söndag, december 24, 2006

Outside it's dark and cold

The first time the true spirit of Sankta Lucia found me as a receptive mind was during a St. Lucia Day celebration I took part in at Svenska teologiska institutet in Jerusalem on December 13, 2002. The setting of the Holy Land rendered the original religious meaning of the holiday particularly edged. Until then I didn't even know that St. Lucy had been a martyr from Sicily and the tune of the melody Neapolitan. But the fact that the name of the saint meant "light", hence "the way of light" through "in Lucy", and the fact that the fête was around the very day of the winter solstice, when outside it's dark and cold in the far North, made the Scandinavian trait of this tradition distinctly appealing to me. As an outsider, I wished someday I could even have a personalized experience of the Nordic land.

This year I witnessed the St. Lucia procession at Habo Church near Jönköping in Sweden. The building was built entirely in wood, and was "one of four churches whose pictures were reproduced by the Swedish Post Office Christmas stamps abroad" in the same 2002. Four years have passed, my life is again at a crossroad. Again I hear "natten går tunga fjät". The night walks with heavy steps.

More photos you'll find in my gallery on St. Lucia celebration:
Click Here

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