Runes 401 - Rune Rituals - A Rune for 2017

Last year, I chose my first Rune for the year - Thurisaz.  For reasons I won't go into here, this Rune turned out to be a wonderful choice and it got me through some very tough and unexpected challenges.  This also prompted me to make choosing a Rune for the year an annual occurrence.

My purpose for choosing an annual Rune is to use its unique and inherent meaning and power as a guide for the next twelve months.  Although I say I choose the Rune, it feels much more like the Rune chooses me.  However, it is my intention and ritual that helps to identify the appropriate Rune.  Whereas last year, I chose my annual Rune under the guise of an individual Rune, and did a three-Rune draw to help me understand how to use Thurisaz's energy, this year, I want to share more of the process or ritual of discovering which Rune will be my annual Rune for 2017.

The ritual is simple, but takes time and a quiet space.  It started off moving rather quickly, but slowed as I went and ended up taking me almost an hour to complete.

If you can do this ritual outside, I would recommend that.  It's too cold outside where I live right now to do that, so I sat in my room on my bed with my Runes spread out in front of me.  Some Runes were easy to remove from consideration, starting with Jera - my guiding Rune always - and Thurisaz because it was my Rune for 2016.  I set aside nine other Runes relatively quickly.  I had no scientific or other reason for removing these Runes other than intuition.  As I ran my hand over the spread of Runes, it was just a sense that caused me to remove these Runes from the process.

There was a second set that I removed because they felt more personal to me.  That is to say that I believe they will serve a more personal and singular issue purpose rather than guiding my overall year.  Allowing my hand to hover over each one several times for as long as a minute, I whittled down my choices even further, removing six more Runes.

At this point, in terms of numbers, I had removed two aetts.  With the remaining eight Runes, I held each one in my hands (resting in my left, covered by my right), closed my eyes and reflected on the Rune's meaning and the sensation I felt from the energy in my hand.  Through this part of the ritual, I discarded five more Runes.

That left me with three, each of which are pretty different from each other - Nauthiz (need, necessity), Eihwaz (yew tree, inner strength), and Sowilo (sun, feminine energy).  I honestly had no idea which one was "the one".  And the ritual became less consistent with regard to deliberating.  I laid them out in a line and moved them around, changing order, and position, trying to determine what story they were telling me.

I grabbed Nauthiz and held it tight in my left hand; squeezing it.  I looked at it in my hand for several minutes, occasionally closing it, and sometimes closing my eyes too.  Nauthiz was not it.  It was not giving off a strong energy, though it did remind me that my annual Rune needs to address a larger need that I have.

Next, I held Eihwaz.  I thought this was going to be the Rune, because I remembered how it helped me avoid a panic attack just over two years ago.  It's ability to keep me calm in the face of a major challenge was stunning.  As I held it in my right hand and wrapped my index finger around its perimeter, I realized Eihwaz is a special Rune for me, but that it already had its very specific place and role for me.

That left Sowilo.  Interlocking my fingers around it as it pressed between my palms, I knew I had arrived at what I need for the coming year.  Sowilo is not a Rune that comes up for me very often, which makes this even more meaningful; it's almost as if it was waiting for this moment in time to reveal its magic to me.  It is especially telling that it comes on the heels of Thurisaz.  Where Thurisaz seems to represent masculine qualities, especially linkages to Thor, Sowilo puts forth feminine energy.  It seems that, at least in part, Sowilo offsets the year of Thurisaz and balances out the two years with a different kind of power.  It is that feminine strength that I will carry forward this year, with qualities of caring, thoughtfulness, and kindness.

Runes for the Equinox

Equinox Skies

At the end of last week, we celebrated the Equinox (spring up north, and autumn down south), a time of year with which I have long been fascinated.  Twelve hours of daylight and darkness everywhere on the planet.  Balance.  I find this to be an incredibly important time for us to pause and think about the balance in our own lives, about what it means, how we find it, and what we can do to maintain it.

To that end, I asked the Runes for their guidance in understanding balance in our lives.  I drew - Sowilo, Raido, and Othala.  This response gave me pause to sit with the Runes for a while, so that I could fully understand the wisdom they offered.

Sowilo is a powerful first Rune to draw, especially given that our launching point is the equinox, which implies balance between light (the sun/day) and dark (the night). However, the message here relates to energy, specifically the feminine energy that the sun holds within Germanic cultures.  Sowilo reminds us that in a world dominated by masculine energies - assertiveness, aggression, and personal drive - the feminine gets relegated to the periphery.  It is those feminine features - caring for others, artistic creativity, time for relaxation and reflection - that balance the masculine.  Sowilo's Rune poem (Old English version) also makes clear the importance of navigating the seas using the sun.  I find this to be an incredibly powerful metaphor for society today.  As we navigate our world, we must be guided by the feminine aspects of it.  Notice I did not say ruled.  However, that does not mean that we should be ruled by masculine powers either, rather that the two must balance each other.

