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Carpe diem! (Seize the day!)

Pip Wilson

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Today is

June 24th. Time slips away, and we grow old with the silent lapse of years; there is no bridle that can curb the flying days. How quickly has come round the festival of Fors Fortuna! Yet seven days and June will be over. Come, Quirites, celebrate with joy the goddess Fors! On Tiber's bank she has her royal foundations. Speed some of you on foot, and some in the swift boat, and think no shame to return tipsy from your ramble. Ye flower-crowned skiffs, bear bands of youthful revellers, and let them quaff deep draughts of wine on the bosom of the stream. The common folk worship this goddess because the founder of her temple is said to have been of their number and to have gained the crown from humble rank [i.e. Servius Tullius].
Ovid, Fasti, VI. 771   Roman calendar

In Sweden the ceremonies associated elsewhere with May Day or Whitsuntide commonly take place at Midsummer. Accordingly we find that in some parts of the Swedish province of Blekinge they still choose a Midsummer Bride to whom the 'church coronet' is occasionally lent. The girl selects for herself a Bridegroom and a collection is made for the pair, who for the time being are looked on as man and wife. The other youths also choose each his bride. A similar ceremony seems to be still kept up in Norway.
Sir James George Frazer (1854 - 1941), The Golden Bough, 1922

In Sardinia the gardens of Adonis are still planted in connection with the Great Midsummer festival which bears the name of St John. At the end of March or on the first of April, a young man of the village presents himself to a girl, and asks her to be his comare (gossip or sweetheart) … At the end of May the girl makes a pot of the bark of the cork-trees, fills it with earth, and sows a handful of wheat and barley in it. The pot being placed in the sun and often watered, the corn sprouts rapidly and has a good head by Midsummer Eve … The pot is than called Erme or Nennere. On St John's Day the young man and the girl, dressed in their best, accompanied by a long retinue and preceded by children gambolling and frolicking, move in procession to a church outside the village … they sit down in a ring on the grass and eat eggs and herbs to the music of flutes. Wine is mixed in a cup and passed round, each drinking as it passes. This is the general Sardinian custom. As practised at Ozieri it has some special features … on the Eve of St John the window-sills are draped with rich clothes, on which the pots are placed, adorned with crimson and blue silk and ribbons of various colours. On each of the pots they used formerly to place a statuette or cloth doll dressed as a woman, or a Priapus-like figure made of paste … The correspondence of these Sardinian pots of grain to the gardens of Adonis seems complete …
  Customs of the same sort are observed at the same season in Sicily. Pairs of boys and girls become gossips … on St. John's Day, by drawing each a hair from his or her head and performing various ceremonies over then. Thus they tie the hairs together and throw them up in the air, or exchange them over a potsherd, which they afterwards break in two, preserving each a fragment with pious care. The tie formed in the latter way is supposed to last for life …
  We have seen that the rites of Tammuz or Adonis were commonly celebrated about midsummer; according to Jerome, their date was June.
Frazer; ibid

But the season at which these fire-festivals have been most generally held all over Europe is the summer solstice, that is Midsummer Eve (the twenty-third of June) or Midsummer Day (the twenty-fourth of June) … we cannot doubt that the celebrations dates from a time long before the beginning of our era. Whatever their origin, they have prevailed all over this quarter of the globe, from Ireland on the West to Russia on the East, and from Norway and Sweden on the North to Spain and Greece on the South. According to a mediaeval writer, the three great features of the Midsummer celebration were the bonfires, the procession with torches round the fields, and the custom of rolling a wheel … and he explains the custom of trundling a wheel to mean that the sun, having now reached the highest point in the ecliptic, begins thenceforward to descend.
Frazer; ibid

'Tis not strange to see this land
lighted up bright on St John's night.
And the bonfires with their fiery tongues
looking skyward so far to capture a lucky star.
Showing just for a day, if only once a year, the
starry beautiful light of the Levante night.
Alberto Cortez

The Rose … the grandest, the noblest of Nature's symbols. To the Rosicrucian the 'Rose' was the symbol of Nature, of the ever prolific and virgin Earth, of Isis, the mother and nourisher of man, considered as feminine and represented as a virgin woman by the Egyptian initiates.
Helene Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, Vol. V,  292; today is the day of Rosa Mundi   Source

Come forth, come forth, my maidens, we'll gather myrtle boughs,
And we shall learn, from the dews of the fern, if our lads will keep their vows.
If the wether be still, as we dance on the hill, and the dew hangs sweet on the flowers,
Then we'll kiss off the dew, for our lovers are true, and the Baptist's blessing is ours.
An old ballad from the banks of Guadalquivir, Spain; quoted in Hone, ibid

The young maid stole through the cottage door,
And blushed as she sought the plant of pow'r -
"Thou silver glow-worm, O lend me thy light,
I must gather the mystic St John's-wort tonight,
The wonderful herb, whose leaf will decide
If the coming year shall make me a bride."
An old German poem; quoted in Hone, ibid

Before St John's day we ray for rain: after that we get it anyhow.
English traditional proverb; GL Apperson, Wordsworth Dictionary of Proverbs: A Lexicon of folklore and traditional wisdom, Wordsworth, UK, 1993, 545

