For the week of 15 January 2023
Breaking the 4th Wall
Perthro (ceramic tile) is the half-month rune through 28 January. Ingwaz is the intuitive rune, and Sowilo indicates Intensity’s message to us. For this week of Wild Hunt season the spirits of place , thus Death are still engaged, though being sick over the last week left me and the Spirits of Place otherwise occupied. The remark I got from them was that we each engage our SOP to learn who wants to help us individually hold space for these runes in our lives, over the next week. Read right to left is Tiwaz, Ingwaz, then Sowilo.
Also because I’ve been sick, there’s no audio blog this week.
What's a Runic Calendar?
The Elder Futhark runic calendar I work with is based on the work of Nigel Pennick. It has the potential to provide 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.
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).
How is the Runecast Done?
The Weekly Rune is a (mostly) three-rune cast, situated among spirits of place. Those runes are the half-month, the intuitive rune, and the sacred overview. When the runecast falls at a half-month transition, the fourth rune is included. The half-month is a set rune, which for the most part follows the traditional ordering of the Elder Futhark. However, in the calendric ordering observed by Pennick, the order is slightly different. The intuitive stave (meaning, I draw it blind) indicates the life force most available to us, and 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 voices other-than-human, which are non-human concepts and beyond Earth beings. These sacred voices are Allies, and have been Nature, Earth, Continuity, Creation, First Ancestor, Survival, etc. I note who’s speaking each week, as it is revealed.
Spirits of place are represented through osteomancy, season, elements, and directions. Each brings a nuance of how to work with the half-month rune, or how to engage forces of the season on a more personal level in the reader’s geographical and cosmological context. Osteomancy honors other-than-human Helping Spirits on Earth. The elements indicate our best deathwalking/enlivening/tempering force for the time, and the directions offer relationship to place as the best energetic grounding or area where work is needed. These additional beings in the cast give us actionable ways to engage the runes in season and move among with them. Readers should feel free to work with Spirits of Place that most resonate with this runecast, even if they show up differently in their cosmologies and relationships.
New to Runecasting?
- 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.
Why Join Patreon?
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
- audio blog, with galdr of the runecast and instruction on how to use each sound for felt sense resonance
- 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
Other Patreon offerings:
- Community connection via Discord
- live video classes
- runic insights, book excerpts, release news, free classes
- optional services with me
- discounts on soul tending services
The Runecast
In the traditional progression of the Elder Futhark, Perthro presents a question, an unknown, the force of which hasn’t been overtly in the Futhark until that point. We don’t really know what Perthro means, as it isn’t written about until the Old English rune poem, and then it’s something along these lines:
Peorth is always a play and laughter
to the proud, where warriors sit
in the beer-hall, happy together.
Translation by Dr. Aaron Hostetter
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?
Those few words offer it as engagement of an unknown force that is pleasant and can be bonding.
It also echoes the sort of unknowable-ness of the Elder runes, as a whole. Beginning with the first aett, we have this sequence of runes that cover the journey of soul into form, with really tactile insight into what needs to be in place for us to succeed at applying our agency. We move into the second aett where all those good efforts are challenged by the clamouring of all other beings doing that very same thing, and they’re bumping into each other, causing harm, causing joy, merging agency, disrupting agency, mitigating impact. In the second aett we enter the cacophony of formed life that we know best, yet there’s still a sort of bubble about it. There’s a sort of mysterious detachment from it all, like life is a cosmic scene we’re watching yet feel and crave some bigger investment in, yet can’t quite figure out how to accomplish that–this contradiction both drives human hunger for enlightenment and plagues our psyche.
Until Perthro.
To access the audio blog recording and continue reading:
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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.
