Showing posts with label runes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label runes. Show all posts
Saturday, September 3, 2016
Devotional Art: Frigga by Jenn McCarty
Friday, September 2, 2016
Uruz-Auroch-Wild-Determination
While I was riding into town the other day, I closed my eyes and tilted my head up to the window to feel the sun full on my face. I was then given a vision of a pile of plain gray river stones all gathered in a pile and on top of that pile was a stone painted with a green rune:
I wasn't sure what to give in offering to Uruz. From what I've read blood is powerful but binding and sometimes too strong especially when just starting out. Finally, I gave milk. I coated the rune in breastmilk, taking care to rub some into the carved rune. That done, I held it loosely. It might have been my own pulse thrumming hard in my hands that I felt, strong and rhythmic as a shaman's drum. I closed my eyes.
I saw a herd of wild cattle with majestic horns. Dark brown fur and large liquid black eyes all around. My eyesight was strange. I had a hard time focusing in front of me. I turned my head and felt weight that was more than my own. I was one of them grazing on a grassy field bordered by mountains not much different than those that rest on the horizon of my home in Alaska.
My hackles rise and something, a scent in the breeze. I turn to see a young one fall to two hungry, lean wolves. The herd moves. We turn as one like a river of fur and deadly horn and hooves. The wolves are trampled. We lost one of ours but the enemy has been dealt with, for now.
I breathe.
The vision changes.
I stand on two feet now, looking at the pile of river stones I saw before when Uruz first came to me. I hear water flowing and see a stream ahead formed from a spring in a wall of rock. I begin to climb that wall. My hands, large and calloused - a man's hands - reach fro a hold in the craggy face of the rock. The sun is hot and I can feel sweat running down my face and back. Round my neck is a necklace made from hemp? horse hair? and beads made from bits of stone and glass. My tunic, the yellow dye faded from wear, clings to my back and is wet with sweat.
I'm breathing hard as I rest my head on the rock. I know not to look down but dread looking up. I'm half-way there.
The sun is covered by clouds and the breeze is suddenly cold. The sweat on my back and neck chills and I keep climbing.
Finally, as the sun, now low on the horizon, peeks back out, I reach the top. My legs and arms are shaky as I collapse on grass. Breathing in deep I smell my own sweat, grass, earth.
I grin, feeling accomplished as I look up into faded blue sky. I run a hand over my face, feeling the beginnings of a beard. Turning my head I see the wild cattle, one looking over me with gentle curiosity and a glimmer of "Do you see now?"
I see.
I saw a herd of wild cattle with majestic horns. Dark brown fur and large liquid black eyes all around. My eyesight was strange. I had a hard time focusing in front of me. I turned my head and felt weight that was more than my own. I was one of them grazing on a grassy field bordered by mountains not much different than those that rest on the horizon of my home in Alaska.
My hackles rise and something, a scent in the breeze. I turn to see a young one fall to two hungry, lean wolves. The herd moves. We turn as one like a river of fur and deadly horn and hooves. The wolves are trampled. We lost one of ours but the enemy has been dealt with, for now.
I breathe.
The vision changes.
I stand on two feet now, looking at the pile of river stones I saw before when Uruz first came to me. I hear water flowing and see a stream ahead formed from a spring in a wall of rock. I begin to climb that wall. My hands, large and calloused - a man's hands - reach fro a hold in the craggy face of the rock. The sun is hot and I can feel sweat running down my face and back. Round my neck is a necklace made from hemp? horse hair? and beads made from bits of stone and glass. My tunic, the yellow dye faded from wear, clings to my back and is wet with sweat.
I'm breathing hard as I rest my head on the rock. I know not to look down but dread looking up. I'm half-way there.
The sun is covered by clouds and the breeze is suddenly cold. The sweat on my back and neck chills and I keep climbing.
Finally, as the sun, now low on the horizon, peeks back out, I reach the top. My legs and arms are shaky as I collapse on grass. Breathing in deep I smell my own sweat, grass, earth.
I grin, feeling accomplished as I look up into faded blue sky. I run a hand over my face, feeling the beginnings of a beard. Turning my head I see the wild cattle, one looking over me with gentle curiosity and a glimmer of "Do you see now?"
I see.
Friday, April 1, 2016
April - Inguz - Motherhood
Today I had a plan to get a lot done on my business websites and blogs. I had a to-do list with several detailed lines on drafting blog posts, newsletters, prepping photos, and so on.
