Body-by-the-minute, a rune a day.

What makes the runes meaningful to me is how they situate into an animist context, which is different for each of us. For me, this rune shows more animistic roots than others in that it encompasses protective ecosystem features–sedge grass and elk–both pokey, both territorial. They know the boundaries that separate territories–communities–are the same spaces that overlap relationship. They know that place and Self are the same. As does Flesh.

In my cosmology Flesh is an element. It is the container that makes all of our internal systems a wholly functioning system, it is what makes us form, what makes agency have action. We aren’t the only ones inhabiting Flesh. We are not individual in form any more than we are in spirit. Flesh is riddled with other ecosystems in and on it, with whom we are in continual relationship. It’s also intimately engaging the elements inside and out, all the time. So while we can sit with Flesh as a pivotal distinguishing element, it’s also the main one that represents our interdependentness.

And that may be the hardest part for me to tend about Body–the easily abused illusion of singularity. All it takes is one infraction upon soft, fragile Body and our sense of how we connect in is changed forever, our awareness that  we connect is changed. That’s why physical violence is so vile: it causes soul loss, which robs us of agency, which leaves the role of form incomplete. In this way we are no more discrete divisions of inner cosmology–mind-body-soul–than we are separate from air, land, fire, water, ether. We are collections of messy, overlapping relationships, and the harm of any of them is the harm of all of them. And if we’re looking at that through Algiz, it means the harm of Body is the harm of place. We are where we stand. 

And that means the liberation of Body is in the land.

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.

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@kelleysoularts

Ancestor Well

So that your descendants never elder alone.