The welcoming light of Stockholm

It was stormy and grey on the streets of Stockholm where I was visiting family last week, so for a change I was photographing the glow of a Scandinavian Christmas, but indoors. 

Tastefully designed, as you would expect, Christmas here knocks the stuffing out of the predictable old tat that it often brings out in the rest of us! For Swedes there is a kind of reverence for the winter festival of light. You can understand why the further north you travel; long nights, harsh weather, deep hibernation.

Every window here is lit by a traditional candelabra. Along Hornsgaten where we soaked up the warmth of this vintage shop (Hornsgaten 64) there are wax candles and small paraffin lamps everywhere. The light of welcome, that this year has even deeper meaning.

While I was enjoying the warmth of my Swedish family and being mesmerised by my new Grandnephew, Syrian refugees continued their long march from the south to Stockholm. 

Under the Christmas market in Sergels Torget there are layers of lives being lived out and stories being told with every new arrival. In the Central station Red Cross workers are in tents waiting for the next train. They now think that approximately 200,000 refugees will have arrived here by the end of 2015. The system moves people on efficiently but there is talk of closing the Bridge to Denmark which allows Sweden to be so accessible. The Swedes are feeling overwhelmed. 

And you'd have to wonder how this dark cold December is affecting those Syrian children who have probably never seen snow or such dark days without a hint of sun? I hope their first Christmas in Sweden will be as beautiful and welcoming as I found it to be.......






Check out this link for more blogposts about Sweden 

Embracing shade

During the summer of 1975 when I was on the road with an architect, a singer, an uileann piper and a gypsy guitarist, we diverted from lucrative street performing in Germany to visit Scandinavia. We travelled in a green VW van which had been gifted to us one night during a dinner party in the home of an academic from Alabama. (I promise I will tell more about this part of the story at a later stage!)

Anyway, when we reached Stockholm, there was a debacle with the police who were not too keen on our celtic art and the old Irish come-all-ye's.  A young woman came forward to assist and she ended up inviting us to stay in her small flat. She confided in us that her partner had just passed away and she was going through the whole funeral and burial process during those few weeks.

I am remembering her because of a recent visit to a World Heritage Site Skogskyrkogarden in Stockholm which is actually a grave-yard unlike any I have ever seen. Tiny tomb stones set in 102 acres of mature forest, light filtering through the pines, paths directing you towards the key devotion points. A place of peace for the dead and the living.

Reflecting Swedish sensibilities about equality, there are rules to be abided by; green burials, flowers only in certain places, open plan spacious communities of graves, secular spaces for rituals. The overall effect is of quiet order and beauty, a place of sanctuary and respect.

And yet when I think back to that young woman in her lonely grief I remember how confused we were by the lack of a wake, the absence of ham sandwiches and beer, of callers, neighbours, family. The chaotic week long family occasion that is the typical Irish funeral. She seemed to be isolated except for ourselves.

As I get older and explore more the rituals and shrines we create, I have come to understand the importance of choice in death and dying. Where and how we are buried is part of that. I know I won't belong in a conventional graveyard myself....if it even matters at that stage! So bury me in a bio-degradable mushroom suit, or send me off in a blaze of flames and scatter my ashes where they will add some nourishment to the earth. 



See also an earlier post on the mushroom burial suit here




Thank you dear friends for your kind wishes! Yes, I won the Best Photography Blog for the second year in a row. After the initial delight all I could say to himself was....how am I going to keep this up? A touch of performance anxiety maybe which like all my other short comings I will choose to ignore!! 

Next week the little book will be on sale, so watch this space.

Inner warmth and woolly hats

She and I ran around a field excited by our newly wellied feet. We climbed to the top of a hill liberated from tartan skirts and white socks. We went "skating" on a frozen lake in our first corduroy jeans. She fell through the ice. I brought her home, shivering.

She and I went climbing trees. We were swinging from an old Elder, hanging upside down from the branches. I fell onto my back, winded, unable to speak. She screamed the place down and ran to get help.

She and I were wrapped up warm to go on a train somewhere. I held her hand and carried the suitcase. We went out through a gate bewildered, no clue what was happening. So we made pink and yellow tissue paper people and chatted to them for hours on end.

And here we are with woolly hats, crunching around in our boots on the shaley strand. Bonded by our shared youth, forever.

She points her camera everywhere. Look at this, look at that!! She especially likes a harp shaped hole in the cliff, her own unique take on the world, a great eye. She takes a picture of me and I take some of her.

It's never long enough and after a few days she returns to her life in the icy northern city of Stockholm. The woolly hats and her inner warmth must come in very handy up there in that freezing cold archipelago.

It's Midsummer!

In Sweden they really like to celebrate the summer solstice.  Families and friends gather for special crayfish parties which go on well into the bright night. Swedes are also fond of summer swimming in the inland lakes and at the archipeligo in Stockholm as well as the Baltic Sea. In Ireland we are are very cautious about lake swimming and it was only when my Swedish nephews came to visit me here that I followed their lead and jumped into the lake for the first time.

What amused me most was that we had no running water at the time, (another story) and so they naturally assumed we would bathe and wash in the lake. Without batting an eyelid, they walked off through the meadow, towels draped over their arms and wash bags at the ready! Ten years later I am now a confident lake swimmer. I have even had the pleasure of meeting a large trout eye ball to eye ball when he popped his head out of the water and looked at me for a moment......

Lake swimming is like the best outdoor spa in the world (although to be fair sea-swimming is the very creme de la creme). The water is soft and surprisingly warm and the scent of wild mint trodden underfoot adds to the spa vibe! The sounds are wonderful too, the breeze whistling through the reeds, the lapping of the water on the shore, and the birds and bees joining in. My favourite part is watching the swallows ducking and diving to sip water from the lake while always avoiding your head, or the heron flying across and calling like some prehistoric creature.

This summer solstice I will have a late lake swim to celebrate. I send best wishes to all the inspiring and supportive bloggers, tweeters, facebookers, friends and family who have been supporting my work since I started to blog in February. But a special wave to all my lovely (gorgeous looking) Swedish family and friends, have a wonderful Midsummer Solstice. What will you do to celebrate?