Cut your thistles before St John,
You will have two instead of one.
English traditional proverb; Apperson, ibid

Never rued he man
That laid in his fuel before St John.
English traditional proverb; Apperson, ibid

Previous to St John's Day we dare not praise barley.
English traditional proverb; Apperson, ibid

Rain on St John's Day and we may expect a wet harvest.
English traditional proverb; Apperson, ibid

Midsummer rain
Spoils hay and grain.
Collected in R Inwards, Weather Lore

Never forget what a man says to you when he is angry.
Henry Ward Beecher, American preacher and activist, born on June 24, 1813

Woman would be more charming if one could fall into her arms without falling into her hands.
Ambrose Bierce, American author, born on June 24, 1842; Epigrams

ACCORD: Harmony.
Ambrose Bierce; The Devil's Dictionary

ACCORDION: An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.
Ambrose Bierce; ibid

ADMIRATION: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

BORE: A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
Ambrose Bierce; ibid

CUSTARD: A vile concoction produced by a malevolent conspiracy of the hen, the cow, and the cook.
Ambrose Bierce; ibid

CYNIC: A blackguard whose faulty vision causes him to see things as they are, not as they ought to be.
Ambrose Bierce; ibid

LAWYER: One skilled in circumvention of the law.
Ambrose Bierce; ibid

LAWSUIT:  A machine which you go into as a pig and come out as a sausage.
Ambrose Bierce; ibid

LOVE:  A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.
Ambrose Bierce; ibid

MARRIAGE: The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
Ambrose Bierce; ibid

NON-COMBATANT: A dead Quaker.
Ambrose Bierce; ibid

PAINTING: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.
Ambrose Bierce; ibid

Goodbye, if you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a Gringo in Mexico – ah, that is euthanasia!
Last words of Ambrose Bierce's final written communication, a letter to his niece, Lora, in December, 1913

I don't care for war, there's far too much luck in it for my liking.
Napoleon III, Emperor of France; following a narrow French victory at Solferino on June 24, 1859

June 24 is the 175^th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (176^th in leap years), with 190 days remaining.
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Old Midsummer Day, Britain

This day is very important in most parts of Europe because it is both Midsummer Day – strictly speaking, not the same as the Summer Solstice – and the feast of one of the most important saints, John the Baptist.

"The observances connected with the Nativity of St John commenced on the previous evening, called, as usual, the eve or vigil of the festival, or Midsummer eve." People kept the leafy boughs up on their houses, because they protected against thunder, storm and "all kinds of noxious physical agencies".
Robert Chambers, (Ed.), The Book of Days: A miscellany of popular antiquities in connection with the calendar, etc, W & R Chambers, London, 1881 (1879 Edition is online and 1869 edition here with CD-ROM available; See also The English Year: A Personal Selection from Chambers' Book of Days)

In old England today was a time for moving house. It is known as a quarter day. "On this day some may quit, some may remain; all must pay – that can!"

The bonfires were lit at midnight on Midsummer Eve. There were, anciently, sacrifices, and the people danced around the fire and leaped over it. Firebrands were taken out and the ashes were scattered to the wind in a custom that was thought to dispel evil.

"Traditional locations for St John's Day fires are often places where the sun was observed in former times." 
Pennick, Nigel, The Pagan Book of Days, Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, USA, 1992, 82

In the olden days in Britain, a girl, first born, was dressed as a bride. There was much feasting, dancing and leaping; by the sea they poured some salt water into a narrow-necked vessel and into certain things belonging to each of them. At this point a girl would be asked what the future held, and she would take out of the vessel the first thing that came to hand, show it, and give it to the owner, with a suitable prognostication. 

In Cornwall they went from village to village with lighted brands. As late as 1800, in a custom that calls to mind ancient Druidic practices, a farmer would burn alive his finest calf to dispel disease from his ill cattle.

At Northumberland, stools were put out with cushions of flowers. A layer of clay was placed on a stool, and flowers put in it. This was exhibited in doors of the villages and in streets where the attendants would beg money, to enable them to have an evening feast and dancing.

West Country, England: (to divine future husband) "... girls put egg-white and water in the sun at noon and left it for five minutes before examining the result". The evening, too, was a suitable time. (Newall, Venetia, An Egg at Easter: A Folklore Study, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1971, 63)

Midsummer (more strictly, the Summer Solstice, or Litha) is one of the eight solar holidays or sabbats of Neopaganism. Among the Neopagan sabbats, Midsummer is preceded by Beltaine and followed by Lughnasadh or Lammas. See also Wheel of the Year.

Midsummer dancing madness 

In Europe, there were originally pagan celebrations with wild dancing. Midsummer Day was Christianised as the Feast of St John the Baptist, patron of Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) in Germany. There, German people thronged on his day, June 24, for the dancing. In 1374, the Rhine flooded and the dancing of the peasants, whose lives were sorely afflicted beyond their normal poverty, went wild. The "dancing madness" became known as St John's Dance. The mania spread after a few months to Maastricht, Utrecht, Liege and elsewhere. It died out after six months in the Low Countries. In Germany, the authorities tried to suppress it but it continued for centuries. Recorded in 1518, tthis was later called St Vitus's Dance after that saint (feast day June 15).

