#runeaday

Rune a Day Project - Day 16 - November 16, 2021 - Tiwaz

Day 16 of my rune a day project. Today I drew Tiwaz, meaning the god "Tyr" (or Tiw). It represents respect, authority, warrior, balance, leadership, victory, valor, honesty, openness, justice, protection, aggression, the just and appropriate use of violence, success in competition, rationality, self-sacrifice (for the greater good, analysis, courage, heroism, duty, responsibility, masculine energy, bravery, the greater good, honor, nobility, self-discipline, truth, the resolution of conflict, sovereign order, fairness.

I have been waiting for this one to show up.

I have been wearing Tiwaz on a charm on a necklace since I converted - it is, in fact, the first symbol I adopted for myself as I identified as being actively pagan. If there's ONE rune I'd call "mine", it's Tiwaz. I often say I was called to this path by Tyr, so he is a deity I relate to, commune with, and pray to often.

Tyr (and the Tiwaz rune) is a very popular god among pagan or interested-in-pagan-ideas (pagan adjacent?) martial artists, police officers, and members of the military I personally know. We identify with it as a symbol of two main big ideas that resonate with us: the willingness to self-sacrifice for the greater good by our own choice, and the application of limited violence in the service of justice and protection of community.

The god Tyr/Tiw and learning more about him is a massive project in its own right.

Funnily enough, I drew this rune on a Tuesday. Yesterday's rune, laguz, is sometimes associated to the moon, so I drew that one on a Monday... Mani's day.

Rune a Day Project - Day 24 - November 24, 2021 - Algiz (or Elgaz/Elhaz)

Day 24 of my rune a day project. Today I drew Algiz. Literally, it means "elk-sedge" (Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem) or "Yew" (reversed and found in the Younger Futhark). It represents protection, defense, the higher self, support patronage, care, guardian, reaching up to the divine, prayer, warding, hallowing, restraint, resistance, shield, Yggdrasil, guardian spirits, Hamingja, communication with spirits and the divine.

Lots of references out there hone in on the "elk" part of "elk-sedge", but I wanted to learn more about the actual plant itself. Sedge has hundreds of varieties, but the one the Anglo-Saxon rune poem is referring to is claudium mariscus, called in modern times "sawtooth sedge", "swamp sawgrass", "great fen-sedge", or "saw sedge". It grows in boggy areas just as the poem describes and it is one of the grasses used in thatching houses (literally up to modern times). It can grow about 8 feet tall and is native to temperate areas of Europe and Asia. North America has several related subspecies. The edges of the leaves are sharp, hence the sense of defense and protection, because you can literally cut yourself on these plants.

Sedge as a species in all of its varieties is known to provide ground-cover and protection for small animals & pollinators. So yet again, there's that protection association.

I also see a roof support column in the shape of Algiz, which again connects that with protection from the outside world (the roof column supports the thatched roof, right?).

Many sources also related this to Yggdrasil and/or the Tree of Life, prayer, and communication to the spirit world and the divines. I think this is pretty obvious going by the shape - yep, looks like a tree, and yep, absolutely resembles a person with arms wide in prayer. Thus, if you want to draw deeper associations to this rune on those interpretations, I think that makes a lot of sense.

Upside down, this rune exists as "yr" in the Younger Futhark, representing the letter R and translated as "yew" (which in the Elder Futhark, is Eihwaz, ᛇ , which we talked about waaay back on day 9). In the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc it's "calc", representing and the letter K, and it could mean "chalice" or "chalk" maybe. For me, when I see this rune upside down, I think of the modern-day peace sign, ☮ . That was created by Gerald Holtom in 1958, and it stands for nuclear disarmament originally, but now is generally "peace".

Given that the "elk-sedge" interpretation of the rune seems to be *armed* self defense in some way, turning it upside down as an emblem of *disarming* seems appropriate, even if the symbol is not at all related to runes (it's a combo of the semaphore signals for "N" and "D").

Funny little coincidence, that.

Personally, martial artist and instructor, this rune REALLY speaks to me in terms of self defense. The idea that you learn, you arm yourself, but you only use it in defensive uses is the basic premise of all martial arts training that has any relationship to self defense. I really should be wearing this rune a lot as well as Tiwaz, the rune I wear all the time. I think I'll make it a point to include it on my person as much as possible going forward.

Rune a Day Project - Day 11 - November 11, 2021 - Bernako

Day 11 of my rune a day project. Today I drew Berkano, meaning "birch". It represents birth, new beginnings, new ideas, growth, family, regeneration, earth, creativity, recovery, healing & atonement, enjoyment of sexual relationships, sanctuary, secrecy and silence in service of protection and listening, liberation, true home.

Reverse means stagnation, obstacles to something new, troubles with conception or pregnancy, sterility, interference in growth, the abusive parent or guardian, problems with female reproductive system, anxiety.

A couple of years back, I woke up with this rune literally in my vision, and its name ringing in my ears. I still don't have an idea of why that was, but for that reason, this rune has been one I've learned a lot about, and one that I feel very close to. Since I grew my hair long, I wear this rune in my hair a lot.

