Midsummer's Night

With my heritage, I grew up with many European legends, traditions and stories. One of my favorites was that on Midsummer's Night, the fae would move from one point in the world to another in the blinking of an eye.

There were some mid-summer nights, where the last of the sunlight would still hang in the sky well past my bedtime, I'd have my nose pressed against the screen of my bedroom window, wondering if the fae would ever visit the place I lived.

I've read many legends of the fae, including Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. While I will not watch for the fae to see if they move in or out of my area this night, I may likely ponder on Puck's parting words from the play:

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

Whether or not we believe in fae, Midsummer is a point in the year where - like fae tradition - we can let go of the past and move on. As Shakespeare put so eloquently in these lines, life is but a dream, a short one. 

"If you pardon, we will mend." Forgiveness is a big part of letting go of the past grudges. Many now hold to a more contemporary tradition of releasing old grievances in the first few moments of the New Year. But we forget that opportunities are found throughout the year.

Tonight is Midsummer's Night, the shortest night of the year in the northern hemisphere and the longest night in the southern. Just as it is the "moving time" of the fae in old traditions, the sun also begins its journey back to the south.

It is a time of change; a time when we can let go of past, forgive those for whom we have a grudge, and make a fresh new start.

"Give me your hands, if we be friends, And [we] shall restore amends."

While there are as many moments to start anew as there are breaths throughout the year, sometimes we need a gentle reminder from season to season.

Happy Solstice.

~ ESA