The Pagan Heart
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November-December 2005 Issue
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Midsumarsblot - the Asatru Summer Solstice Blot
By Crystal M.
I am a practicing Asatruar down in Australia and wanted to share my upcoming Midsumarsblot with your readers. Since the season's are reversed we are well into summer and Solmaudr, the Sun-Month unlike you all up there with winter looming close. The solstice approaches with the longest day of the year. Right now Suna is at her most powerful, sharing her heat and warmth with us all. We mimic her by lighting fires of our own and celebrate throughout the short night, keeping vigil until the dawn - following which Suna will begin her decline towards the winter solstice in June. In preparation for this blot we decorate the steading and prepare a mountain of foods. There will be a gathering of about 30 people this year...plus children. We are fortunate to have access to a paddock where we can have a huge bonfire - in winter. Being summer in Australia, the fire season is in full swing and in many parts of the country a bonfire right now would be suicidal. All those gum trees just waiting to catch fire and spread the flames. Down here at the bottom of Victoria, the risk is low. Today the temp managed to creep above 20 degrees C (which is around 70 F I think), but the last week it's hovered around 15. By Midsumar it'll probably be averaging low to mid 20s - not that high a fire danger. But since we don't want to risk it, we'll settle for a barbie at the local park and use the nice stone firepit. Won't be as big or spectacular, but the bush animals will be happier. And we will be keeping true to Honour in respecting the land and its inhabitants rather than fulfilling our desire for a flaming bonfire. Back to preparations. Although the Blot itself will be at the park, the days beforehand many of the Kindred come by to help prepare the foods. We decorate my place with greenery (gum trees take precedence over fir trees here, and some of them smell glorious. There's a particular one that fills the place with the smell of honey, and its large creamy blossoms look so pretty). We clean from top to bottom - my home is usually the gathering place for our Kindred. I have a huge yard and the paddocks around which make it ideal for big, noisy, celebrations. So in a way it has become the Kindred Hall. For the major Blots it has become traditional to scrub it down, tidy it up, and make it a place worthy of receiving the Aesir. Once it has been cleaned and the Godhi and Gydhja have blessed it, we get down to the cooking and ceremonial trappings. The tablecloths and candleabra are washed and polished, the bowls and platters cleaned, the food prepared. Everything happens here over the week before Midsumar with a constant flow of people through at all hours. I love this - there are Huscarls outside sparring and the Godhi and Gydhja pacing about muttering as they work out how they will run the ceremony this year. Kids are everywhere underfoot, tasting the food and demanding new sagas and riddles. I have always considered this time before the feast and Blot as representative of the time we are in now, the summar time of activity and industry, that comes before the sleeping time of winter - just as the summar solstice heralds the journey into winter. Our Kindred holds two celebrations most years - a small one on the actual eve itself that is mainly a simple Blot to Suna and Baldur, and then, those years that Midsumar falls during the week, we have our big feast on the weekend before or after it. It is at the feast itself that we hold the formal Blot and make our symbel oaths for the coming six months. The feast itself starts early afternoon. First, the younger children gather vegetarian offerings from the feast (usually some porridge or bread and some mead) and make an offering to the spirits of the area that they might bless our feast rather than curse it. The Godhi and Gydhja then do divination for the coming six months - for some of the Kindred they read the bones, others it will be rune stones, or natural augery. Everyone hopes to have a fortuitous foretelling, but even a less than advantageous one is taken as a gift of foreknowledge from the All-Father, and thanks are always offered. Then the fun begins. We light the barbie and start roasting the meat, warming the vegetables, and snack on the platters of fruit. There are many tests of physical ability - from spear throwing to shield tossing (last year someone almost lost his head in this one - too much mead!), a bit of archery, riddle competitions, singing (there is always a lot of singing - some of it is even good...until the mead has flowed a little too freely), and lots of story-telling. This time, before Sunna sets, is seen as a time for intimate devotions so many take the opportunity to make personal offerings to their Patrons, laying corn dollies and carved items in the fire to carry their prayers to the Aesir. With twilight comes the retelling of Baldur's Death. In our tradition Baldur is slain at Midsumar by his blind brother, Hodur. The Aesir of light dies and the Aesir of dark takes his place to rule the following six months until Baldur is reborn after Vali slays Hodur at Jul. After that there are some songs to Suna who's gradual decline begins with sunset. As darkness falls we gather about a separate barbeque that has been fired up with sacred woods. This fire is our Blot fire, and is not used for the cooking or feasting. Here we offer formal Blot to Baldur and Sunna. We begin with the Hallowing of the sacred area. Our Godhi runs the Midsumar Blot and the Gydhja does the Midvintar. The Godhi uses the ceremonial Hammer and calls upon the four cardinal points, and above and below to hallow and hold the Steading. Following the Hallowing he calls upon Suna, asking her to join us and partake of our feast that it might help strengthen her, and Baldur, since this is also a Blot to honour his name and his death. The ancestors and spirits are then called upon to join us as well. Next the Godhi signs the mead horn (with the Hammar) and fills it with holy mead and the energy that has been raised. This is offered up to Suna and Baldur to be blessed and infused with their might. Following this the horn is passed around, sunwise, and we all offer our own blessings and drink, taking into us the power of Suna and Baldur and reestablishing the union between our Aesir Patrons and ourselves. For we are the Kindred. It is important that some mead should remain within the horn when