For the week of 18 December 2016
In which we reflect and focus.
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Jera is the half-month rune through 28 December. Laguz is the intuitive stave, and Isa indicates the planet’s needs. Read right to left is Jera, then Laguz, followed by Isa.
The half-month rune is set by the runic calendar, and governs for a tad over two weeks. The intuitive stave (meaning, I draw it blind) indicates the life force most available to us, which brings the focus of the half-month rune into sharper focus for the present week. It suggests how we can handle these energies. The planetary stave (also a blind draw) indicates the state and needs of the planet.
This winter, Isa set in motion an evolution of events that will culminate by May of 2017. Over the last week we greeted Jera, and now approach Winter Solstice. For the Northern Hemisphere and eastern time zone, Solstice falls on 21 December at 5:44am. The Southern Hemisphere celebrates Summer Solstice.
Isa to Jera is a logical progression. As we move from creating the cocoon of intentional space that will feed the sacred seed, we shift into accounting mode. I refer to Jera as the rune of Hearth Accounting (in contrast with Dagaz as the rune of Heart Accounting). Dedicated sacred space to accounting, curious that the Elder Futhark orders it that way. Logical, though perhaps not smooth. With Isa, we’ve been in this altered space, clarifying, creating intentions, setting boundaries, dreaming outcomes. We’ve been in a blend of potent and humbling ecstatic mania. Jera switches gears to the more tactile and earthly tasks of managing the harvest.
We can’t stay in dream mode, forever.
Jera means “year,” and portends a generally positive time. It’s the point that all effort has been distilled into inventory and we must make decisions around it. We must consider what about our season went well, what we should do again, what we never want to see again, what we’d like to try. It’s the point that we look back and assess, as we plan the coming year.
Likewise, Jera projects to a set, definable, measurable increment with which we can set attainable goals. There’s nothing nebulous or pie-in-the-sky about Jera. It functions on hard data, and encourages us to consider that data as we plan our goals. A year is a full cycle. We get to experience all the options and angles, so that we can set our intentions and plan the rituals to cultivate what we want to grow in our lives. We can plan it all, down to what rituals should be done when. All that’s left after the planning of Jera is to get off our butts and do it.
Jera is the year planner of our personal growth.
For now, Laguz facilitates the process of making that happen. Meaning “water,” in the place of the intuitive stave, it means that we are in flow with the elements at this time. We can expect what we need to be at our disposal, the support and momentum of Nature is leaning toward us, and we can easily find ourselves in that rhythm. Further, we don’t find blocks within ourselves to accept what we need. That’s perhaps the biggie, with Laguz.
Again, it’s up to us to make use of these benefits. That they are available is only part of the equation. Actively participating from the brewing of intention to the small daily acts we perform to further our dreams is required. Laguz indicates support for that entire process.
Curious, however, is Isa as the voice of the planet. We just shifted from Isa as the half-month rune, so its message here is that the wait isn’t quite over. Yes, we can assess what’s passed and we can set plans for what we’ll create, though that’s the extent of it, for now. The holding pattern of winter remains upon us, and our job is to sit gently with it to see what it has to teach us.
Isa is the last of the three-fold phase of winter runes. It comes, metaphorically, just at the cusp of spring. In this wisdom the planet encourages us to let the frozen dead die off completely. Let go of what shouldn’t be brought forward into the new year. Sit with what is, and be it. Feel it fully, so that it can move on without restraints on what’s to come.
Also, tend that sacred seed. What brings our deepest desires into being is that we tend them, ongoing. We can’t just set them in motion then walk away, anxious for their manifestation. Isa coming back up is a reminder to stay tuned to the process of creation.
Be creation, itself, by embodying its process.
In my tradition, Winter Solstice is the new year. It signals the close of the Dead Time that began the reprieve from normal time sensing at Samhain, and to returns us to the forward motion of sun time. It’s up to us to use this reminder of the light as an inspiration to continue shining our brightness on what we want in our own lives. As we emerge from the shadows, let the light shine with acknowledgement of what we’ve needed to know about ourselves, so that we can truly manifest our lives and selves as we want them to be.
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Originally published on Soul Intent Arts.
