Examining Ar in 2023

Ar Year, Jera Year, Nordic Animist Year, Hearthside Blog, Fertile Year

The last few years I have been doing something with Rune Rasmussen’s Nordic Animist Year and using his years along with the Rune poems to create a sort of Farmer’s Almanac type prediction for the year. Now, I had been doing that in about February the last couple years, so that I had a taste of the year already but had not got too far into it. Unfortunately, time has gotten away from me this year. I have a lot more Heathen and non-Heathen commitments this year, and also with it being the Year of Aun/Unn, I have had a divided focus.

So now it is nearing the end of May and I am just writing this. The Ar year, “Ar” being the Jera rune. It is the “Year” Year. Happy Year?

But more seriously, this year marks the end of a period of stagnance in the Runic Animist Years. We had a 3 year period of stagnance (think covid in this case) and we are emerging. The Ar year is about the return to greenery and abundance. We can expect warmer weather, better crops, and coming out of our stagnance on the society level as well. (At least if this pseudoscience I am adopting for funsies can be believed. This is a long-term experiment at best.) But let us look at the rune poems to see what is going on.

Swedish Rune Poem:

År i blade vidast. i.e. Åhr öfwer alt godt.

Year is richest in leaves. i.e. Year makes all well.

As we can see here it is talking about the green growth and the return from stagnance that I was mentioning.

Icelandic Rune Poem:

Ár er gumna góði
ok gott sumar
algróinn akr.

Plenty is boon to men
and good summer
and thriving crops.

The Icelandic version in particular focuses on the crops and the abundance mankind will receive in that regard.

Norwegian Rune Poem:

ᛅ Ár er gumna góðe;
get ek at ǫrr var Fróðe.

ᛅ Ar
Plenty is a boon to men;
I say that Frodi was generous.

Here is where it gets interesting because it mentions Frodi, whose story has also been equated with Freyr. This seems to suggest a special amount of abundance that goes beyond the ordinary and seems especially significant with it being the Aun/Unn Year.

Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem:

ᛄ Ger byþ gumena hiht, ðonne God læteþ,
halig heofones cyning, hrusan syllan
beorhte bleda beornum ond ðearfum.

Ger
Summer is called joyful, when God lets,
Holy heaven’s king – shining fruits
Be born from earth for rich and poor.

In the Anglo-Saxon version the focus is shifted away from Frodi/Freyr to the Christian God, which is telling. The more literal translation of the end of this passage is that the earth “bleeds” to yield [fruits] for rich and poor. I liked the translation above better though, because it makes sense to me that this is some sort of metaphor for the pregnancy of the fertile earth. It is clearly meant poetically as the line has the alliteration of the “b” sounds going on as well. A lot of translations read the line as the earth “suffering” rather than giving birth, which seems like a more Christian metaphor that is out of place despite the Christian God being substituted for Frodi/Freyr.

Now I want to look at trends for what was happening during this same cycle 19 years ago, both agriculturally in Sweden and Canada, and also politically on the world scale, so that we might extrapolate what to expect in an Ar Year.

Looking at historical data for Sweden for 2004, there is not much of note that occurred this year. The highest temperature of the year was in August and was about 30 degree Celsius. We can also see that there was more precipitation this year than the previous few years. Potentially this improved agriculture, but there were some reforms to agriculture that occurred around this time as well, so the data is unclear.

Moving to looking at Canada in 2004, there was also a lot of precipitation in the form of rain and snow, particularly in Alberta. However, BC experienced a lot of summer wildfires due to drought conditions. What really caught my eye for Canada was a news story comparing the January 2023 polar vortex that hit the prairies to similar cold temperatures in the winter of 2004. Is this a recurring trend of the Ar year? I looked back to 1985 and found similar stories. I am also seeing the dry Spring weather of 2023 compared to 1966 (another Ar year.)

Looking at global events in 2004, the so-called “War on Terror” following the period of stagnance caused by 9-11 has now moved into Iraq in 2003, making the focus in 2004 shift to acquisition of resources (oil). This is also a big year for discussion of climate change and renewable energy technology. And lots happens in space news, including landing on Mars. The global economy was surging but at risk of imbalance.”Nearly all economies experienced an increase in unemployment or under-employment in the past few years of global slowdown, and employment always lags other aspects of a recovery.” The narrative sounds familiar. There is a spike in inflation, and while the year itself looks good economically, there are warning signs of a larger issue.

So what does all this mean? It seems that agriculture may actually be good in an Ar Year, both in Canada and Sweden due to higher than normal precipitation. However, there is also a chance of drought and wildfires in parts of Canada. The Earth certainly does “bleed” to yield fruit. Already we are seeing wildfires across Western Canada, despite the blizzard conditions of January of this year. On a larger scale we see the effects of coming out of a period of stagnance, in this case covid, as economic growth in fields that are affected largely by what caused the stagnance in the first place. However we also see a renewed optimism (illustrated by the investment in space research in 2004) which leads to growth in other fields and a growing economy. This growth is cautionary though, because we need to take measures of sustainability to avoid the pitfalls of another recession. Currently we see the staggering inflation occurring, and it is not sustainable. 2023 is a year of plenty for us, but we must keep our eyes to the future and invest in sustainability both for our families and communities by preserving what comes to us this year for leaner years, and also on a larger scale, in hopes of mitigating the climate and economic crises which are looming.

In a way this is fitting for this Aun/Unn year, as it is about a resetting in the way we run things, in order to improve our lives and the lives of all beings in the future.