The Weekly Rune – Raidho

Raidho is the half-month rune through 13 September (carved reindeer antler slice). Hagalaz is the intuitive rune (carved polished lapis lazuli), and Sowilo indicates the perspective of The Wind That Shakes. The spirits of place anchoring the runes this week are Wheel with element Mycelium, in the direction of Front/North/Nordri, in the season of Autumn, with a Death as a prominent presence. Read right to left is Raidho, Hagalaz, then Sowilo.

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What Does It Mean?

Before the runes were laid for the cast, Death presented as presiding over it. Here, the Summer has been so hot and without rain that many plants are already dead and insects that usually don’t come until Autumn are already presenting. I don’t feel this inclusion is about my seasonal experience, so much as it is the overtone of climate change wanting to be acknowledged in this cast, and the emphasis on how that changes the seasonal procession of Death, and quite possibly The Wild Hunt.

We’ve discussed through the course of the runes in this current cycle that they are conveying with more shadow than in the past. It’s like they’re all reversed. They’re not bad; they’re not dark; they’re just a reflection of the time, and are accurately describing life in the hinge of enormous transformation. I have pointed back to this observation several times in runecasts, though remember December Solstice of 2012? How so many spiritual folx were convinced it was heralding a time of radical transformation and unity? Then in ensuing years of gut-level systemic challenge those same folx started wondering where their spiritually deepened life went? I’ve maintained, this chaos, now, is what the road to unity looks like for American settler culture. Maybe for the planet and Beyond.

I think what I sit with most in the chaos that is now is how it’s only really new to folx who have been deeply privileged by the systems of American settler culture. Those systems were always damning to us all, even the privileged folx, but that truth couldn’t be held until now. Huge internal processes have had to flame within for folx to see community disparities. And many factors of sooth-saying (Ansuz) have contributed to making these revelations possible. Before we go further in this cast, I want to acknowledge the hardship of now as how hard it is to really bring Ansuz to light in this day and age. It is no small task. It takes guts, and incredible risk.

Given that, our time with Ansuz in this cycle has been about spaces that can and cannot hear our truth, as much as our ability to express it. Moving into Raidho fully this week has that same shaky quality: our truth must go on the road, though how do we handle that travel?

Raidho is the rune of movement. Green means Go! And green, of course, is our will. It’s our consciousness and its precious inability to be still or satisfied with anything about form. A million years ago I wrote a novel that’s never been published, and in it one of the characters says, 

“Consciousness only knows ‘Go!’  It doesn’t know ‘try,’ or ‘maybe,’ or ‘when you get a chance to.’  You’re a transpersonal student.  You know that at the higher levels of yourself, all the tools are available to act now.  But in the formed realm, we know differently.  Just because your consciousness is ready to move doesn’t mean that all the other pieces are in place.  Timing may be a factor—planetary alignments.  Other people may be critical—someone you’ve not met, or not connected with in the right way.  Or your body may not be able to physically withstand the vibrational changes coming into it.”

That, now. That, Raidho.

I think where I’ve had to reframe my sense of the runes in season, intra-pandemic, is their traditional order is a progression of building qualities and skills for humaning well when things can rise to meet those needs. And now, they’re also the boundaries that have to be set when it’s not possible to get those skills. They’re the recourse of coping for when the playing field can’t be leveled. I’ve always held the runes in the vernacular of now, in terms of honoring their cultural context and being inclusive of how life works now. And right now best efforts are awesome and can still be unseen and unheard.

And the playing field is being leveled, for the Descendants.

So maybe we’re bringing our agency (Ansuz) out into the world (Raidho) with a busted GPS. Or we don’t know if the car can make it. And maybe there’s no car, with miles to go. It’s not that we can’t Raidho under the current circumstances, though how we Raidho is going to be very different for the foreseeable future. And the collective note on that is we have to move together. We can’t leave folx behind, and also can’t drag them kicking and screaming. But at least our motivation for how we move among has to hold space for moving us all among.

