Bonfires,
That's the most common Finnish Johan's tradition that still lives today and the bonfire that goes all the way back to the shamanic times like 10 000 years ago and there were first people in the area what is now known as Finland and those people who had like shamanistic worldview and that's how long the connected to Ukko as well because Ukko obviously was the god of fire.
Bonfires they were linked to get rid of the bad and evil spirits but also as as a symbol of abundance for the people and it whole idea of the bonfire and the ukko and the thunder it actually goes all the way back to the time when people did not worship animal shaped figures as their gods and archetypes and if you're familiar with Finnish and Finnobatic mythology especially there's huge amount of stories about birds and Finnish and the Baltic countries there is this long old old expression to describe but Finnobatic people as the people of the water bird because there's so many myths about different birds and birds were very holy for the people the thunderbird there was the thunder bird which was the eagle kotka in Finnish and if you have seen eagles they are massive birds they are huge eagle in at least in Finland eagle was seen as the omen of thunder because the eagle it flies in the summer quite often before the thunder comes because that's the time when it prays they worshipped the animal gods and the thunderbird was one of the most respected bird gods you could say that a thunderbird that is connected to bonfire and to the story of the phoenix which is obviously extremely old story and the thing is with the eagle,
Eagle can actually create themselves again from the ashes because when an eagle gets old and it gets very tired and the feathers are going off they can actually choose to die eventually or they can choose to go through this rebirth process that is when they land and they will pluck away their old feathers and grow again new ones new tail the life of the eagle and in a way they are reborn again nature is amazing and this is where the whole myth of the phoenix bird comes from and this is why eagles were worshipped as the thunder gods during the shamanistic times in Finland and around the world because you can find this myth all over and pretty much in every single culture where there is a thunder god their symbol for example in ancient Greece eagle was the symbol of zoos even more if you go to the native american cultures there's huge amount of stories about the thunderbirds the eagle so I always find this myth very very interesting and very empowering but that's how eagle,
Ochko and the bonfires between the eagles