I find Raido, in second position, to be quite intriguing.  In general, Raido relates to riding or travel, but it implies doing so on a horse's back. What this suggests is that, to find balance, sometimes we need a new perspective or to have a new experience.  Both of these ideas fit very well with the notion of balance.  If you are doing something that is throwing you off balance, you have two options - try to do it differently (look at it from a different perspective) or try something new, something completely different.  Raido assures us that it is easy to theorize about things, about how things could or should be, but it is quite another to climb on the metaphorical horse and let it take you in a new direction or reconfigure your current path.  In this way, Raido tell us that something has to change in order for balance to be realized.

The final Rune is Othala, which gave me the most pause in trying to discern how it relates to balance.  Then, it became very clear for two very important reasons.  First, why do we need balance in our lives, to have a "happy home", to be content .  Othala as the homestead and inheritance Rune reminds us that, if we are out of balance, it affects all aspects of our life and all those in our lives, especially the people to whom we are closest - our family.  Second, our children (those who inherit from) inherit not only our finances ( money, property, and the like), but our morals/values and, in general, our actions.  If we teach them that masculine aspects of the world are more important than the feminine, we are passing on our own imbalance to them.  If we never teach them to try something new, that it's okay to make mistakes or how to learn from them and gain a new perspective, we pass on our imbalance.  Changing the imbalance or, more appropriately, focusing on finding balance, begins now, with us.

Runes 102 - Book Reviews - Northern Mysteries and Magick

"Everything in this book must be tested in the reader's own experience."  This statement, in Lionel Snell's forward, is a pretty good summation of Freya Aswynn's book Northern Mysteries and Magick: Runes and Feminine Powers, at least as far as trying out her take on divination, Rune magic and such are concerned.

While I confess I liked this book more than Thorsson's Futhark: A Handbook of Rune Study, I had some of the same struggles with it.  Once again, I found myself wanting to understand many of her statements and conclusions.  I am not saying she is wrong; in fact, she is well-versed and knowledgeable, but there are no citations, few references, and many statements that seem to be nothing more than her opinion or based on her experience.  Now, I know this book is largely that - based on her experience - which is why I liked the the Snell quote, but I feel she misses many opportunities to allow her readers to dig deeper into understanding the Runes on their own terms.

After writing so many notes in the margin asking if things were true or how she knows certain things, I was surprised to find a detailed explanation of Odin's encounters with Gunlodd and Rind near the end of the book.  I don't view these as good examples of feminine power, rather how Odin used them to get what he needed.

I had hoped for more consistency throughout the book in understanding the role of feminine powers in Rune use.  In the same vein, although I understand why Aswynn included a chapter on Norse gods, I would have like to see a chapter on the goddesses come first, rather than having them appear as part of a larger chapter on feminine mysteries right at the end of the book.  Moreover, at least two goddesses were missing that I think could have been included, Sif and Sigyn.  For me, Sif is a fertility goddess, related to making mead, while Sigyn represents loyalty and comforts those who are sorrowful or in pain..  I view both of these goddesses as care givers, a very important and powerful feminine trait.

That said, there were many things I enjoyed about the book.  For example, I like her perspective and how she told her story about coming to understand and use the Runes.  Even though I have no affinity to astrology and having nothing to do with occult knowledge,  I appreciate that these are part of and that they inform her experience.  In addition, she introduces a variety of divination methods, including a few different options using drawn wheels with consciousness levels laid out around them; worth considering for those interested in trying new ways of deepening their connection to or understanding of the Runes.  Much of what she presents is her own design, but through seeing how she interprets and uses Runes and creates casts, we can improve our own understanding of and ability to work with the Runes.

With regard to her individual Rune interpretations, I leave that for each reader to decide, because whether or not you agree with her explanations for each Rune, reading and processing them is how you will learn to define each Rune's meaning for yourself.  I will, however, give one example of an interpretation that resonated with me, because I found it empowering and overflowing with the feminine energy I was looking for when I got this book.

The Rune is Raido, the Rune of riding, implying travel, whether physical, mental, emotional or spiritual.  Aswynn truly capitalizes on this idea and takes it many steps further, likening Raido not only to movement or motion, but to taking charge of a situation and moving it forward in a directed and conscious way.  She uses phrases like, "to move within one's natural limits", "establishing control over one's circumstances", and "moral responsibility and integrity".  Perhaps my favorite and the most inspiring line in this description of Raido was, "working with the force of Raido means to be in charge of one's own path in life."  How profound to connect the riding Rune with your life's path on all levels.

That is empowering! That is what I hoped and needed to get out of this book.  The feminine aspects are there; sometimes they are just a little hard to find.  Still, I consider this an important book for any library dedicated to studying and understanding the Runes.