Romancing the Runes

There's a little story to this one. So this morning I was in my morning devotional.  I pray to Sigyn each morning for healing, for a healthy community, for strength as well as softness where appropriate.  I love Her.  And I am working with Her to aid me in building and strengthening community.  She can be soft and loving, but also hard as nails when need be.  I've only seen her "slightly perturbed" once.  Do not wish to repeat. She stuck around this morning when Loki popped in and "encouraged" me to choose my next rune. She seems to have a "civilizing" effect on "the Boys".  I do think Sigyn and Frigga might be the only goddesses that could pull off calling Odin one of "the Boys". As I am doing this rune study, I have since the beginning asked for help from Odin.  It makes sense given the runes came from the tree, to Him, and then to us humans.  Need help with runes? Odin is the ultimate/obvious source. But I admit, I h...

It is a time of harvests. I went to a Lughnasadh ritual with the local ADF grove.  It was very nice and there was a lot of singing.  I like the singing. It reminds me I need to bring galdr back into our blots. Funny, the section I was reading in Futhark this morning has to do with galdr, meditation, and breath control.  Apparently I'm getting messages from all sides to increase my meditation work.  Even a demand from Loki yesterday.  I need to stop sleeping in so long and get up early to fit in more work before I start my work for the day. LOL But increasing from 0 minutes should be simple enough. But back to Harvests. I've been making a concerted effort to touch base again with my old stomping grounds in the pagan community.  I've gotten back on meetup.com and I'll be going to coffees again.  And I'm starting to get involved with new activities, like the ADF grove rituals and meetups. Yes, it's part of networking and community building, b...

I may be doing this rune in parts.  I decided to just pull a rune and dive in after all. I will also be including diagrams, in multiple colors, because I was half asleep last night and runes actually started dancing in my head.  I saw parts moving around to form new runes. I'm definitely going to be exploring that dancing aspect and how runes morph into other runes.  It's just going to take a while.  I'm still fuzzy and I've decided to let it gestate a bit. Funny that the first rune I start with is both the rune of Harvest and the rune of Creation or Rebirth. Initial impressions: Because I have worked a little with runes already I have a simple understanding of names and meanings. The obvious thing that pops out visually is the 2 smaller Kenaz symbols.  Kenaz simply is a rune for primal fire, the fire at the beginning of creation.  The symbols are off center and facing each other.  Unlike Ingwaz, the seed rune where the two Kenaz symbols ...

So, I've been getting "messages" about reading another book or two before I get started examining the runes. I'm still going to do that. I know I need more information, particular in regards to how the runes interact with each other. That information will be most helpful when doing divination. I'm going to take one rune a week.  Some runes may take two weeks, but the goal will be a week for each.   I'll check the available sources on how to interpret them and then add my own layers and insight into what they might each mean spiritually.  I really want to delve into the universal, spiritual evolution, aspect of the runes teachings. I'm also balancing how I want to progress. I'll give myself a few days to figure it out. It makes sense to take them in order and discuss the airts as they fall in the grid.  But I also really like the idea of choosing a rune randomly.  It won't follow the grid and it will be harder to figure out and focus on alignmen...

This is a spinoff from another blog I have where I have started ruminating on heathenism and specific deities.  I have some pieces on Sigyn and some devotional poetry that I have written. On this specific collection of entries I wanted to meditate on each individual rune, the 24 of the elder futhark. I may take forays into the younger and Anglo-Saxon as a way of layering or deepening the understanding of corresponding runes in different alphabets. The runes are something I have been coming back to over and over again over 20 years. I got my first deck in high school complete with the blank rune.  It was probably why I never really got deeply into them. My first instruction was very superficial.  In college, my first hearth priestess wanted us each to take up a form of divination in her initiation classes. I chose cards. She was very into the runes herself. And then over the years I have tripped over symbols in associations, fiction, and other magickal books.   So...