it returns to the Godhi (often the Gydhja follows the horn about the circle topping it up as it empties!) and this remnant is then added to the blessing bowl. It carries the might of Suna and Baldur, the power infused into it by the Godhi and Hammer, and the desires and wishes of all the Kindred. The Godhi further blesses the mead and uses a twig of rosemary to stir it nine times (once for each of the noble virtues which are recited with each stir and an invocation of Suna and Baldur's names). The blessing bowl is offered to Suna and Baldur, and then, using the rosemary, the mead is sprinkled over the Kindred and all items that need blessing. This year I am dedicating my new rune stones. The Godhi then gifts the remainder to the spirits of the area. Formal thanks are offered to the Aesir, the ancestors, and the spirits for joining us. They are invited to participate in the feast and celebrations to follow, and then the Godhi leaves the rosemary to burn on the fire, and the fire to burn out (safely, of course). Now is the time for the feasting to begin. We all move back to the feasting area, the food is served, and the party gets underway. Serious drinking usually breaks out among those who restrained themselves during the daylight hours (though a few hard-heads have usually managed to get well soused by now). The children usually end up worn out and curled up on blankets by the tables while we adults gather around and offer symbel. The mead horn is fully charged and does the rounds as the Kindred offer up oaths for the coming six months, boasts for the past year, praise of each other (especially those who have gone out of their way to help others), and much teasing and jesting. This is the time we reestablish our bonds as kith and kin. Those whose burdens have grown to heavy share them and their brothers and sisters provide solace and practical assistance. Last Midsumar my husband became a foster father to a Kindred member's son - the boy has lived with us for most of the year in fits and starts while his father travels the country seeking work. This year we will be renewing our pledge to our brother to care for his son as our own even though our brother has found local employment. It takes time to build a solid foundation once more. The Kindred gathered this week to convert a portion of the verandah into a bed-sit so that our brother has a home with his son. In return he will help us out on the property on the weekends. What goes around comes around - 10 years ago it was my husband and I that needed the helping hand. This is what a Kindred is - an extended family that cares for its own so that society is not left to carry the burden. And in doing so we strengthen the ties of love, commitment, honour, respect, and responsibility that are so important to a family and to a community.
"The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturlson"
The beginning of the story is this, that Baldur the Good dreamed great and perilous dreams touching his life. When he told these dreams to the Aesir, then they took counsel together: and this was their decision: to ask safety for Baldur from all kinds of dangers. And Frigg took oaths to this purport, that fire and water should spare Baldur, likewise iron and metal of all kinds, stones, earth, trees, sicknesses, beasts, birds, venom, serpents. And when that was done and made known, then it was a diversion of Baldur's and the Aesir, that he should stand up in the Thing, and all the others should some shoot at him, some hew at him, some beat him with stones; but whatsoever was done hurt him not at all, and that seemed to them all a very worshipful thing. But when Loki Laufeyarson saw this, it pleased him ill that Baldur took no hurt. He went to Fensalir to Frigg, and made himself into the likeness of a woman. Then Frigg asked if that woman knew what the Aesir did at the Thing. She said that all were shooting at Baldur, and moreover, that he took no hurt. Then said Frigg, "Neither weapons nor trees may hurt Baldur. I have taken oaths of them all." Then the woman asked, "Have all things taken oaths to spare Baldur?" And Frigg answered, "There grows a tree-sprout alone westward of Valhall: it is called Mistletoe. I thought it too young to ask the oath of." Then straightway the woman turned away. But Loki took Mistletoe and pulled it up and went to the Thing. Hodur stood outside the ring of men, because he was blind. Then spake Loki to him, "Why dost thou not shoot at Baldur?" He answered, "Because I see not where Baldur is. And for this also, that I am weaponless." Then said Loki, "Do thou also after the manner of other men, and show Baldur honor as the other men do. I will direct thee where he stands; shoot at him with this wand." Hodur took Mistletoe and shot at Baldur, being guided by Loki: the shaft flew through Baldur, and he fell dead to the earth. And that was the greatest mischance that has ever befallen among gods and men. Then, when Baldur was fallen, words failed all the Aesir, and their hands likewise to lay hold of him. Each looked at the other, and all were of one mind as to him who had wrought the work, but none might take vengeance, so great a sanctuary was in that place. But when the Aesir tried to speak, then it befell first that weeping broke out, so that none might speak to the others with words concerning his grief. But Odin bore that misfortune by so much the worst, as he had most perception of how great harm and loss for the Aesir were in the death of Baldur. Now when the gods had come to themselves, Frigg spake, and asked who there might be among the Aesir who would fain have for his own all her love and favor - let him ride the road to Hel, and seek if he may find Baldur, and offer Hel a ransom if she will let Baldur come home to Asgard. And he is named Hermodr the Bold, Odin's son, who undertook that embassy. Then Sleipnir was taken, Odin's steed, and led forward; and Hermodr mounted on that horse and galloped off.
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Primary Article - November-December 2005: Saulegriza, the Lithuanian Solstice
Secondary Article - Kupoliu Svente - the Lithuanian Midsummer
Secondary Article - Ta Kat' Agrous Dionysia - The Rural Dionysia
Secondary Article - History's Eye: A Number of Winter Festivals
~ The Festival of Sokar & The Rebirth Celebration of Nehebkau
~ Yuletide
~ Dies Natalis Solis Invicti
~ Haloa & Lenaea
~ Victory Feast of Horus
Secondary Article - Celtic Path - The Winter Solstice
Secondary Article - Holy Day: Yuletide in the Home of an Irish Saxon
Return to the Index of articles for Seasonal Festivals