Hagalaz as the best way we can accomplish that does not present a cakewalk. It’s the rune of sudden, external change–as in the hail storm that takes us by surprise. I’ve been pulling daily runes to speak for Body, and the other day Hagalaz was the rune. In that context an aspect of Hagalaz became evident to me that I’ve never thought of before: Even when we’re savvy, we’re always mentally taken aback by change. But not Body. Body is change. It is in a constant state of adaptation. We could even call that adaptation the aging process. Body knows it,  and is. For Body there’s no angst or consternation, even in the face of physical imbalance. Body’s just here for the experience and not judging Self or anybody else against it.

So yes, we have to make room for adaptation where bringing our agency to the world is concerned, yet it can’t stop us from doing so. This is a potent thing to say in a time of open hate, and our elections around bringing our agency to the world have to be made in split-second intervals where we assess our safety. 

Sowilo through the voice of The Wind That Shakes levels this sense of curious safety. It’s an optimistic rune that portends the sun, and how it shines on us so that we may shine on others. The Wind That Shakes came as a vision. I saw it begin Beyond Earth and rattle everything in its path as it touched down on land, as a cyclone. It doesn’t destroy or overtake. It just shakes things hard enough that they have to question if it’s worth holding on, because holding on is a commitment to the gesture of holding, to the thing being clung to, to the resources to keep clinging… This force is what’s moving through levels of being in form, Beyond Form, and maybe beyond that. Even as we navigate hatefilled aspects of chaos, we’re also navigating ones that can transmute, The Wind That Shakes and makes us all decide what hill to die on.

We can’t know what choices formed reality and Beyond will make around holding on. We only know our own choices, and in culling through the Ansuz to arrive at them, we understand also that holding on affects everyone else (Raidho). It may be appropriate to explore how we help others hold on or let go.

This 1-2-2 aett pattern spells out the humaning progression so well. I’ve said a few times in talking about Raidho over the last week that it’s a mini intro to the cacophony of agency that is the second aett. That it is grouped with the first and last runes of that aett is telling. We must take our agency out into the world. We will meet risk in doing so, and we will also be opening the way for others to take their agency into the world, as well.  

The support for this movement is held firmly by Front – North/Norðri. It’s cold, sounds so refreshing right now in this hot Summer, and encourages us to think ahead as we forge new bonds. The direction of ice, air, and lineage, Front specifically emphasizes the Descendants. They are everything ahead of us, and the benefactors of every choice and decision we make now. Luckily Front is also the direction of  knowledge and wisdom, which allows us to draw on our Allies as much as our skills and experience to know and do what’s best for ourselves, and our communities. 

Element Mycelium is also incredibly supportive. Mycelium underlies every aspect of life–death, support, birth. It may be the original midwife and deathwalker. Given that, there is no one “meaning” with it. It may be more useful to explore it as the backbone of life, and check in with it to learn how to deepen bonds with ecosystem or how to be fruitful with the journey ahead. In short, Mycelium holds the secrets to souling-in-form well, and it knows all about agency on-the-move. When Self feels agency isn’t going where intended or isn’t landing as desired, seek the help of Mycelium this week.

Wheel as the boots-on-the-ground helper references the natural sequence of timing and seasons, in that each season depends on the other in order to keep the movement going. So do life stages that All Things move through. Wheel portends movement, in general, of feelings, currents, thoughts, dynamics. Again, where assistance is needed in mooring to sacred order and focusing agency, call upon Wheel.

The seasonal backdrop brings the feel of Autumn–of preparation, bounty, maturity, harvest, turning from the forest. In Autumn, our focus turns to tending hearth, getting stores, ground, home, and harvest ready for needier times. It’s a time tending both outdoors and indoors, and conserving energy for the cold to come, honoring Nature’s retreat underground. Autumn is also the wind up for the Wild Hunt, and while those winds haven’t blown in yet, the ethers of the Hunt may be potent to call upon for releasing what impedes movement this week.

In the current climate there are plenty of reasons to resist movement this week. There are infinite reasons to hold agency close and keep it close. Instead of shrinking it down and stuffing it back, I encourage Self to find the trusted souls who can hear it, who can help hold it. And for the record, I’m here.

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#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.

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elder well, die well, ancestor well

@kelleysoularts

Ancestor Well

So that your descendants never elder alone.