The Weekly Rune - Eihwaz – Soul Intent Arts

For the week of 5 January 2020

For Self, For All

Eihwaz is the half-month stave through 13 January. Algiz is the intuitive rune, and Gebo indicates Calling’s message to us. Read right to left is Eihwaz, Algiz, then Gebo.

I truly believe that #theweeklyrune includes the keys to making better choices based on keen insight into the present, to help each of us be more active in creating a better life for us all. That realization process includes learning to tend what can’t just be fixed, and using every tool at our disposal. 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 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

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

Eihwaz is the rune of poison/medicine, the homeopathic rune that we hope we have the good sense to use appropriately. And really, most of us don’t. We don’t have elders to shepherd us through many of life’s dilemmas, especially the spiritual ones. So while the function of Eihwaz as a force in Nature is inherent, knowing how to deal with it is not. Understanding how to find balance with something such that we provoke enough to generate action or needed outcome, yet not so stir ourselves that we uproot or overshoot is indeed an art.

This week’s runecast informs us on the communal logic behind such undertakings, and what we can expect to come from them.

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 week’s cast demands that we deal with our personal, so that the collective can benefit. This isn’t an uncommon theme in TWR, or in the runes, in general. The cultural overlap between the personal and communal is strong in Old Norse life. We’ve talked a lot on TWR about the concept of duty in Old Norse culture, and how living up to one’s duty assures the whole collective functions better and more healthily. When we don’t do our part, it taxes the whole system. However, we don’t have that communal understanding in the west, specifically in the United States. We focus on the exact opposite, and our systems give lip service to rewards for folx who always put everyone else first. They’re not really rewarded, just encouraged to keep up the good work, which is in essence a vicious cycle of self-sabotage. We’re an “I” culture, in self-defeatist ways that can never result in claiming our calling.

In order to really claim our calling, we have to be capable of “we,” and in order to find that depth within ourselves, we must… put ourselves first. Paradoxical? Contradictory? 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.

JOIN

For suggestions on how to weather the season gracefully, subscribe to my private runes community on Patreon.

#beyourcommunity

Originally published on Soul Intent Arts.

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

@kelleysoularts