Summer Tiding

Very few of our Folk take in consideration that most of modern society considers the first day of summer on the solstice. However, for us it is the mid-summer, some could argue that the more northerly we reside the more this has bearing. But our ancestors looked at the turning of the year in two seasons, that were interlocked by two liminal times that were at the beginning of each of these two seasons, so spring and fall were considered part of summertime and were the liminal birthing phase of the seasons.

Our ancestors celebrated the starting of the new day at sunset. They did this because there was a guarantee that everyone was awake and witnessing this transition time and that the night bore the day. And so, with that logic, our ancestors also celebrated the new year at the twilight of the year, which was in fall. However, with time reckoning now, we acknowledge the shifting of the day at midnight. But we can still look at the seasonal tidings and correlate them in groups of 12 to fit symbolically a representation during the day cycle. If the fall is the sunset, then midwinter or Jól is midnight, and this is the new reckoning for us to consider the new year, but as it goes Austra is the dawn of the year, the liminal space and the starting of the summer tiding that culminates to the midsummer.

Miðsumar is the height of our sacred Himinn Vǫrðr, our Heavenly Warden, who protects us from the Múspell spark, her sacred name and duty Sól ☀️ placed there in her cycle in the universe and galaxy by the divine hands of the Alföðr himself who placed too Máni and Hel in their sacred duties providing service for humanity even though it often goes unnoticed.

This is a festive time where yellow pinwheels are made by the children, and the sacred fire is leapt over in significance of hopping over the highest point of the summer tiding.

However, our Miðsumar celebrations go far beyond simply the mechanics of the world around us, for perennial truths apply to many levels. Thus, just like the fall of the sun, where we lose 2 minutes of daylight until the shortest day of the year in midwinter/Jól, there was the loss and decent of the sacred light that shone amongst the Gods. Lord Baldr's murder, orchestrated by the kinslayer, is another perennial truth of the cycle that is ever present in the respiratory cycle of the universe.

So, as we gather together, we align ourselves with the rise and the fall, not only of nature but of the Gods themselves. And it is incumbent upon us to give over gifts to Lord Baldr—let them rise up as high as the sun and then fall deep into the darkness where he, like a seed of light, waits. Nanna bears the horn that fills with our devotion.

We bring ourselves into the alignment of the heavens end of the realms beyond the veil at this sacred time, and it girds us in remembering that there must always be temperance in Victory.

Spekingr Svan Herul

sherul@runestone.org

~ From The Runestone, July 2026 ~