Midsommar: When Sweden Celebrates the Light

Every year, on the first Friday between June 19 and 25, Sweden stops. People leave the cities, head to the countryside, decorate a flower-covered pole, crouch down in public parks singing songs about tailless frogs, and stay outside until the sun finally gives up and sets — sometime around eleven at night. This is Midsommar. I've lived through eleven of them. This year we celebrated at Skansen, the world's oldest open-air museum, in the heart of Stockholm. In this episode I talk about where the tradition comes from, what it looks like from the outside, and why — after more than a decade — I finally understand why Swedes celebrate summer the way they do.

#Midsommar #Sweden #Stockholm #Skansen #SwedishCulture #Summer #Pagan #ExpatLife #NordicLife #SpanSwede

Stoic philosophy, life in Sweden, culture, history, and everything worth thinking about. YouTube: youtube.com/@latitude59p Free bilingual transcripts + support: ko-fi.com/latitude59 If this added something to your day, a rating helps more than you'd think. Thanks for listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(29)

The Fakir: The Book That Taught Me to Walk the Wire of Life

Some books find you when you're ready. This one found me during one of the hardest stretches of my life. The Fakir is a novel based on the life of yoga master Ramiro Calle — a man I had the chance to ...

14 Jun 10min

Slavery in Sweden: the past nobody talks about

Sweden is famous for human rights, equality, and social progress. What's less known: for nearly 200 years, the Swedish crown financed slave expeditions, built a fort on the West African coast, adminis...

7 Jun 9min

10 Things Sweden Changed in Me

I didn't choose most of these changes. They just arrived — quietly, over a decade of living somewhere that isn't your own country. I eat dinner at six. I plan everything. I get anxious in loud places....

24 Mai 9min

Valborg: The Fire That Renews Everything

Every year on April 30th, Sweden lights massive bonfires. It's called Valborg. It started as a pagan ritual to mark the end of winter, later blended with the feast of Saint Walburga, and somehow survi...

3 Mai 4min

Modern Work: Between Detachment and Dehumanization

Something broke in the world of work after 2020. Companies got leaner, colder, and more ruthless. Employees got tired, detached, and quietly stopped believing. In this episode, I explore that silent t...

26 Apr 7min

Who Speaks for Earth?

In the final chapter of *Cosmos*, Carl Sagan describes a world where nuclear weapons hold billions hostage, where military secrecy shields decision-makers from accountability, and where no one has bee...

19 Apr 4min

AI Is Just a Tool — The Problem Is How We Use It

Artificial intelligence is already part of how most of us work, learn, and create. In this episode I reflect on how I use AI to optimize tasks and move faster — and where I've started to worry about w...

5 Apr 4min