Swedish Light

[Guest guest]

By Sarah Edmonds and Johan Sennero

Wed Dec 13, 9:54 AM ET

 

 

 

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - On Wednesday, girls across Sweden took part in

an age-old celebration of light. They donned white robes tied with

red sashes, settled crowns of candles on their heads, and served

their families coffee.

 

Meanwhile, at a white-walled, white-floored cafe in a trendy

Stockholm neighborhood, two dozen white-clad Swedes started the day

with a more 21st century method of banishing the winter dark --

basking in scientifically simulated daylight.

 

Light is a preoccupation in this Nordic nation, and in the rest of

Scandinavia; and for good reason.

 

In the north, polar night reigns for much of December. And even in

Sweden's south, with up to seven official hours of daylight on the

shortest day of the year, the sun is often masked by low clouds and

never pushes far past the horizon.

 

Swedes equip themselves for the dark. Dog leashes, baby carriages and

horse blankets glow with reflectors or florescent tape and fabric.

Restaurants burn small fires outside.

 

The Lucia Day light festival once appropriately took place on the

year's darkest day. According to Folklore expert Bengt af Klintberg,

its date is a vestige of the discarded Julian calendar, which set the

Winter Solstice on December 13. When Sweden moved to the Gregorian

calendar, December 13 stuck.

 

During the celebration, each Swedish town and school chooses a long-

haired girl to wear the candlelit crown of Santa Lucia, patron saint

of the blind. Lucia is from the Italian for light.

 

Klintberg said the tradition began in the west in the 18th century

and spread throughout Sweden.

 

" Swedes are very fond of lighting candles in the winter ... because

it creates such a fine atmosphere. When you have darkness outside and

lights burning on the table, it makes winter cozier than it would be

otherwise, " he said.

 

Klintberg said that while the onset of electricity allowed easy

illumination in the dark months, electric light did not offer the

comfort of candles, or what he called " living light. "

 

" Around the mid-20th century, there was an explosion of traditions

that have to do with old-time light, " he said.

 

HIGH-TECH SOLUTIONS

 

The modern era offers comforts for real sufferers, though.

 

Arne Lowden, sleep researcher at the National Institute for

Psychosocial Medicine in Stockholm, said 11 percent of Swedes have

some form of winter depression, and 8 percent full-blown Seasonal

Affective Disorder.

 

The best SAD treatment is light therapy, which doctors can prescribe

with special lamps in the home or at clinical centers.

 

In Martin Sylwan's Iglo Ljuscafe (light cafe) by Stockholm Harbour in

Sodermalm, guests who need no prescription sip vitamin-packed juices

as they soak in simulated daylight.

 

Before entering the light room, they remove their shoes and slip on

cotton robes as white as everything else in the room, from the

slipcovered chairs to the long curtains that keep the dark from

peeking through the windows.

 

The effect is like something out of a science fiction movie --

Stanley Kubrik's " 2001: A Space Odyssey, " maybe, or Woody

Allen's " Sleeper. "

 

This is the third season running the cafe for Sylwan, who discovered

light therapy at a hospital about 10 years ago when he was in the

grip of a winter depression.

 

" I actually only went there twice. I didn't feel like going to a

hospital. I didn't like to be a patient. Because you are also in the

psychiatric ward, " Sylwan said.

 

" For me, light is a ubiquitous thing. Not something you should have

to go to hospital for. "

 

It was the first cafe visit for a group of staff from the School of

Joriel, a Stockholm school for disabled children, and they said the

light felt good.

 

" I think the darkness is very hard, " Maria Johansson, one of the

team, said. " It feels as if you lie dormant. "

 

Nine-year-old Agnes Stjernberg, this year's Lucia at her school at

Vasterstad in southern Sweden and a local nursing home, holds with

this traditional way of fending off the gloom.

 

" It feels good to lighten up the darkness, " she said.

 

(Additional reporting by Bjorn Rundstrom))