgaria, they dance on the embers of the fire at dawn. Anyone seeing the sunrise will be healthy throughout the year. It is believed that on Enyovden – Midsummer's Day – a variety of herbs have the greatest healing power, and that this is especially true at sunrise.

In northern Spain the smoky bonfires are also accompanied by a gathering of magical medicinal herbs, including St John's wort, which may be dipped in the pure waters of seven springs to be most effective. People gather round the fires and feast all night, and sometimes a dummy, representing a witch or the devil, is placed on top and burnt.

¶ Now in the east another star – Venus, the brightest yet – rises then rapidly fades as the sky runs through its many hued sequence and the Sun God appears once more renewed.

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it's all right
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...

¶ The sun appears, still shocking with its power, and soon dispels all the magic and the mystery of this special night, so that it seems just a dream. Tonight I have experienced the wonders of Midsummer's Night like millions of northern folk, and millions before over countless generations. As the cosmic wheels reached the extreme of their repeating rhythm we were allowed this glimpse of the other world for one night. Now they begin to shift back and reality returns until next the next cycle, the next Midsummer.

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear,
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream.