For the week of 17 January 2021
The chance of now

Perthro is the half-month stave through 28 January. Nauthiz is the intuitive rune, and Othala reversed indicates the Frithguardians’ message to us. Read right to left is Perthro, Nauthiz, then Othala reversed.
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
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- 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
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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
Perthro brings us a time to assess where we have control and where we don’t. Thus, a good bit of the space it holds is for us to educate ourselves in how we deal with those distinctions. No matter how healed we are, how initiated, evolved, enlightened, in balance, we continuously are confronted with control and truths.
In the Old Norse culture, these are örlog and wyrd. They are the layers of dynamics lived by our Ancestors and handed down, our own pasts, our family, community, and cultural systems, how we respond to each, and things that influence us that we have no idea exist. When folx talk about örlog as being the primal layers or natural laws, we often go to these intangible understandings of what makes Earth-reality functional–like gravity or cause and effect. But all of those things I just mentioned are our own version of natural laws–what our Ancestors did and how we’re still carrying it, how we responded to entering adolescence, etc. These are our personal natural laws, too, and this week’s runecraft has us examine them up close and personal.
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?
In last week’s cast we talked about Perthro in the context of a six-sided die, and how while we don’t know where it will land, we know what the potentials are. We even talked about what each of those sides could represent, similar to the aforementioned primal layers. To take that further, on each of those sides and in every avenue of life that we can identify as having some level of influence over how we move in our time here, there are also micro-unknowns, small details in the how and why circumstances in our lives have come to be. Some are eternally unknowable, deeply interwoven into threads of wyrd so minisculely we may not even realize them for what they are if we found them. Others are limited by memory–the human frailty regarding vast memory of the planet, our galaxy, or even bigger. It isn’t that there wasn’t a die roll at some time long ago or in a different manifestation than this moment that still ripples out ramifications. There was, and we’re still living out its effects, all while all manner of dice continue to roll. This week’s cast share intel on how we deal with things that were in motion long before us, yet still affect us, all while new potentials are created. 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.