By Roberto Campus
The sun hangs high in the sky, and the fields shimmer with gold. It’s the time of fullness—of blooming flowers, pungent herbs, berry-stained fingers, and days that stretch past bedtime. Midsummer is a portal, a moment between bloom and harvest, between brightness and the inevitable waning.
And this is when I feel her most.
Freya: Flame of Beauty and Battle
Freya, Lady of Love and Battle. Bringer of life, fertility, death, and rebirth. Teacher of seiðr and sovereignty. The one who weeps for her lost love, yet charges ahead with her Valkyries, claiming the chosen dead from the battlefields – of war, or women and children lost to childbirth and femicide, bringing them to her golden hall, Sessrúmnir.
She is a paradox embodied: beauty and grief, desire and death, sweetness and steel. And in the heat of summer, her presence intensifies.
St. John’s Wort: The Herb of Light & Shadow
Maybe it’s the St. John’s Wort—Hypericum perforatum, with its tiny starlike blossoms that spill blood-red resin. It blooms just before or on the Solstice. Traditionally gathered on Midsummer’s Eve, it’s been used for centuries to ward off evil, protect against lightning, and summon courage. An herb of the sun—but also of shadow. In my practice, it belongs to Freya and her sisters, the Valkyries.
Perhaps because, like her, it carries both the balm and the blade.
St. John’s Wort is a threshold herb—used in rites of passage, and for the melancholy that follows initiation. I’ve hung it over doorways, brewed it as tea when grief lodged in my chest, steeped it in oil to shield sensitive souls and soothe night terrors. I think of it as a battleflower—not just because it’s strong, but because it helps us survive what we must face. Like grief, greed, power, and pain. While showing us a path to joy despite it all.
It’s the slow burn of ancestral memory and protection rising in the heat.
by Roberto Campus
Valkyries in the Summer Sky
The Valkyries ride thick in the air at Midsummer. Maybe you feel them? Not just as choosers of the slain, but as spirits who help us face the hardest truths.
I call on them when courage falters, when the world feels too loud, too unkind, when I don’t know what else to do. They remind me that tenderness is not a sign of weakness. That bravery can be quiet. That my voice is sacred, and I am not alone. They give strength to my throat when something must be said, and remind me: I will never go down without a fight.
Strawberries, Devotion & a Summer Solstice Offering
Among those who honor her, it’s well known: Freya adores strawberries. Red as blood, sweet as longing. They speak of passion and presence, and their short season reminds us that sweetness is fleeting—and all must decay.
Read more about Strawberries as a Sacred Food here.
Each time I buy them, I place one on her altar with honey and a whisper of thanks—for beauty, for pleasure, for the knowing that joy is holy, and outrage is sacred.
Throughout strawberry season, I collect the best berries from each batch and freeze them. At season’s end, I steep them in vodka with honey and herbs like St. John’s Wort, and rose petals—as an offering to give her each Friday throughout the year (after all, the word Friday comes from Freya).
A Simple Midsummer Devotion to Freya
Here is a simple way you can honor the goddess of love, beauty, battle, and rebirth at the Summer Solstice—or any Friday of the year.
– Gather St. John’s Wort on Midsummer morning (or use dried if needed).
– Listen to a sacred song.
My husband, Roberto Campus, known as Music of the Old Gods on SoundCloud is recording a full album for Freya. Here are some good ones to listen to.
The Golden Feather is one of the first that was released (this is a video)
The Divine War just came out today!)
– Brew SJW into a tea or begin an oil infusion.
– Light a candle and thank her for what she’s helped you survive.
– Offer her strawberries or roses.
– Ask what joy you’ve yet to reclaim. Ask what battle you’re ready to face—not with aggression, but with holy ferocity.
by Roberto Campus
Let This Solstice Be a Remembering
Of the fire in your heart.
And the hands that once lit flames in long-forgotten halls.
Of the yellow blossoms that rise in searing light.
Of Freya, lover, warrior, witch, who whispers:
You are not too much.
You are not too tender.
You were always meant to bloom this boldly.
Related Posts:
Saint John’s Wort: Shine your Light
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