Feast day of the Nativity of St John the Baptist
(St John's wort, Hypericum pulchrum, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)

John the Baptist is the only Christian saint whose birth date is a feast, as well as the day of his death (August 29). He was born six months before Jesus (whose birthday of December 25 roughly equates with the Winter Solstice of December 22), so the Church fixed his nativity at the Summer Solstice, which has altered over the centuries by a few days for astronomical reasons ('Calendar Shift', about six hours per year).  In ancient times, today was as important as a calendar marker as its opposite, Christmas. Today celebrates the elements of fire (bonfires) and water (baptism; cleansing).

He is said to have been a cousin of Jesus Christ and the son of Zachary, a priest, and Elizabeth, a descendent of Aaron. An angel brought Zacharia news that his wife would bear a child who was filled with the Holy Spirit from the moment of his birth. Doubting, Zachary was struck dumb until Elizabeth gave birth.

John died a victim of the vengeance of a scheming woman. In about the year 30 he was imprisoned by King Herod Antipas (b. 20 BCE), whom John had rebuked for the sin of having sexual relations with Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip (Luke 3:19). John's prison cell was in the castle of Machaerus, a fortress on the southern extremity of Peraea, about 16 km (about 9 miles) east of the Dead Sea. 

It was here that John was beheaded at the instigation of Herodias who prompted her daughter (unnamed in the Biblical text but called Salomé in Christian mythology) to ask Herod for John's head when Herod offered the daughter a wish in exchange for her dancing, which had pleased him. (Josephus simply attributes John's execution to Herod's uneasy jealousy over John's influence.) John's head was brought to Salome on a platter and she gave it to her mother; his body was buried by Jesus' disciples. According to St Jerome (c. 340 - September 30, 420), Herodias kept John's head for a long time after, occasionally stabbing the saint's tongue with a dagger. John was buried at Sebaste, Samaria, the mountainous northern part of the area that we now call the West Bank.

The Bible says St John was sent to "prepare the way of the Lord". He is represented in art in a coat of sheepskin, because of his life as a hermit in the desert. He either holds a rough wooden cross with a pennon that says Ecce Agnus Dei, or is shown with a book on which a lamb is seated. Sometimes John is depicted holding in his right hand a lamb surrounded by a halo, and bearing a cross on the right foot. According to the Bible, St John met his death by decapitation.

In the early 16^th century, a visitor to a monastery in France was shown what the cleric said was the skull of St John the Baptist. "Ah! The monks of another monastery showed me the skull of John the Baptist yesterday," said the visitor. "True", said the cleric, "But those monks only have the skull of St John when he was a young man. We have the skull of John the Baptist when he was much older and wiser." Or, so it is said. 

The patronage of St John includes baptism, bird dealers, converts, epileptics, farriers, hail, hailstorms, Jordan, Knights Hospitaller, Knights of Malta, lambs, monastic life, motorways (because he said "Make straight the way of the Lord"), printers, spasms and tailors. As a baptizer, he is associated, naturally enough, with the healing qualities of water and sacred wells and springs, so he is also the patron saint of Jordan, Florence, Genoa and Turin and the patron of spas.

The fruit of the Carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua) is also called St John's bread because John ate it while he wandered in the wilderness. However, the main plant associated with today, as with the Eve of St John, is Hypericum, St John's wort.

John the Baptist is regarded as a prophet by at least three religions: Christianity, Islam, and Mandaeanism. Adherents of the latter believe that they follow the true teachings of John and that Jesus was a false prophet.

St John's Day celebrations in Spain
On the banks of the Guadalquivir, maidens would go forth on the morning. They would gather flowers to dress a wether. These young women learned from the dew on ferns about their loved ones-to-be. [See poem above.]

Hair cutting day for women, State of Oaxaca, Mexico
According to legend, on the Feast of San Juan (St John), a mermaid left the river to comb her hair on this day, setting a precedent for local women to do likewise on this day.

The value of goofing off

According to tradition, the apostle John had a hobby raising pigeons. On one occasion a fellow church leader who was returning from a hunting trip stopped by John's place and found him playing with one of his birds and gently corrected him for wasting his time.

John, noticing his friend's hunting bow, said that the string was loose whereupon the man replied, "Yes, I always loosen the string of my bow when it's not in use. If it stayed tight, it would lose its resilience and fail me in the hunt."

St John of the Divination, Greek Macedonia

Apple-john

"An apple so called from its being mature about St John the Baptist's Day, 24 June. The French call it Pomme de Saint Jean. We are told that apple-johns will keep for two years, and are best when shrivelled.

I am withered like an old apple-john.
Shakespeare; Henry IV, Part I, III, iii.

Midsummer lore in the Book of Days
Summer Solstice: June 21
Midsummer Eve: June 23

See also St John's Eve, and its magickal herb, St John's wort, in the Scriptorium

Frazer, Sir James George (1854 - 1941), The Golden Bough, 1922, Ch. 62. The Fire-Festivals of Europe. Section 5. The Midsummer Fires

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