Today at noon I finished my Whitsuntide with Malla, or Little Malla, as I realized today. The real Malla is actually behind the mountain I have called Malla and is not visible from the shore. There was fog and mist during the night, but luckily the rain started only in the afternoon, when I had already finished recording. Beginning with a chilly wind and cloudy skies, through a white night with thick fog that completely hid Little Malla from view and ending with ominously dark clouds and no wind these twenty four hours were perhaps more interesting, albeit gloomy, than a day and night with blue skies and continuous sunshine.
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Strange way to spend the Pentecost or Whitsuntide, sitting on a rock watching a mountain, I thought, when reminded of the religious feast this weekend. Here those rituals seem irrelevant, although in historical times they probably had a lot of meaning even here. There is a saying in Finnish, related to the pagan precursor to the Pentecost that if you have not chosen your Valentine or beloved one by Whitsuntide you will remain alone for the whole summer. I guess a mountain does not count as an ordinary loved one, but does spending this special day and night with an entity of such strong character mean that I am somehow bound to be devoted to it for the rest of the summer? Perhaps I am too superstitious, and I would not mind meeting Malla again in the autumn...
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I have not yet looked at the material; the images here are snapshots taken with my phone, with a slightly different framing and of course without me sitting on the rock, but I have a feeling that the framing was fairly constant, since the tripod was well fixed. The first image, the foggy moment at midnight, is the closest I came to the midnight sun and the second image is the last image, at noon on Sunday.
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