For the week of 15 October 2023

Tension, Joy, and Their Connecting Shadow

This week it’s neither tech nor edits, but surgery influencing the range of the runecast. This procedure has a short mending window, though it remains to be seen its impact over this potent solar eclipse in Libra (in tropical astrology).

Wunjo is the half-month rune through 28 October. Although not pictured, the spirits of place holding space with the runes this week are Death, whispers of the Hunt, dead things, and World Ancestors. I checked in with the directions, elements, and Beyond spirits of place and got a wide open, “You do you,” as in we each need to check in with those beings of our own ecosystem space. I would love to hear who visits, should anyone care to share.

Find the full runecast on Patreon.

Also, find my daily #thebodyawake rune pulls on Instagram.

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.

This runecast isn’t divinatory in the sense that each half-month rune represents events to occur in its fortnight. Rather, the timing of each rune allows us to greet where we are with what the dynamics each rune represents. It offers an examination of our relationship with the rune and what it may teach us about current events and dynamics.

What do Spirits of Place have to do with runes?

Everything we do is rooted in place. We are ecosystem. We are relations with place. In order for that relationship to truly be exalted we must formally invite Spirits of Place into our rituals, and ensure that we craft our rituals to the benefit of the whole ecosystem.

I don’t live in Europe, where the Elder Futhark flourished. I don’t live in 200CE, when the runes were in wide use. But my Ancestors did, and to honor them I must carefully include them in my place-space rituals, including this runecast. In order to do include them in a way that benefits the whole ecosystem of my present, I introduced my ancestral Spirits of Place to the Spirits of Place I live among now. Negotiations were made and boundaries were drawn to support this full relationship I walk among to bless us all, as well as readers and their ecosystems.

In this runecast 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 week on a more personal level in your geographical and cosmological context. Osteomancy honors earthly other-than-human Helping Spirits, which includes humanity’s animal and plant Ancestors, and other earth-centric Ancestors and helpers. The elements indicate our best deathwalking, enlivening, tempering, and/or transmutational force for the cast, and the directions offer insight into the best boundaried space for where transmutational work can be done. Season provides an expression of how we can best hold our agency, or the energetic tone of the cast. These additional beings in the cast give us actionable ways to engage the runes for the week and move among with them. Feel free to work with Spirits of Place that most resonate with this runecast, even if they show up differently in your 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.
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 full version of The Weekly Rune is only on Patreon, and it includes:

more detail
no ads
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:

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live video classes
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To access the audio blog recording and continue reading:
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What Does It Mean?

Wunjo is the rune that everyone wants in their runecast. The checkpoint brought up with Wunjo is significant. It’s the last rune of the first aett, which lends itself to a certain pause. We could even say it reminds us to revel. (Check out the Wunjo episode of the podcast.) We typically think of Wunjo as joy or bliss, and as a state during which things are going well for us, beyond the usual state of being. It truly is an outside-the-frame space that doesn’t happen often and is usually fleeting.

Our challenge with Wunjo is to enjoy it. To revel in it. But of course to enjoy bliss we have to first recognize that it has happened. We have to be able to realize it for what it is, which isn’t always easy or clear. Likewise, even when we can recognize it, there may be reasons that we resist reveling in it. Joy can bring up questions of self-worth, privilege, shame, fear–all manner of shadows. Some of us even have cultural contracts or spiritual taboos not to be boisterous about our successes or joys, even if we’re low-key about celebration.

Suffice it to say there are a lot of complications with such a desirable rune. However doable, take some time to reflect with it over the next few days. Its coincidental appearance with the Libra eclipse in this early Dead Time suggests we recall the joys we’re willing to defend in our lives. It suggests that we be really clear what we want and what we’re willing to do to apply our agency so that they can happen. And even better, to apply our agency so that they can happen for everyone who wants them. Because this Libra eclipse is a sweeping out of what no longer supports what we want, ie, deathwalking, now is a good time to be real with ourselves about what needs to go, what we’re ready to release, and what emotional processes may be needed for that to happy well.

We’re in the season of Nature turning their energy beneath the ground. It’s a feasible death in some ways and a shadowy example of how life merely changes focus, agency. Such dark depth is what we seek in ourselves right now, hidden strength we didn’t realize we had, or hoped we wouldn’t have to resort to again.

In soul tending we talk about shadows always being connected to sacred selves. We can as easily say our joy is always connected to our shadows, via tension–another form of scar. We are in the thick of great tension right now. We’re confronted with it on all levels, daily, and with being who we most deeply are, even if it makes us uncomfortable to do so. Except this time, we have more resources. We know we aren’t alone. This is the time to call on our allies, Dream Team, and innermost reserves, and truly sit in the knowing that we can be both shadow and joy, tension and an agent in its soothing.

Learn more about this seasonal progression, and how to draw its insights into the personal spiritual path in Runic Book of Days.

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Originally published on Soul Intent Arts.

Meet Kelley

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.