While I’ve had many experiences with Mani, Sunna has always seemed more remote. Perhaps She truly is less concerned (or interested) in the intimate workings of humanity than Mani, or perhaps it is simply that I am the consummate night person and relate better to Her brother. Those times I have called to Her, I’ve experienced the energy of Her presence as bright, fiery, forceful, and dense… there is weight and power, controlled might in all She does.

Sunna is sometimes called Sol, and the sun is the living embodiment of Her power.  She must have been immensely important to our ancestors; anyone living an agriculturally focused lifestyle (i.e. farmers) would be, especially before industrialization, utterly dependent on Her for a good harvest. As my colleague Sophie Oberlander has noted in The Jotunbok, Sunna’s presence in the heavens also has tremendous eschatological import: Her capture by the wolf Skoll is one of the signs of impending Ragnarok. More than that though, Sunna’s power is one of the building blocks of an ordered, healthy, whole society. Her sister Sinthgunt is associated with healing (She is mentioned in the Merseburg charm as having healing power), and in a way, Sunna might also be said to have healing power. As the Sun She brings health and vitality. As the sun is made of heat and fire, so Sunna’s power has the potential to hallow, just as all fire has the potential to cleanse and consecrate. She drives out metaphysical darkness and decay as Her sister drives out disease. “She makes the world holy and by doing so defines the inangard, the sacred enclosure of a healthy community.”

Scandinavian winters were and are long, tedious, and hard. The lengthening presence of the Sun in Her daily voyage across the sky must have been a welcome sight to our ancestors as winter turned slowly into spring. As Sophie Oberlander points out:

Many of the holy tides, the holidays celebrated within both Heathenry and Neo-Paganism, revolve around the yearly cycle of the Sun and Her control of the earthly seasons. …today, we may not be bound to cycles of the seasons in the same way our ancestors were, but we can still benefit from a certain mindfulness of the Sun’s cycles. Most of us live busy, harried lives made all the busier by the supposed convenience of modern technology. The rhythm of our days is largely governed by Sunna’s cycle across the heavens: we rise in the morning, work throughout the day and seek our rest as She disappears into the Western horizon. Without Her life-giving light and warmth, the earth would be a barren, frozen, lifeless rock. Technology enables us to forget about Her for a time, but when all is said and done, we are still dependent on Her for nourishment. Modern science has even proven that some people will suffer physically, mentally, and emotionally if they do not receive enough of Her life giving rays (SAD, or seasonal affective disorder). In our rush through our work day, many of us who ignore the rhythm She sets for us end up overworked, over-stressed, and ill.

Sunna is our Pace-Setter. She orders our days just as She did for our ancestors. She is our defender, teaching us how to maintain health and well-being even in the midst of industry and endeavor. …Looking to Her to be our guide as we strive to maintain a healthy work-life balance is a subtle way of nourishing spiritual awareness in the sturm and drang of our daily, often numbingly mundane lives. That after all, is one of Her greatest lessons: nourishing a sense of the holy both within and without. Sunna teaches us to create the holy in our lives by managing our time, wisely, mindfully, and well.

Artwork by Thorskegga Thorn.