For the Week of 18 February 2024

Collective Galdr

Sowilo is the half-month rune through 27 February. The intuitive rune is Raidho. The earthly spirit of place anchoring the runes this week is Honey Bee (heart vial), in the direction of Right/This Side/Atlantic Side/East (mossy dwarf), with element Air (feathers), in the season of Spring (tree button). The Beyond-earth support comes from Urd (Yggdrasil deck).  From right to left are Sowilo (carved polymer clay tile), then Raidho.

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Most of our existence [not all of us] on Earth is due to the sun. It is the center of life as we science, and as such is built into our psyches as the ancestral barometer by which we validate our aliveness, literally and liminally. The sun is a celestial parent who holds deep sway over how we move among, and within. It literally challenges our cells to uplift our mood, and this is an integral understanding of Sowilo: we get vitamin D to have the wherewithal to leave it better than we found it.

No small task, and this week we have a couple of hints in the runecast for how we pay that aliveliness forward.  Raidho is the rune of taking the show on the road. It is about movement, and occurs at the point in the first aett that we are beginning to share our story with the world. We take our truth out into adventures somewhat to test its actual truthfulness, to allow it to shift as needed, to learn more about how our truth is an expression of us. So many needs met by this travel and the relationships forged through it. This is our first hint that we can’t keep our good fortune to ourselves, however we perceive that fortune to be.

With Right (That Side/ East/Austri) as the direction holding us this week, in my cosmology that indicates water, flow, being carried. It specifically is Atlantic Ocean for me, which represents home, in that all of life emerged from the Ocean. All water returns to the Ocean. For me it also represents the many fields that grew the food I grew up eating, which speaks to ecosystem home and literal nurture. So when this direction comes up in casts, explore what home means, at the most sacred and embodied level. Literally, consider where Body feels best. Consider what makes a space feel sacred. Consider how to get more of those needs met in the immediate living space. 

For me Right also is the place of dreams, the primordial soup of our desires mingled with multiversal forces that can help create them into being. It is the direction of realizing our agency, of truly grokking that how we as human-persons align with form is unique in evoking deep change here. And with that unique potential is the responsibility of using our agency to benefit all touched by its impact. This quality of recognizing what we have and giving it is an essential aspect of Sowilo.

The element Air is the second hint of how we Sowilo well this week, in that it represents the forces that carry our intentions to where they can best root. Air’s strength is transmission, dispersal, sweeping clean. It carries our words, expressions, incantations, galdr to their destinations. Our best way to engage it is to allow contraction and expansion, as with breath, to find the flexibility in ourselves to sway with it, and to learn how to embody its qualities in our own lives.

Where this becomes personal is honing in on the incantations and utterances that carry our gifts to who needs the benefit of them into the world. This week brings an exquisite opportunity to shine on others through our galdr, our spells, our songs. It doesn’t have to be exhaustive or meticulously plotted. It could be as simple as, as we move through the week exploring our own needs and what dynamics have to be in place to meet them, asking for those shifts to be made, that we ask them to be made for all who share such need. The approaches we can take to this expression are limitless, but remembering that Air is our best transmission of our efforts this week is important.

Spring, which presents new growth, creativity is also the seasonal point that human-persons can more safely venture beyond their own thresholds–utangardr–return to the forest. The space that Spring holds is one of opportunity to verge outward and explore new territory. This week, with this regenerative energy and the potency of Sowilo, we can be confident that our songs and incantations will have the creative forces of Spring driving them, as well as planting them for rich growth.

The earthly spirit helper who can help us best step into the new consciousness of this week is  Honey Bee. My grandfather was a beekeeper, and because of the years of helping him tend his hives, my relationship to Honey Bee is represented with honey. The honey in the heart-shaped vial  in the photo is the last that was extracted from his hives before he died, when I was 17.

Honey Bee supports transition. They are conductors of souls; they are natural psychopomps. They are the epitome of sacred order, always focusing their agency to the wellbeing of the collective through teamwork, resilience, adaptation, methodic engagement, and interdependence. It’s not just hive mind with honey bees, but hive being. It may be appropriate to work with Honey Bees this week in helping let go of what occludes expression. Or perhaps they have insight into new ways to working with Air to pay our agency forward to the collective.

The beyond-earth voice this week is Urd, from the Yggdrasil deck. This deck takes a different direction on the norns, so I will mention that, as well as the traditional perspective here. In this deck, Urd is the present, that which is still malleable and conditional, what could occur. She changes places with Skuld, the youngest sister who presents what is possible.

In most traditional approaches to Urd, she is the elder of the wyrd sisters. She holds the past, that which is unchangeable yet continues to influence our present and future options. She is manifestation, while Verdandi, the middle sister, builds upon what Urd has created in the present. I stick with what I know in terms of how I greet Urd, as the great holder of the past and all the feels it brings up. 

Given the past focus of Urd and our closure on this second aett with Sowilo, it may be worth exploring how our time in this aett has set us up to go forward. The step into the third aett is a doozy and it’s not one we want to bring baggage into, for our own sake as well as that of others. Sowilo is a lovely place to play to our own strengths to do better–with the sun, the warmth, and all nurture that can bring. For this part of our time with Sowilo, it’s also appropriate to let go of what may be getting in our way of bringing our unique gift to the world, because part of the challenge of the third aett is bringing that gift, even knowing all the challenges against doing so.

Half-month Rune Prompts

• How’s your relationship with Air?

• What needs vocalizing in your life?

• How can you approach this expression in a way that blesses the collective?

Galdr

The way that I use galdr is through chanting. I find repetition of the base phonetic helps me feel the rune. Remember that the Elder Futhark isn’t a language. It was originally an alphabet, incorporated into mythical origin. It functions phonetically, both in spelling and pronunciation. Given that, galdr isn’t terribly different from the overall pronunciation, and the emphasis is on the intention of the chant, not so much the pronunciation.

My personal emphasis in galdr is on the vowels initially and I incorporate the consonants later. For instance, with Ansuz, I focus on ‘ahw-oo,’ before incorporating the middle ‘n,’ such as ‘ahwnsoo.’ There is no right or wrong with galdr (although I guess there could be a flat-out wrong?), though often the final consonants aren’t pronounced, as in ‘ahwsoo.’ Practice galdring different ways, and go with the way that you feel in your body.

• Sowilo/Sowilu – Soh, Sohl, Sohwi, Sohli, Sig

• Raidho – Rhye, Ryedthe, Ryedthoh, Rad

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S. Kelley Harrell, M. Div.

Kelley Harrell is an animist, author, deathwalker, and death doula held by Tuscarora, Woccon, and Sissipihaw land. For the last 30 years, through Soul Intent Arts she’s helped others ethically build thriving spiritual paths. Her work is Nature-based, and centers soul tending through the Elder Futhark runes, animism, ancestral tending, and deathwork. She hosts the podcast, What in the Wyrd, and also writes The Weekly Rune as a celebration of the Elder Futhark in season. Work with her in the Runes for Change community or in her intensive soul tending training, The Spirited Path.  Full bio.

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