Whether it has a deeper significance other than it's a "favorite" of mine is debatable, obviously. It could be like having a favorite color or a "lucky" number - it's just something that I like, and it doesn't have to have any more significance to it than that. Or it means more, and I don't quite understand that yet.

Rune a Day Project - Day 20 - November 20, 2021 - Mannaz

Day 20 of my rune a day project. Today I drew Mannaz. Literally, it means "human" or "humankind". It represents identity, self-realization, the soul, the self, our role in our community, kinship, mutual support, helping others, others helping you, intelligence, rationality, the meld of reason & intuition, the mind, cooperation for the common good, shared human experience, individuality, self development, memory, the human condition.

An older word often used for what this rune means is "Mankind". So of course, I immediately thought of what I'm sure all of you thought of, which is, of course, WWE SuperStar Mick Foley, and one of his three characters, Mankind (the other two being Cactus Jack and Dude Love).

You're thinking that's me just making a little joke, but guess what? This rune is usually associated with the god Heimdall, and some scholars suggest that as Odin gave his eye for the wisdom in Mimir's well, so Heimdall also made a sacrifice... of his ear.

MICK FOLEY LOST AN EAR IN A WRESTLING MATCH. And then the dude wrote a book.

I'm not saying Mick Foley is a modern human manifestation of Heimdall, but I am saying we can't 100% rule that out.

On a slightly more serious note, this rune got me thinking about the supposed conflict between individualism and community. Many of us pit these against each other, as if to support one must mean sacrificing the other. That's absolutely not true, and IMO, a product of the binary thinking our culture has fallen into (us/them, good/bad, up/down, right/wrong, and so many others).

Pursuing individual pursuits without regard to community is ultimately self-destructive. Humans are social creatures, and we need community. Most of us, to varying degrees, understand this, and act accordingly.

However, building community without regard to individual well being and uniqueness is also a fool's game. No community that requires individuals to give up their inner selves for some "greater good" (what that is is ALWAYS subjective and most of the time is defined by an elite of one kind or another) will remain a community very long. There will always be individuals who will rebel in one way or another, until the group can't function any more.

The community needs individuals who are true to themselves to be stable and rewarding for its members, and individuals need community literally to survive.

In my experience, human beings in groups of more than a few people almost always organize themselves into a hierarchy (there's Heimdall coming up again, with the story of his dividing humanity into three groups). It is not unusual for the elite in that hierarchy to abuse their power in some way, no matter the size of the group or however well-intentioned the elite.

Rune a Day Project - Day 5 - November 5, 2021 - Uruz

Day 5 of my Rune a Day project. Today I drew Uruz, meaning "aurochs" or "wild ox". It represents power, strength, vitality, health, untamed potential, wildness, healing, courage, vigor, and free will.

It's interesting that I've drawn five runes so far, and three are from Freyr's Aett (the first 8 runes of the Elder Futhark). Of the five, only one - Isa, yesterday's rune - is considered fundamentally "negative" in a top-line, cursory interpretation.

Rune a Day Project - Day 21 - November 21, 2021 - Ansuz

Day 21 of my rune a day project. Today I drew Ansuz. This is another of those complicated runes that takes on different flavors depending on which rune set you're considering. Most of the sources I'm referencing interpret the meaning to be "god", but it also has the meaning of "mouth" and "estuary" attested in the Anglo-Saxon and Old Norwegian rune poems respectively. Old English takes this single rune and breaks it up into three: ᚩ ("Os", which was possibly re-assigned the meaning "mouth" from Latin vs. the original meaning "god"), ᚩ ("ac", meaning "oak") and ᚫ ("æsc", meaning "ash"). Old English had developed more variety in the sound represented by Ansuz, thus, the split into three runes.

Ansuz means god, knowledge, wisdom, inspiration, thought, speech, charm (as in the meaning of a song or spell or token), connection of the material and spiritual world, words, communication, intellectual pursuits, study, chanting and singing, names and labels, the breath of life, wit, writing.

Ansuz is a really interesting rune. Given its associations with Odin and associations with words and knowledge, it is another rune that seems very connected to this Rune a Day project I've been doing for the last 21 days. Another rune that is making me feel a little closer to Odin, when I hadn't really before. It's also associated to Loki, which makes a lot of sense, as I've always perceived Loki to be the wittiest of the gods.

I also got to thinking about the use of words and labels.

The ability to speak, to learn, and to communicate is a big differentiator between us and other animals on earth (yes, other animals can do this but not to the extent we can). One could argue that this ability is what really makes us more like the gods than other creatures we share this planet with. Speaking, singing, writing is what makes us the children of the gods, not our genetics.

Labels... one thing many of us coming converting to this path struggle with is what to label ourselves. While many of us insist labeling isn't necessary because the ancients didn't have a name for our faith, I must disagree.