Like so often happens with best laid plans and intentions, it all went to hell first thing this morning. The to-do list didn't even have a chance.
I had a fight with my mother, which, some readers who know me know that is not unusual. My mother and I have a strained relationship that goes through waves of highs and lows, usually the highs look like normal mother-daughter relationships and the lows are...really low. We are entering a low and, as usual in a low, I'm not seeing a way out of it right now.
In the past, when this happens, I have a tendency to wallow in my anger like a pig in mud, a mud warmed by anger then cooling to a tepid depression. Enough of a metaphor?
This time, however, I have a baby boy who has already shown that he is very sensitive to momma's moods so I knew I couldn't harbor these emotions for long or bring him into my mud bath with me.
After a long talk with my husband and getting out my hurt feelings into tears and words, I kissed him and my baby, grabbed some fresh towels, and took a hot shower.
I scalded myself in the water, steaming up the whole bathroom. This is how I cleanse and think. It is the best place for me to meditate now that I have a baby (its the only time I'm alone right now). The steamy air clouds around me and I am transported through the mists into Fensalir.
I climbed the stone steps up to my lady's hall. I pass the pillars and enter the interior hall of stone and great beams of grey wood like the driftwood of the beginning of the worlds. Off to each side of me are dark archways that lead to other rooms and halls (part of me knows that one day I will explore these places but today is not that day).
Ahead of me is the raised dias on which my lady stands. At the bottom step is a handmaiden dressed in a blue dress with her brown hair intricately braided. She is spinning on a wheel that I do not recognize - something between my own spinning which that requires a chair and the kind that Ghandi used to use. I note its strangeness and will look into it later. My goal is up the steps.
I stop at the bottom step and lower my eyes. I request an audience with Frigga. She says nothing but I feel that I am welcome. I climb the steps.
At the top of the platform is a chair - a throne in its use but really little more than a great wooden chair, nothing fancy but sturdy and lovely in its simplicity. Frigga stands beside it with her back to me, facing a large hearth in which a low fire burns. Another handmaiden is here, this one dark blonde but in similar dress, and is prepping some sort of herbal mix in a ceramic pot at the hearth.
I tell Frigga of my struggles, my sadness, my anger and I ask her if I am in the wrong for feeling this way. It takes a moment before Frigga turns to me. She gives me a small smile, one of concern and care. She places her hands on my shoulders and suddenly I am wrapped in a warm cloak - blue with a white collar with blue embroidery. It is warm and luxurious and comforting beyond belief.
She tells me things I do not want to share here - these are private and wonderful and nurturing. I lock them in my heart for now.
Frigga invites me to stay as long as I like to contemplate her words. She then hands me a stone - a rune the side of my palm though oblong. On it is a rune I recognize but could not yet name - I am just starting on my rune journey.
I returned to my shower slowly, tears ran down my face and mingled in the cleansing hot water. I smile and let them fall until I cannot cry anymore. I then leave the shower and dry off.
I take time to braid my hair as best I can - it isnt very long yet. I dress in clothes I like. I hug and kiss on my son and make my husband something to eat. I feel lighter, I can breathe easily.
After I settle I look online for the rune:
Inguz
Resting, gestation, internal growth, expectation, time for oneself
A seed begging to grow. (as I write I notice I wanted to write beginning but instead I typed begging...there are no coincidences)
Today is the first day that was warm enough to go out in short sleeves.
I put my son in our wrap carrier and went outside. I watched my baby touch spruce branches with awe, ponder sounds of birds and cars up the hill at the road, peeped in the green house, and looked at the garden beds awaiting seeds and plants.
We will be spending the weekend working in the greenhouse and outside, preparing the garden.
I think about Inguz. It is a masculine rune connected with Freyr. In this case it is the action of that first growth - the start. It isn't the womb but the bursting forth of new life deep in the ground where it cannot yet be seen. It is a promise of the energy rising, reaching the sun-Sunna, and transformational power not only for itself but also for the animal or person-animal that eats it - nourishment magick.
I am in this stage and while I can only guess, the seed might feel some pain as it cracks open to the moisture of the ground and begins to put out a sprout and roots.
I am putting out roots here in Meadow Lakes. I have found a home and I will grow here, reaching for the sun and nourishing those around me, gaining nourishment from them.
The plant does not worry about nourishing the animal half a world away. It does not worry about nourishing those nearby. It focuses on reaching towards the sun, focuses on drinking deep, focuses on growing its seed and nurturing it. I will do the same.
