On June 24^th the feast of San Giovanni is, more than a relic, like an Italian monument from an age before history, which the tooth of time has eroded but not destroyed. Together with Christmas and the Nativity of Mary, the feast of San Giovanni is the only Christian feast that do not celebrate the death, but the birth of a saint.

Both Christmas and San Giovanni Battista (St. John the Baptist) coincide with two particular sacred moments of the year, the Winter Solstice and the Summer Solstice. Giovanni represents the Sun that from June begins to decrease, and then begins to rise in the light in the Winter Solstice until having the maximum celestial manifestation on June 24^th, the longest day of the year, when the Sun and the Moon join in sacred wedding.

In Umbria, precisely in the Val Nerina - one of the magic places of Italy, still the most traditional families pick flowers during the eve of the feast, and then let them macerate all night long in a vase full of water. The exposure to the open air is indispensable in order for the water to acquire the special virtue of this magical night. In the morning of the feast the water is used to wash the face and the hands and to wash the children. In Scheggino, a beautiful village very famous for its truffles, herbs are prepared with San Giovanni’s herbs: St. John's wort, rose petals, sage, rosemary, and also the herbs of the Madonna like thyme, basil, lavender, broom, scented carnations and also walnut leaves.

In some places near Cascia, the land of Santa Rita, the most famous saint in the world, they use to sow two types of salad that are left to dry and then eaten on the most important days of the year.

Some rare girl looking for a husband still performs the ritual of the egg white. It all takes place on the night of June 23^rd. A container filled with water is placed outside, in the open air, and an egg white is poured into it. The following day, in the morning, the vase is delicately withdrawn to examine the "sign", a clue that reveals the future. In the evening, both in Trivio, and Monteleone, two other Umbrian villages, is lit a big bonfire. When the flames are lowered, the boys have fun jumping over the fire. The residual carbons of the bonfire of San Giovanni are worth of particular attention because the tradition says that it is important to conserve them as protection. A beautiful ceremony sanctifies a very important friendship between girls or between male friends through the exchange of a handkerchief, or of flowers. It is a sacred festival related to the worship of the Sun and life.

It is impossible to forget the night of San Giovanni in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in which reality and dreams are mixed. After all, "We are made of the same substance that dreams are made of, and our lives are surrounded by sleep" and I would add magic.