Runes 302 - Interviews - Kelley Harrell

I am especially pleased to share with you an interview with Kelley Harrell, owner of Soul Intent Arts.  Kelley has been sharing her rune work with me (and many of you) for at least five years, though her practice extends well beyond that.  I hope you enjoy getting to know her a little bit better.  I know I did.

How did you discover the Runes?
I read about them in 8th grade literature, like so many of my generation did.  I was introduced to the Elder Futhark as living items of power by a friend when I was 19.  It was love at first cast.

How long have you been working with them?  How do you use them?
I started working with the Elder Futhark enthusiastically at 19 years old.  I worked with the runes for years, though the resources that were available were very limited and very limiting.  I felt connected to the staves, though not to any interpretation of them that I read.  I thought that meant I was doing something wrong, so I walked away form them as a formal study for a few years.  They popped up in my mind and life, continually, so when I decided to commit to the staves and forgo texts on them, everything came alive.  I'm so glad there are better resources of them now.

What is your favorite way to connect with the Runes?
My path is animistic and shamanic, so asking the spirit of the stave I'm working with to step into my form is very powerful.  I find that embodying them is more sustaining and informing on personal needs than using them in a more traditional divinatory way.  For me, divination isn't about predicting outcomes, rather it's about gathering as much insight as possible about present dynamics, so I can make more informed decisions about how I go forward.  When I hold an intention in mind and embody the stave, I feel its counsel on how to hold my awareness.  It gives me a focus to sustain throughout whatever I need.

How do you use the Rues in your everyday life?  For guidance?  To guide others?
I find that I use them differently for self, as opposed to using them on behalf of others.  For personal use, I connect with them best through galdr, one at a time, and shapeshifting with them as I noted before (in the previous question).  When I work with another person, I ask Heimdallr to oversee the session and give him and the runes access to my awareness, so that when I draw runes for the person, I feel the needed connection to each one as I touch it.  I see the story it wants to relate to the intention that was set forward.  The hardest part of working with others using runes is that they don't sugar coat anything and they are more about giving a perspective on the intention, rather than dictating how to go forward in the intention.

Is there one experience that you've had with the Runes that was especially rewarding, engaging, moving or unexpected?  Will you share it with us?
It wasn't a singular experience, rather a life dynamic that persisted about a year and a half.  I worked with the runes frequently to understand the various currents that were happening during this really difficult time.  I asked them for insight about the true intentions, the best focus I could hold at specific points of the progression, the best focus to take into various meetings, the best way to deal with specific people involved.  Prior to this dynamic, I went tot he runes for insight about diverse needs, usually immediate in timing and short-lived involvements.  There was no longevity to watch how the insights would play out.  This particular dynamic lasted so long and provided such detailed insights over a continuum, I came away even ore convinced of the power of the runes.

The runes were frank, as they always are, though they warned me about hidden motives, things that weren't at all evident in the face-to-face interactions, but became evident as things progressed.  They informed me that the direction was going away from the intended focus of the dynamic.  I truly felt more informed going into meetings because of what the runes taught me along the way.  I sustained my relationship with them as part of a difficult time and they helped me stand in my power throughout it.  They didn't change the outcome; they changed me and how I interacted with the whole ordeal.

What else would you like to share with us about your work with the Runes?
I undervalued the runes for a long time.  Though they spoke to me immediately upon meeting them, I didn't realize their value through everyday life until I committed to them, so to speak.  In shamanism, everything is about direct relationship and that been no less true about the runes.  I really do take them everywhere with me.

Thank you, Kelley, for taking the time to share with us.

Kelley's Bio
Kelley is the author of Teen Spirit Guide to Modern Shamanism, Gift of the Dreamtime, and several other books.  Her shamanic practice is Soul Intent Arts, through which she mentors others on the path of modern shaman.  She has written The Weekly Rune, since 2012.

Runes 101 - Runes in History - Tacitus

Runes cast on a white cloth

When I am asked how I can justify Rune casting for divination as an historical part of honoring or worshiping Norse Gods, my simple answer is that I don't.

The reason I don't is twofold.  First, I don't feel the need to justify the ways that I connect with my goddesses and gods to anyone.  Second, I never claimed that this was an ancient approach, though there tends to be this automatic assumption that I believe it to be so.

I am not a purist nor do I try to be.  Moreover, I struggle with the idea that I have to be one, because I disagree with the notion that a strict adherence to how I express my connection to the Norse goddesses and gods exists. More specifically, I disagree with the idea that, if I am doing something that isn't accepted as being from ancient times, I am wrong.  With regard to the Runes, what works for me is a simple acknowledgement that what I am doing is most assuredly not the exact way it was done in the past, rather that what I do is done from a position of respect.

Comments by Tacitus in his book Germania foster the situation.  It is the only known historical reference about casting by Germanic people and there are numerous translations of his description of it.  Still, however one translates Tacitus' writing, there is no mention of Runes, only of "cutting marks" into twigs cut from a fruit-bearing tree.  We don't know what the marks were or how they were interpreted.

What is especially interesting about Tacitus' explanation is that it has to be secondhand, because he doesn't appear to have traveled to Germania himself.  This might help explain the lack of detail in the casting description.

The idea that the marks might be some form of Runes is also brought into question by the fact that Tacitus lived from 56CE (CE = common era) to about 117CE, while the earliest runic inscriptions date to around 250CE.  That is not to say that the marks absolutely were not Runes, but it does reduce the likelihood significantly.  Then, there is the question of which Futhark was used or should be used.  Elder?  Younger?  Anglo-Saxon?  I don't think there is a right or wrong choice.

What do I take from Tacitus?  I take facts.  Some portion of Germanic people placed a high importance on divination.  To divine whatever answers they sought, they cut sticks from fruit-bearing trees and carved marks into them.  They threw the sticks onto a white cloth.  Someone of authority would invoke the gods, pick up three of the sticks, and interpret them.  If the interpretation was disagreeable, they wouldn't ask about it anymore that day.  If it was agreeable, they still required a sign of some sort to confirm it.

I incorporate many of these facts into my own practice and I am grateful that Tacitus gave us some insight into the ancient process.  However, I also recognize that the interpretations I make of the Runes I cast are based on the Rune Poems (composed in the 8th or 9th century) and that no other evidence for using Runes for divination can be found prior to the 1970s.  It would be wrong for me to say that my practice is based solely on historical ritual.  However, it would also be wrong to say it is an entirely new age thing.  Tacitus provides pieces, the Rune poems provide pieces, and information since the 1970s also provides pieces.

What's most important is that I do not take what I do lightly and I don't expect anyone else to use the Runes the exact same way that I do.

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.