This rune also references the inner-child. The inner-child that seeks not only acceptance but also a mother's pride. The inner-child that fears even after a decade, even after 5000 miles. The inner-child that now turns to a goddess who takes care of children left out in the cold by mothers past and now and carries them with her on the wild hunt - the same wild hunt that happens one night after my birthday.
In divination, a reverse or "negative" reading could mean movement without change. I reflect on how I am constantly in this cycle with my mother. Susun Weed in her book says life is a cycle and how we are always returning to these times in our life, these events, decisions, illnesses, and so on and how we learn something new. This isn't to be considered outside of health. This is part of health, part of us. She recommends acceptance and Nourishment - a word that keeps coming up for me. How can I nourish myself in this situation and time. What do I need for nourishment? What does a seed need to gestate?
Good soil - if the soil the seed started in isn't working, move it. I moved to Alaska and was brought to Meadow Lakes by a series of events.
Sunshine - a shining light, goals, hope, knowing that things can get better even in the valleys and tunnels of life. The silver lining - knowing that the valleys might be low but they are fertile and usually beautiful if one will only look around. Sure, they don't have the far seeing vistas of mountain tops but they have meadows - I will have to focus on seeing heaven in a wild flower.
Air to breathe. Pollution, negative thoughts, bad programming, and more.
Water - cleansing, renewing, life giving water. My son's smiles, my lover's arms. Scalding showers.
Inguz
Like so often happens with best laid plans and intentions, it all went to hell first thing this morning. The to-do list didn't even have a chance.
I had a fight with my mother, which, some readers who know me know that is not unusual. My mother and I have a strained relationship that goes through waves of highs and lows, usually the highs look like normal mother-daughter relationships and the lows are...really low. We are entering a low and, as usual in a low, I'm not seeing a way out of it right now.
In the past, when this happens, I have a tendency to wallow in my anger like a pig in mud, a mud warmed by anger then cooling to a tepid depression. Enough of a metaphor?
This time, however, I have a baby boy who has already shown that he is very sensitive to momma's moods so I knew I couldn't harbor these emotions for long or bring him into my mud bath with me.
After a long talk with my husband and getting out my hurt feelings into tears and words, I kissed him and my baby, grabbed some fresh towels, and took a hot shower.
I scalded myself in the water, steaming up the whole bathroom. This is how I cleanse and think. It is the best place for me to meditate now that I have a baby (its the only time I'm alone right now). The steamy air clouds around me and I am transported through the mists into Fensalir.
I climbed the stone steps up to my lady's hall. I pass the pillars and enter the interior hall of stone and great beams of grey wood like the driftwood of the beginning of the worlds. Off to each side of me are dark archways that lead to other rooms and halls (part of me knows that one day I will explore these places but today is not that day).
Ahead of me is the raised dias on which my lady stands. At the bottom step is a handmaiden dressed in a blue dress with her brown hair intricately braided. She is spinning on a wheel that I do not recognize - something between my own spinning which that requires a chair and the kind that Ghandi used to use. I note its strangeness and will look into it later. My goal is up the steps.
I stop at the bottom step and lower my eyes. I request an audience with Frigga. She says nothing but I feel that I am welcome. I climb the steps.
At the top of the platform is a chair - a throne in its use but really little more than a great wooden chair, nothing fancy but sturdy and lovely in its simplicity. Frigga stands beside it with her back to me, facing a large hearth in which a low fire burns. Another handmaiden is here, this one dark blonde but in similar dress, and is prepping some sort of herbal mix in a ceramic pot at the hearth.
I tell Frigga of my struggles, my sadness, my anger and I ask her if I am in the wrong for feeling this way. It takes a moment before Frigga turns to me. She gives me a small smile, one of concern and care. She places her hands on my shoulders and suddenly I am wrapped in a warm cloak - blue with a white collar with blue embroidery. It is warm and luxurious and comforting beyond belief.
She tells me things I do not want to share here - these are private and wonderful and nurturing. I lock them in my heart for now.
Frigga invites me to stay as long as I like to contemplate her words. She then hands me a stone - a rune the side of my palm though oblong. On it is a rune I recognize but could not yet name - I am just starting on my rune journey.
I returned to my shower slowly, tears ran down my face and mingled in the cleansing hot water. I smile and let them fall until I cannot cry anymore. I then leave the shower and dry off.
I take time to braid my hair as best I can - it isnt very long yet. I dress in clothes I like. I hug and kiss on my son and make my husband something to eat. I feel lighter, I can breathe easily.
