For the week of 15 August 2021
Speaking the Room

Ansuz is the half-month rune through 29 August. Uruz reversed is the intuitive rune, Raidho reversed indicates Advancement’s message to us. Read right to left is Ansuz, Uruz reversed, then Raidho reversed.
The Weekly Rune Free Version - Ansuz for the Week of 15 August 2021
The Elder Futhark runic calendar provides to humanity keys for how we live in season with All Things. Through #theweeklyrune I share the Futhark’s insight on how to live better as animists, to make better choices based on keen insight into the present, and to help each of us be more active in creating a better life for us all. That realization includes living with All Things as family, learning to tend what can’t just be fixed, and using every tool at our disposal to do so. The runes are such a tool, and in the Old Norse tradition, this process is wyrdweaving at it deepest potential. The runes provide one way that we can create ourselves as fit elders, so that upon our good death, we can be well Ancestors.
This is the free version of The Weekly Rune. Get the full benefit of the ad-free, detailed version every Sunday, by joining my private runes community at Patreon.
The paid runecast includes:
- more detail
- ad-free
- the current runes’ impact on human life force
- insights on how to best manage the curves and twists therein
- introspective prompts to nuance and tend self-work
- galdr of the runecast, with sound files and instruction on how to use each sound
- live video sessions
- runic insights, book excerpts, release news, free classes
- optional services with me
- discounts on soul tending services
Be sure to check out the new series of runework classes I’m teaching on Patreon at the $8 level or higher to participate in a new series of runework classes aimed at working with the runes for guidance and support in pandemic life. These classes will focus on lesser-taught aspects of working with the runes, such as how they are keys to humaning well, how they situate into Old Norse myth and culture–which is still relevant today, working with the runes for energy hygiene, deathwalking with the runes, shadow aspects of the runes, and eldering well with the runes. For more information, contact me.
What’s a half-month rune?
“Half-month” is an astronomical concept in which each month is divided into two parts: days 1-15, then 16-month’s end. In terms of the runic calendar, each half-month rune is one of the 24 runes of the Elder Futhark, and governs for a tad over two weeks (14 and 1/4 days, or a fortnight).
Learn More
The Weekly Rune is a three-rune cast. Those runes are the half-month, the intuitive rune, and the overview. The half-month is a set rune, which for the most part follows the traditional ordering of the Elder Futhark. The intuitive stave (meaning, I draw it blind) indicates the life force most available to us, to the focus of the half-month rune into sharper focus. It suggests how we can best handle the half-month energies. The final rune (also drawn blind) provides a high overview of the current time, and speaks from different voices. These voices have been Nature, Earth, Creation, though are sometimes others. I note who’s speaking each week, as it is revealed.
New to The Weekly Rune?
- Catch a couple of my IGTV videos, which explain the intention and process behind the runecast, and what makes it different from other ways of casting.
- Listen to my What in the Wyrd podcast, which is available across all popular podcast platforms, including Google Play and iTunes.
- A few people have asked the reason that I switch between different rune sets for TWR. The short answer is: because. The more nuanced answer is, I ask which sets wants to speak each week. I don’t assume the same elements are in play according to the timing of the runes; I also don’t assume the same elements of my runes are appropriate to speak each week. I did a podcast on this subject, so there’s more info there. (See above)
- Also, for deep work on coming into relationship with the runes in season, check out my book, Runic Book of Days.
The Runecast
Moving into Ansuz this week comes with a rush of other influences. In a natural time of sitting with our truth and how we might bring it to the world, it’s greeted by normalized mixed-messaging and gaslighting in pandemic culture, and Nature and body’s messages to adapt. This confusion, as well as the trauma leading up to and into the present becomes reflected in the inner cosmology. It becomes a continuous balance of tending the inner facets of the Self while managing the dynamics and impact of everyday life. That conflict is now alive. It is living in and among us, and our challenge lies in how we’re going to shape relationship with it.
Learn more about this seasonal progression, and how to draw its insights into the personal spiritual path in Runic Book of Days.
What does it mean?
This is a hard time. When we greet Ansuz we expect our half-month with it to facilitate how we can better speak our truths, how we can clarify the thoughtforms that lead up to the expression, how we can be more attentive to the way our breath, thus truth, moves within us and the world. All of that is still in play. It’s still an option. The complication of inner truth, and to a large degree deep collective truths, being ignored and life constructed around them in a way that denies and refuses them is actively taking a toll.
The one thing we can take to heart in this runic cycle is deeply honoring all the self-work we’ve done, the skills and support to apply its teachings to how we move right now, and realizing that we can genuinely be present for very painful things. We have what we’ve learned, what we’re learning, and our spiritual and human communities to support us. The framing runes for this week’s cast give good insight into what embodied life in trauma can look like. Read more…
For more insight into the runes, tending your unquiet dead and Ancestors, and cultivating a strong spiritual path
join my community Runes for Change.
For suggestions on how to weather the season gracefully, subscribe to my private runes community on Patreon.
#beyourcommunity

S. Kelley Harrell, M. Div.
I’m an animist, author, deathwalker and death doula. For the last 25+ years, through Soul Intent Arts I’ve helped others to ethically build thriving spiritual paths as fit, embodied elders, who upon death become wise, capable Ancestors. My work is Nature-based, and focuses soul tending through the Elder Futhark runes, animism, ancestral healing, and deathwork. I’m author of Runic Book of Days, and I host the podcast, What in the Wyrd. I also write The Weekly Rune as a celebration of the Elder Futhark in season. Full bio.
#beyourcommunity ~ #youareecosystem
elder well, die well, ancestor well
Elder Well
To bear your unique gift to the world.
Die Well
To leave the planet better than you found it.
Ancestor Well
So that your descendants never elder alone.