Labels are a short-hand way to summarize information and make it faster for people to get to know each other AND develop bonds between us. I call myself "Northern Path Eclectic" because we (my spouse and myself) have an affinity with Germanic *and* Celtic (Irish/Welsh/Gallic) pre-Christian revival (and to make clear I am NOT a reconstructionist, but I'm informed by it). BUT... I also call myself "heathen" or "Norse Pagan" sometimes, because it's the majority of what I do in my practice day to day, especially to identify myself as a member of that wider community.

So, choosing a label for what we believe has a big impact in finding others like us, and to represent who we are to the world.

Labels are also an especially difficult issue for us because the racist contingent uses the same symbols and labels we inclusive people do. Symbols get slimed, sometimes irreversibly, because some asshat racist scumbag puts it on a flag when marching around. I still get pissed that I have to think twice about ever using the Othala rune in any context (which has NOT come up in the project yet), wings or no wings.

I'm also kind of still chewing on this video I watched the other day, from a Heathen YT creator I respect a lot (Eric Word-Weaver Sierven: https://youtu.be/9P8gyZdc4tQ ). At 13:48 in to the video, he talks about the term "norse germanic" or "norse" pagan, and what he thinks that means. His opinion isn't sitting right with me at all, and it's been bugging me for days.

Rune a Day Project - Day 19 - November 19, 2021 - Ehwaz

Day 19 of my rune a day project. Today I drew Ehwaz. Literally, it means "horse". It represents loyalty, social status, devotion, trustworthiness, being purposeful, moving forward, speed (of deed & thought), teamwork, integration, melding, faith, movement, travel, partnership, friendship, commitment, togetherness, unity, cooperation, moving together toward a goal, embracing the journey.

Funnily enough, as I was reading on this rune, my Spotify playlist kept playing songs by the Mongolian folk-rock band "The HU" in heavy rotation. As an aside, I absolutely adore the HU and if you aren't listening to them STOP RIGHT NOW and go learn more about them, then come back and thank me for it. Mongols, are, of course, deeply associated with being mounted warriors, and their instruments are often carved with horse heads.

So of course, a lot of people associate this rune with Sleipnir, Odin's 8-legged horse. For me, the first deity that came to mind was actually not technically Germanic at all - it's Epona, a Gallo-Roman goddess of Horses (and related animals). Apparently there isn't a lot of surviving tales of her, but there is one Greek writer who said Epona was the daughter of a man who mated with a horse. Does that sound a wee bit familiar to y'all Germanic/Norse pagan types?

This all got me thinking about the Proto-Indo-Europeans, the group that spoke a language that is the ancestor to most of the modern European languages as well as many others, including the Indo-Iranian branch (thus, Hindi and English and Persian are all distant relatives). It's theorized that the PIE people were semi-nomadic, and had the technology of chariots (the wheel) as well as tamed horses, so that's why they were able to spread so far and wide and were able to colonize so much land.

The horse has been a critical animal, the engine of its day (and we moderns often measure the power of an engine based on "horsepower"), throughout much of human history. Any culture that had horses had an advantage over those who didn't.

The introduction of the domesticated horse literally changed EVERYTHING for every culture that adopted them. Horses make long distance migration possible. Horses and chariots give a massive advantage over ground-based warriors on open ground.

Horses were critical in making modern life possible. It is no wonder we have so many symbols and mythologies and deities related to horses!

Rune a Day Project - Day 14 - November 14, 2021 - Kenaz

Day 14 of my rune a day project. Today I drew Kenaz, meaning "torch" or "beacon" according to the Anglo-Saxon rune poem, but "ulcer" or "boil" in the old Norwegian rune poem. As "torch", it represents inspiration, creativity, fire, warms, disclosure, passion, enlightenment, knowledge (esp. ancestral revelation), discovery, artistry and craftsmanship, technical aspects of magic, vitality, quest for truth.

Another rune that makes big changes from runeset to runeset. It can look like these, too: ᚳ ᚴ

There's some debate over the meaning of this rune. Most esoteric guides say it means "torch", and has the representations I listed above. However, the meaning "ulcer" and "boil" have to be considered as well.

This got me to thinking about the names/meanings of runes, and what, if any, effect modern definitions of names and meanings will have over time. It's like the words we have in Modern English that used to mean something very different; look at the source and history of the words "cheat", "cute", "flirt", "artificial", "weird" (of course, we pagan/heathen types that one we know well) and "meat".

By the way, I've been learning Norwegian as a side project this year, and the word for all solid food is "mat", which is what the word "meat" (or "mete") used to mean in English!

I'm also a big fan of the podcast "The History of English", by Kevin Stroud (https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/). It's a fantastic introduction to the topic for us regular people, and I've been listening to it for years.

Perhaps, just as languages have changed over time - and our alphabets have changed over time - so could the runes change, based on we moderns *assigning* them meaning. Just because our ancestors assigned this or that meaning, it doesn't mean we can't reinterpret them for modern times and modern revived pagan faiths (which are themselves, by necessity, chock full of reinterpretations, borrowings from various sources, and a health dose of modern UPG).