My Ritual - a Futhark Journey
After many years of working with the runes in a more traditional way, rune readings, vision quests, meditation, invocation and evocation of the runic energies, essentially a more magical and divinatory way, I felt something was missing, it felt like I hadn’t moved passed these basic meanings of Feoh meant cattle, Ur meant strength and so on…
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After all these years It felt like I was just scratching the surface of what the runes were. Then there was the Odin slap. “So you want to learn the runes do you?!” Knowing something of how Odin achieved his understanding of the runes I was a little reluctant to answer his question… a wise pause and I responded, “yes, but hanging from Yggdrasil, pierced, hungry and thirsty for nine days isn’t for me”. Time passed, thoughts exchanged, the Norns arrived to also offer to teach me and then we decided upon the ritual… for me to give myself to myself I would perform a 250 day ritual, 10 days fully immersed in the energy of each rune, one after the other.
Everything in every moment for 250 days became an intense learning experience of the rune I was in, everyday I’d invoke the runic energies through chanting, making and wearing each rune. A bit like putting on a filter for the day where you can only see, act and experience the world through a certain lens. Imagine for the next 10 days you’ll only see the world through the lens of happiness, the first few days might be great, learning and experiencing happiness, being a beacon of happiness, but what about the day you feel sad and put on your happy face, does this end up creating a happy reality or push you further away from the feelings that made you sad.
What if you can only act through happiness and your work colleague confides in you that their dog just died and your response is “I’m so happy for you”. Suddenly this lens becomes inappropriate or more of a barrier than a filter unless you give yourself to yourself, to go where is scary, hard or difficult to challenge you thoughts, feeling and beliefs about your understanding of yourself and the world around you.
So I gave myself to myself, I saw through the lens of the runes where parts of myself where placed within the structure of the runes, tangled, messy and confused I tried to look to the runes to help me understand what was happening to see where they were placed appropriately and inappropriately. But the usual associations I.e. Feoh means wealth and cattle no longer served me I needed better guidance from these runes, through mediation, the help of the Norns, Gods and Nature I delved deeper into the meaning of Feoh, wealth became “what has value and importance”, Ur, strength became “to have the constitution to allow the land to shape me as much as I shape it and what supports me”, Thorn protection, became “a protective filter for growth”… and so on through the runes I was now resourced with more relative meanings and questions to help me unravel the intensity of the experiences within the ritual. I was beginning to unravel, lose the armour and discover the fundamental forces of myself, the runes and the natural world.
My ritual saw relationships end, moving across country, friendships and loved ones die but in beautiful synchronicity to the Wyrd and the runes I was invoking. Well I thought it was beautiful until the day my Grandad died and I was working with, what I thought at the time, the rune of emotional stability. Oh how I raged at Odin, “how can you expect me to be emotionally stable now!” But that was the point, I wasn’t. I was trying to achieve a certain state, get some runic boon, told myself if I understand the rune then I can always be whatever that rune had to offer. I had missed the point. There wasn’t a positive or negative side to the rune, something to achieve. I realised each rune was a breadth of energy and feeling to move within depending on the situation. I saw the value in breaking a much as being strong, suddenly the last turn of the labyrinth opened up, I felt what I had been looking for in the runes and they became a part of my very essence, relevant, relatable and magical.
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Although in hindsight after 250 days and the intensity of the life events that unfolded, 9 days hanging on Yggdrasil felt like the better option, however, the Futhark Journey was born!