The Eolh-sedge is mostly to be found in a marsh; it grows in the water and makes a ghastly wound, covering with blood every warrior who touches it.  Anglo-Saxon rune poem,

Runic and Heroic Poems of the Old Teutonic People by Bruce Dickins

Show Transcript

Episode #121 – Rooting with Algiz

I’m Kelley Harrell, author, animist, and creator of The Weekly Rune.  Soul Intent Arts is my spirit work practice, and you are listening to What in the Wyrd–my podcast in which I talk about runes, animism, soul tending, deathwalking, and how all of those are in relationship on my path.

Welcome to the podcast. If this is your first time listening, I’m pleased to have you. What in the Wyrd is part of a greater exploration of the Elder Futhark as animistic engagement through place-based relationship, which is to say I hold the runes as living animistic beings we are in relationality with through ecosystem, and possibly lineage. “Why?” you ask. I’ve worked with the runes for almost 40 years (mmm), with others for about 30, and for me the runes are very much alive and engaged in my everyday, as well as heavily coded into my ancestral relationships. So that means I have to be in good relationship with my ecosystem and human-persons of the American south settler culture, which means a lot of work. That’s my lens–what’s yours?

There are folx with me on this journey in my Runes for Change community, and also the folx who mentor with me in spirit work and soul tending practice. Most people I talk with express wanting community more than any other aspect of their animistic practice. If that’s what you are searching for, I encourage you to check out Runes for Change. This membership will give you access to regular gatherings shaped around various topics, as well as The Weekly Rune, the 12-month runes class, Runevaettir & Landvaettir on our Discord server, and other classes. We’re in the middle of a book club, reading my most recent book, From Elder to Ancestor, together. With your community membership you will also get early releases of this podcast (and the runecast), and other benefits through private sessions as you choose. Runes for Change allows me to do this work and allows others to benefit from it. You can find out more about both of these spaces and the other things I teach at my website, Soulintentarts.com 

And so… In this episode of working with the runes as verbs, we’re working with Algiz…

I hear people express this one all over the place, so you may hear it pronounced Elhaz, Ahlyeez, or Eolh, with the galdr Awl, Awlyee, Ail, Ailhaw, Ailha, Elha, Elhwa. I am not pretending to have any of that locked down. Don’t come at me.

Algiz is the second-to-last rune in the second aett. I want to set the stage for a moment, in how we arrive at this rune, which I think gives foreshadowing for where the Futhark goes from here. Through the first aett we’ve learned how to soul-in-form. We’ve learned about our consciousness and relationships, and what agency comes from putting those two things together. 

We are jolted from that sweet spot into the second aett, with hard change that requires us to learn to apply agency in community and to learn to cope with the impact of doing so. By the time we get to Algiz we’ve learned a lot about other forces that affect our agency, that our agency impacts others,  and that we need better skills for all of the aforementioned. And as much as skill, we need rooted, foundational relationship.

As an animist, I think that deep, dynamic relationship is required living, and as we move through the rest of the Futhark it becomes evident why that is. Humaning is hard, and this gentle encouragement we get moving through the traditional order of the Elder Futhark helps us to be better prepared for it, if we’re open to heeding its wisdom.

I think of Algiz as the first reminder since the first aett that we are rooted in ecosystem as primary community. It is not separate from our human-person community. Side note. I encounter clients all the time who say, “I don’t like humans. I prefer to work with animals/plants/geographical features/fill in the blank with some random Nature thing.” Which is all well and good. We have affinities. But we can’t throw any part of it out and call ourselves animists. Just something to think about.

Traditionally accepted as meaning “Elk,” and also a spiky “sedge grass,”  neither of which you would want to mess with, Algiz represents both as defensive beings, which is why this rune comes to us as protection. When I sit with this meaning, imagery, and action of Algiz, it means protected by ecosystem. And from an animistic awareness, that implies to be rooted deeply in our ecosystem. There’s our verb. To root.

When I say we are rooted in our ecosystem, I mean an active participant. We don’t just live in the house and pass through ecosystem on the way to the mailbox. We are ecosystem, but we don’t realize that in settler culture. We’ve been taught that Nature is outside. It’s out there. But if we don’t intimately know who we move among everyday, all day, how can we expect to be protected? I don’t think we can. In fact, I think that as long as we carry that schism from Nature, that broken path dynamic, that is, The Fall, the wrenching from indigeneity and animism, we aren’t and can’t be protected, because to be oblivious to our relationality with ecosystem is a base vulnerability. If we can’t recognize that we are Nature, we definitely can’t find kinship with Nature, other human persons, spirit persons, ourselves… and we definitely won’t try to find it with human persons we can other. It’s all connected.

So then how does Algiz bring protection? What action does Algiz challenge us to take, so that we can create protection? When we engage our ecosystem–not just liminally, but literally–when we make offerings, leave water and food (where safe and healthy to do so), when we sing and dance to honor our Nature Spirits, we re-enliven our family bonds with them. It’s really not that hard. When we engage them with reciprocity–not just making demands on them as “spirit allies”–I see that a lot. Many folx who are well-meaning in spiritual practice only take from Nature. They use it to anchor themselves after soul work but they never give back to Nature. But when we do these things to express that we see them, we hear them, they reach back to us. That bond is land-based identity. It is land-based protection. 

