This year we are gearing up for our Grand Lodge convention in Washington DC, and as a project, I and my Swedish counterpart Gun Lith, are gathering information about Lodge names and how they came to be. If you have history on when and how your lodge name was picked, please send it to me at hanright@optonline.net or to my home address: Inger Hanright, 47 Skandia Rd, Hackettstown NJ 07840. We are hoping to set up an interesting display about it.

SPRING!
When spring finally arrives, it’s a big deal to Scandinavians. It is celebrated in a multitude of ways with food, drink and decorations. Several events during the spring season garner attention, such as “Vårfrudagen” or Lady Day (feast of annunciation), which marks the spring equinox. The Easter celebrations, with its flying witches, and of course “Valborgsmässoafton”, Valpurgis night, when shivering Swedes stand around a bonfire and sing praises to spring. All these events have a convoluted history, starting way before Christianity, and gradually becoming integrated with the church. It’s a mish mash of sun celebrations, fertility festivals, harvest planning and spring fever, by a sun starved people longing to get outside after the long winter. I’m including a couple of research links at the bottom, for looking into how you can celebrate these things. The egg is all important this season, for making waffles (Lady Day), to paint (for Easter) or as a compliment for herring and salmon (Easter and Valpurgis). The egg itself is of course our oldest fertility symbol and since spring was when the hens started laying eggs, it was a welcome break from the winter foods, and was incorporated in many traditional dishes.
http://www.geographia.com/sweden/spring.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_festivities

Valpurgis in Stockholm

Easter branches

Easter witches

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