Heimdall's Aett · Rune 11
Isa
“Ice, Stillness” · sound: I
Keywords
ice · stillness · stasis · concentration · self-control · patience · clarity
What Isa means
Isa is the rune of ice, stillness, and concentrated self. In the Norse creation myth, fire and ice were the two primal forces from which all of existence emerged, with ice representing the static, contracting force of Niflheim. Isa speaks to periods of frozen inactivity, where no forward progress is possible and patience is the only counsel. In Heathen practice, Isa can represent the ego, the core self that resists dissolution, as well as the necessary stillness that precedes all great action. Like winter, the ice of Isa is a season, not a permanent state.
Isa in the historical rune poems
Three medieval poems preserve the meanings of the runes — the oldest testimony we have.
Ice is very cold and immeasurably slippery; it glistens as clear as glass and most like to gems; it is a floor wrought by the frost, fair to look upon.
Ice we call the broad bridge; the blind man must be led.
Ice is bark of rivers, and roof of the wave, and destruction of the doomed.
Correspondences
Deities
Verdandi · Skadi
Element
ice
Color
white