The example that I use in my book, Runic Book of Days is, “Regardless of how protected we are with Algiz, there is no allowance for resting on our laurels. The [rune] is also akin to that of a splayed hand, indicating “stay back.” We have to know our boundaries and how to enforce them.”

I recently taught a mini-class on using witch jars as protection. But I approached it in a more intentionally animistic way than I see other folx creating them. Let me back up a second. Witch jars are ways of containing intention in form to evoke some sort of change. That could be to increase prosperity, to cut ties with someone, for protection. There are infinite reasons to purpose a witch jar. The way that I approach them is through relationality. What I mean by that is, we began the course about a month before the actual gathering, focusing on relationship with our ecosystem, to engage who wanted to work with us in a protective capacity. And FTR, these jars were specifically protecting from the spiritual warfare on the planet right now. So, a pretty big job for our animistic magickal expression jars.

Truly though, think through your relationship to protection. What barriers do you feel around believing or experiencing that you are protected? And by whom? From what? What does safety feel like? Have you ever felt safe, and if not, how can you create that, perhaps by working with Algiz? 

If you’ve never felt safe, and even if you have, I propose a meeting of magicks with Algiz, in which you call the protection of this rune in to help you track back through your life to the first memory of safety outdoors. I do this often with clients under a different theming, because what I find is that most people do not recall feeling their safest with humans. A rare few do, but most express having felt safest playing in the rain, sitting with grandma’s cat, or picking blueberries in the woods. It’s overwhelmingly a memory that isn’t human-centric, but is Nature-centric.

“But Kelley, you said at the beginning of this podcast that humans are Nature. Why would our memories of first safety center Nature without humans?” I talk about this  conundrum in my most recent book, “From Elder to Ancestor,” in which I state that we are all born animists. Animism isn’t something we used to be. It’s something we are and lose sight of as we get older and are pressured to disregard our animistic awareness for more physically productive ways of moving in settler culture. Only a rare few of us were raised by adults, elders, who retained that animistic awareness. And as children, we knew that the adults in charge of our care had been disrupted from animistic awareness. And we knew that Nature had not. Nature did not Fall, and that is who we felt most safe with. That is where we experienced oneness.

And I dare say. Most of us still don’t experience oneness with humans, because as I said at the top of the podcast, we don’t have community with like-aware animistic human-persons.

How might you work further with Algiz to cultivate relationship with your ecosystem? How might you become so tight with the Nature Spirits of your place that they move with you? That they go before you into new lands to introduce you? Start with the very basics of who lives and grows in your yard or closest fond Nature space. Note how they engage with the season. Observe if they need something you can safely give, without causing harm to the ecosystem, yourself, or others. As you start to lock in on who’s there, visit them in an imaginal space. Learn who they are in unseen experience. If possible, ask what they need from you and give it. Make offerings, again, ones that won’t tip the balance of things, and ones that are safe to leave out. These can be tea leaves, coffee grounds, cornmeal, song, dance, drumming, etc. Think creatively and respond heartfully.

When you genuinely engage your ecosystem, you not only establish bonds that protect you everywhere you go, you also begin restoring a planet-wide human-Nature bond that is felt through All Things. 

This is how we root into relationship to place. This is how we begin to restore our land-based identity. This is how we Algiz.

Thank you for listening, especially to the Runes for Change community members who make What in the Wyrd and The Weekly Rune possible with their financial support. You can receive the weekly runecast by subscribing to the community on my website–soulintentarts.com–and click Join in the top menu.

If you have questions or insights about working with the runes, runic calendars, soul tending, or if you just want to drop me a line you can do that at Kelley@ soulintentarts.com, that’s k e l l e y at soulintentarts dot com.

Learn more about me, Runic Book of Days, From Elder to Ancestor, and my work by visiting soulntintentarts.com. Join my private secure Discord server at the link in the show notes. I’m on most social media as @kelleysoularts. Check out previous episodes, and find detailed notes on this episode on my website, under the menu option Learn… Liveable Runelore. The transcript of this episode can be found there, as well.

I’m Kelley and this has been What in the Wyrd. Thank you for rooting for all of us.

Find Kelley on various social media – @kelleysoularts

For animistic info on each rune – Liveable Runelore 

Join Runes for Change Community

Private Discord server – https://discord.gg/f7V8jjcN

Purchase Runic Book of Days 

Purchase From Elder to Ancestor

Music is “Sunset at Sandy Isle,” by Blue Dot Sessions, used with Creative Commons permission

Gain animistic insight into the runes, learn to elder well with ancient wisdom, and cultivate a strong spiritual path

by joining the Runes for Change community.

S. Kelley Harrell, M. Div.

Kelley Harrell is an animist, author, deathwalker, and death doula held by Tuscarora, Woccon, and Sissipihaw land. For the last 30 years, through Soul Intent Arts she’s helped others ethically build thriving spiritual paths. Her work is Nature-based, and centers soul tending through the Elder Futhark runes, animism, ancestral tending, and deathwork. She hosts the podcast, What in the Wyrd, and also writes The Weekly Rune as a celebration of the Elder Futhark in season. Work with her in the Runes for Change community or in her intensive soul tending training, The Spirited Path.  Full bio.

#beyourcommunity ~ #youareecosystem

elder well, die well, ancestor well

@kelleysoularts