Gather together oh children of Janis, ligo ligo
The time to honour Janis is come here, ligo ligo

The rest of the afternoon passes in the daze of excitement, even though Olga's mother brings her children back to the relative calm of their cottage room. When Olga is old enough to manage it, she weaves her own crown of daisies, carefully placing the blossoms in a row and twisting the stems around the previous stems to make a chain. When this is the right size for Olga's head, the ends of the daisy chain are tied together with cotton cord. Some years, when the vibrantly purple red clover is in bloom, Olga weaves in a few of its blossoms.

Her crown is then carefully hung up in a safe spot and Olga is free to eat piragi, rest and daydream. Though she lies down on her cot, sleep is impossible with all the excitement in the air. Olga drifts on the distant sounds of the other children of Janis, more and more of whom are arriving at Saulaine.

Finally it is time to get dressed. Olga's mother has a full ceremonial Latvian costume. Olga thinks her mother looks very beautiful in it. She wears a full-sleeved hand embroidered linen blouse, a red vest and a long woven woolen skirt. The skirt is topped at the waist by a long colourful woven belt that wraps several times around, ties and still hangs down past knee length. A silver brooch holds the blouse together at the neck and a flaring amber necklace tops off the costume. Tonight her mother will wear a daisy crown, as will many of the women, though traditionally only unmarried women wore daisy crowns. Married women tied colourful kerchiefs around their heads. There will also be women with such kerchiefs.

Olga and her sister wear plain white modern cotton blouses under their ankle length jumpers sewn of a plaid woolen fabric. They have narrower woven belts tied around their waists, small silver brooches, and when are old enough to be entrusted to look after an amber necklace, they get to pick out one of their mother's to wear. Their waist long hair is carefully brushed out and freshly braided, with red ribbons woven into it.

Finally she is allowed to put on the daisy crown. Olga puts hers on in front of the dull silver, paper sized rectangle that serves as the mirror in the cottage. She looks beautiful. She feels beautiful. You are beautiful, she tells herself. Then, making a silly face at the mirror, she does a few twirls in her long skirt, making it flare out around her, sending a breeze up her legs. That feels good and Olga twirls some more right out to the yard where Ilze joins her. The sisters dance until Jekabs comes up with a game for the three of them.

Few of the men own any sort of traditional costume, though many of them wear the wide woven belts around their waists over dark dress pants. They wear plain white shirts and tie narrow woven ties around their necks. All the men participating in the performance wear oak crowns. The oak crowns are not that comfortable to wear for any length of time. Sometimes they stretch out and fall down onto the shoulders. Often the men will carry them slung over their arms after the official performance is over.

The central yard is crowded, with a lot of people focusing their attention on the performers. Olga is used to this energy and it makes her feel special. She thinks of her beautiful costume and feels like this is an auspicious moment. She revels in the heightened sense of self-consciousness that it creates for her.

Olga takes her place among the singers and listens patiently while the speeches, announcements and introductions are made. When they announce the choir, she feels everyone around her stir as they adjust their word sheets, clear their throats and straighten their balance.

She is very proud of her father who makes sure everyone is ready before he finds the right starting note within himself and passes the note along to the singers. Choir members attune their voices. Olga too concentrates on her voice. For the first few verses she is conscious of the energies of the people around her, of the eyes watching, of being a performer.

After a while, all these other energies fade from her considerations and there is only the pure joy of singing, of feeling and hearing her voice, of harmonizing with the other singers. It doesn't matter anymore what the audience is thinking or doing. Olga becomes a channel for the energies of song that are such an important part of the Latvian culture.

For most of their known history, the Latvian people have been serfs or peasants working the land and paying their dues in produce or services to a ruling class from one of the larger surrounding nations. Olga imagines how they would have lived in their villages with the nature spirits of the land they loved long ago. She pictures how they would have spent the long dark winter evenings thinking about the world around them and creating songs to celebrate it.

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