For the week of 27 February 2022
Frith in Adversity

Tiwaz (Tyr) is the half-month rune through 14 March. Fehu is the intuitive rune, Ingwaz indicates Barrage’s message to us. The mink rib is represented in spring, with a few other bones as company. Read right to left is Tiwaz, Fehu, then Ingwaz.
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:
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- introspective prompts to nuance and tend self-work
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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
This week we move from the second to the third aett. The education of the second aett is no joke, and it puts us exactly where we’re meant to be–Midgard. After all the build-up and awe of coming into form in the first aett, the second confront us with the nitty-gritty of real life. It’s messy, thrilling, and not at all supportive of bypassing what it means to come here as planetary custodian. Moving from Sowilo to Tiwaz is likewise sobering. Right off the bat we’re challenged to value our sacredness and be able to hold onto it–and the sacredness of All Things–while in deep turmoil. In this way, the third aett is the runic family of reckoning, and this week it starts in the deep end.
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?
Tiwaz is known as Tyr’s rune, which makes it a symbol of sacrifice. Tyr is lauded as the symbol of law and justice, though if we really sit with what those things mean from an animistic standpoint, they speak to a state of knowing how to maintain balance, peace, and protection. In other words, these states stem from the Old Norse concept of frith, or balance, peace, and protection for the whole community. This take on Tiwaz implies knowing when and what to sacrifice. Our modern understanding of justice draws on ideas of fairness, reward, punishment–karma, as funneled through the settler culture vantage point. The word, itself, implies a Calvinist idea that what is “just” will prevail, and is right, and that certain folx aren’t capable of what is just. The reality of all of these projections is, justice is a human concept. We created it. When we trace its roots back to a life force in Nature, we arrive at frith, which must be tended by humans. 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.