Līgo, līgo // Jāņi 2018

They say that on Jāņi night the animals can speak, that you must not sleep or you’ll sleep all summer. That if you go in search of the fern flower and find it, that the mošķi will not bother you all year. That the flowers and Jāņu zāles picked have magical powers. This Latvian holiday with roots in the pagan and branches in the present day awakens in each of us our connection to nature. We weave crowns of flowers and oak leaves, jump over fires with skirts held high, make pīrāgi and curd cheese with caraway seed, and sing until the sun paints the skies pink at dawn.

This year we celebrated the summer solstice with our bŗāļu tauta, the Lithuanians. The Atlanta Lithuanian-American community was kind to invite us to their Joninės / Midsummer festivities, and so we donned our linen shirts and tautiskās jostas and headed west to the forests of Georgia. Some customs we share, others were new, but the underlying connection with nature united us in our merriment.

Yesterday was the summer solstice: longest day of the year, shortest night. The lightning bugs are bringing fairy magic to our homes at dusk, the smell of rain (līst kā pa Jāņiem) and tomato plants creeping into the subconscious with memories of summers past. I weave some mint and lavender into my Jāņu vainags, then as an afterthought add some rosemary and oregano; all night the comforting smells follow me around.

We burn the crowns from the previous summer in the bonfire, watching all of our worries and fears from the last year flame up, disappear in smoke. The Lithuanians have taken their vainagi  to the shoreline, lighting a candle and letting them float away as just a few more twinkling lights in the glittering waters of the lake. We wade in, the water cool on our overheated skin, the moonlight reflecting around us as some otherworldly portal.

May your voices join the chorus of Līgo on this most enchanted of evenings. Good luck in your search for the fern flower, and strength in your leaps over the Jāņuguns. May the magic of the solstice find you all, and as you turn your gaze upwards at the dark skies of the shortest night, may the generations of līgotāji who have come before you give you strength as you face the shortening days.

Pūt, Jānīti, vara tauri

Pašā Jāņu vakarā`i,

Lai sanāca Jāņa bērni,

Lai dziedāja Jāņu dziesmas,

Lai dziedāja Jāņu dziesmas,

Lai atnesa Jāņu zāles,

Lai iedzēra Jāņu alu,

Lai uzkoda Jāņu sieru

Lai aizdedza darvas mucu,

Lai darīja vainadziņus,

Lai gaidīja Jāņu rītu,

Kad saulīte rotājās`i.