Midsummer Madness: It's All About Life

Summer in Chicago, the season of construction, is also the time where the masses finally divest themselves of jackets and coats and sweaters (pretty much de rigeur from October through April), fret about their beach bodies (or the lack thereof), and try and live outside (but ultimately end up fleeing into air conditioned quarters because of the humidity). 

June 9-11, is the Andersonville Midsommarfest, now in its 52nd year. The Andersonville neighborhood, was originally Swedish (very few Swedish places remain now, especially now that the famous Swedish bakery has closed), then Middle Eastern, then the lesbians entered and it became “Girlstown,” the gay boys followed in their wake, and now the married couples roll their strollers (same-sex couples now included) on the gentrified thoroughfares around Clark and Foster. 
 

Midsummer celebrations held throughout the United States are largely derived from the cultures of immigrants who arrived from various European nations since the 19th century. Midsummer, also known as St. John's Day, is the period of time centered upon the summer solstice, and more specifically the Northern European celebrations that accompany the actual solstice or take place on a day between June 19 and June 25 and the preceding evening. 

For example, Geneva, Illinois, hosts a Swedish Day (Swedish: Svenskarnas Dag) festival on the third Sunday of June. The event, featuring maypole-raising, dancing, and presentation of an authentic Viking ship, dates back to 1911. 

In fact, many midsummer celebrations around the United States hark back to Scandinavian origins, especially in the Midwest, home to many descendants of immigrants from that part of Europe who came to farm the plains and prairies in the nineteenth century. 

In Sweden, Midsummer is such a big deal that it ends up being a de facto public holiday, with many shops and offices closed. It's usually a Saturday between June 20 and June 26, but the actual celebration is on the Friday evening before. 

In Sweden, yes, the phallic maypole is a very important component of the celebrations; in earlier times, small spires bedecked with greenery were erected, in honor of the Norse fertility goddess Freya. 
 

Given the usually lethal relationship of LGBTQ persons with Christian religious establishments (which, especially after the Reformation, banned many of the midsummer rituals obviously taken from paganism), many now embrace the festival as more than just a boozy time at a street festival. Midsummer is also the same month as Pride Month, but the neopagan and Wiccan movements which attract many LGBTQ persons laud this as a time called Litha, when, as William Blake says, when the “doors of perception” expand to reveal a wondrous, life-affirming energy in every blade of grass, every erect cock: 

“There’s a powerful juxtaposing of realities going on right now: one is the world as we know it, with an ethos of fear and scarcity, and an ugly underbelly that’s so evident in the horrific news of recent weeks; and the other is a life-centered ethos revealed in Nature’s emerging summertime landscape of stunning beauty and overflowing abundance.” – Karen Clark, “Three Lessons from the Summer Solstice”