The Weekly Rune – Jera – Eihwaz

Jera (reindeer antler slice) is the half-month rune through 28 December, at which point Eihwaz comes to the fore, until 13 January. Gebo is the intuitive rune, and Raidho indicates Infinity’s message to us. For this Dead Time the spirits of place anchoring the runes are Teeth (Coyote, Fossilized Mosasaur, and Fossilized Squalicorax) in Autumn, with all of the elements in the direction of Within. Read right to left is Jera above for the current week then Eihwaz for the following week, Gebo, then Raidho. The current week’s runes include Jera, Gebo, then Raidho, with the next week’s runecast including Eihwaz, Gebo, then Raidho.

What Does It Mean?

For the week of 25 December 2022

The current week’s runes include Jera, Gebo, then Raidho.

Considering how externalized the native tension of the second aett is, much of this season’s experience of it has been internal. It’s been on how we regulate given any particular day, through all systems in question, amidst our own personal stuff.  There’s been no lack of astral weather or local turmoil, though unlike cycles past, this experience of early second aett has been very nuanced, and encouraged us to be in our bodies, notice what’s coming up where, and given us awareness of room to make choices around that.

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At first I couldn’t parse out wtf this runecast was doing. When I realized, I couldn’t help but laugh and lean into how the runes always manage to suss out the dynamics that are harder to put into words. I had been fretting over how I would get two runecasts done in one week, because it is such a pillar of my own awareness and grounding. It’s rare that I have skipped doing one; doing so messes with my ability to plot myself in timing/place-space. I know that I’m a lot harder on myself about that than y’all are. And the runecast, itself, brought the solution.

When I started putting together the cast, right away it wanted things done differently. I started pulling out the background and rune mat. Once I have that sacred divider in place, I do the runes next. But this time I was only permitted to lay out the half-month runes. The others Would. Not. Come. So I moved onto the direction–instant: Within. Helping Spirits, immediate: All the teeth. Season: Coyote chose Autumn (I never look when doing that part). Only once those bits were laid out did the rest of the runes come. When I got to who might speak through Raidho, Infinity got a double check. 

The gist of this cast is expanding our potential for relationship: Infinity, boundless space, which when we conceive of as humans, is place. Boundless potential for relationship, regardless of time, yet observable from a fixed point such as, say, an ecosystem? Where we stand? The runes for the next two weeks posit us in a place–literal and liminal–each in our ecosystem–that holds space for us to draw on the most vast, deep roots of well Ancestors that we can conceive, to wyrdweave our way into new normal, to the futures of our Descendants. Over the next two weeks we are reminded of our capacity to change, to be the hinge of light and darkness, and be utterly, helpfully functional to all who pass through this place.

I thought this would be two runecasts based on the same supporting components, but no. The runecasts are meant to be held in context with each other, though they don’t have to be read all at once. In fact, doing so may be overkill.

FTR, in that reindeer antler set, I can never tell the difference between Sowilo and Eihwaz. They’re not carved the way that I would do them, and the distinction is so subtly made that… well. Improvise where needed. And I realized this week that my aesthetic for altar space was largely influenced by I Spy books…

For the week of 1 January 2023

A Love Song to New Self

What Does It Mean?

This week’s runecast includes Eihwaz, Gebo, then Raidho.

Eihwaz is associated with the yew tree.This relationship makes it a powerful symbol of both endurance as it is ever green, and of death, as its taxine is poisonous. Leading up to this rune in the traditional progression of the Elder Futhark, we’ve traversed how to soul-in-form in the first aett, have endured the trials upon entry of the second aett and settled into what we can take from those trials into how we more deeply engage our place-space through harvest. 

At Eihwaz, we are not who we were. We aren’t the naive new soul in town (first aett). We aren’t the addled human-person buffeting adversity (early second aett). We’ve had some boots-on-the-ground experience with Where We Stand, and even though we were legitimately rattled by it, we learned to regulate and find blessings and relationships, despite. 

Yet how we relate to everything–even just being here–has changed, so it makes sense from an animistic standpoint that this rune can also be about the place between evergreen and death: embodiment. When we’re embodied, we are in relationship with place-space. We are not individual. We are ecosystem. We are all.

The thing about going through adversity is it messes with our sense of who we are, not for no reason. Adversity is another way of saying impact, which is a direct result of agency. We leave an impact, regardless of intention. We are impacted by pretty much everything, whether we’re aware of it or are oblivious. Given that, with Eihwaz we’re dipping a bit into scar territory–that interstitial space where we aren’t who we were, though who we are isn’t evident, or perhaps even here yet. It’s the space of possibility, which in terms of embodiment points us to re-situating with our sacredness.  This week prompts questions around who we perceive ourselves to be at our most sacred depths, what lies between us and that perception, what we need to release to access it, and what we need to bring in to support it.

Which brings us to Raidho. As the best way to work with Jera this week, we’re taking the Sacred Self show on the road. Still drawing on Gebo celebration and gratitude of place-space relationship, we’re packing that up, along with our scar(s), and we’re doing life anyway. We’re re-learning who we are in new contexts, still honoring the challenges we’ve been through, still able to access embodiment and honor our ecosystem relationships. This week we become aware of our ability to really be present, still experience tension and disruption around that, yet be able to stay in some facet of relationship with it to do what we have to do.

Embodiment is not about a state of perfect 100%, 24/7 presence of Self and place-space. It’s about holding in our awareness that it’s there as we are able to draw on it. The result of it isn’t that we always know how to respond or we never get into challenges. It’s that we remain aware of our tools, relationships, wisdom, and knowledge to support us through it.  This is why tending, not healing. This is why caring, not curing. 

Again, Teeth represent communication and creating sustenance. I also suggest here that they know when to bite off what’s no longer needed. Anything that’s in the way of allowing a new iteration of Sacred Self(ves) to come forward, situate in ritual what allows Self to bite off what is in the way, clearing room for what must come.

That this cast is in the energy of Autumn means we have a bounty of resources available to support us in this internal shift, and that we’re mature enough to be able to do that dismemberment work with clarity and wisdom.

All of the elements speaking from Within give voice to the many relationships that can help us make space for this new awareness of our sacredness. We are ever charged to find the place where the elements within us are the same as the ones we move among. That threshold is everything about us that is unique, and everything about us that is kin. All of this support can help us hold in place the parts of us that are who we are even as they introduce us to who we are becoming. Because they already know and are intimately, inextricably in relationship with all of Self.

Again, in this runecast we have two first aett runes holding the second aett half-month rune. This combo emphasizes that we can still draw on the wonder and magickalness of early souling-in-form. Even though we’ve got bruises and scars now, even though some parts of us have to go to make room for the versions that are needed now, we don’t have to let go of everything. It’s okay to love and adore versions of ourselves who were naive and more carefree. In fact, maybe we have to in order to really tend the scars.

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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.

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@kelleysoularts

Ancestor Well

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