After I settle I look online for the rune:
Resting, gestation, internal growth, expectation, time for oneself
A seed begging to grow. (as I write I notice I wanted to write beginning but instead I typed begging...there are no coincidences)
Today is the first day that was warm enough to go out in short sleeves.
I put my son in our wrap carrier and went outside. I watched my baby touch spruce branches with awe, ponder sounds of birds and cars up the hill at the road, peeped in the green house, and looked at the garden beds awaiting seeds and plants.
We will be spending the weekend working in the greenhouse and outside, preparing the garden.
I think about Inguz. It is a masculine rune connected with Freyr. In this case it is the action of that first growth - the start. It isn't the womb but the bursting forth of new life deep in the ground where it cannot yet be seen. It is a promise of the energy rising, reaching the sun-Sunna, and transformational power not only for itself but also for the animal or person-animal that eats it - nourishment magick.
I am in this stage and while I can only guess, the seed might feel some pain as it cracks open to the moisture of the ground and begins to put out a sprout and roots.
I am putting out roots here in Meadow Lakes. I have found a home and I will grow here, reaching for the sun and nourishing those around me, gaining nourishment from them.
The plant does not worry about nourishing the animal half a world away. It does not worry about nourishing those nearby. It focuses on reaching towards the sun, focuses on drinking deep, focuses on growing its seed and nurturing it. I will do the same.
This rune also references the inner-child. The inner-child that seeks not only acceptance but also a mother's pride. The inner-child that fears even after a decade, even after 5000 miles. The inner-child that now turns to a goddess who takes care of children left out in the cold by mothers past and now and carries them with her on the wild hunt - the same wild hunt that happens one night after my birthday.
In divination, a reverse or "negative" reading could mean movement without change. I reflect on how I am constantly in this cycle with my mother. Susun Weed in her book says life is a cycle and how we are always returning to these times in our life, these events, decisions, illnesses, and so on and how we learn something new. This isn't to be considered outside of health. This is part of health, part of us. She recommends acceptance and Nourishment - a word that keeps coming up for me. How can I nourish myself in this situation and time. What do I need for nourishment? What does a seed need to gestate?
Good soil - if the soil the seed started in isn't working, move it. I moved to Alaska and was brought to Meadow Lakes by a series of events.
Sunshine - a shining light, goals, hope, knowing that things can get better even in the valleys and tunnels of life. The silver lining - knowing that the valleys might be low but they are fertile and usually beautiful if one will only look around. Sure, they don't have the far seeing vistas of mountain tops but they have meadows - I will have to focus on seeing heaven in a wild flower.
Air to breathe. Pollution, negative thoughts, bad programming, and more.
Water - cleansing, renewing, life giving water. My son's smiles, my lover's arms. Scalding showers.
Inguz
Friday, March 11, 2016
Gebo and Frigga
The rune associated with Frigga is Berkana but today I wanted to focus on the relationship of Gebo with Frigga.
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| rune cloth by me rune from my friend Aconita |
If you're reading my blog, you probably know that this is almost entirely UPG (unverified personal gnosis) that is brought on by experiences I have with Frigga and her handmaidens as well as a few experiences I have with other gods and my husband has with other gods.
My experiences with Gebo was initially brought about with Frigga.
The first experience I had was right after Ironwood Witch, Ulfdis, gave me a reading regarding my being called into service by Frigga. I was not expecting a reading but I wanted to return the kindness and work so I asked Ulfdis if I could send her something in return for her divinatory aid. She said I could and reminded me that this act of Gebo is something I might be coming across more and more in this realm of Northern Paganism/Heathenry.
The second time I experienced Gebo with Frigga was when I was trying to negotiate a mandate Frigga had for me - within a year I am to stop giving tarot readings for pay. Frigga is a goddess of divination and a seer in her own right but she is one that is well known for not telling people or gods what she sees. The reason she didn't want me to offer readings for pay is 1) it cheapens my abilities in that people off the street can access divine aid and messages for simple coin and, because it is easily bought, they often blow off the advice given (this is something I see often as a tarot reader) and 2) it is not a form of divination that she is particularly fond of turns out.
So I was negotiating with her regarding divination because I love divination and reading tarot is a huge part of my life and business. I won't go into all the details of our negotiations but I will tell about its relationship to Gebo. Frigga mandated in part that I would learn to read the runes but that my first set of runes must be given to me in an act of Gebo and that I could, until she says otherwise, only read runes for others as an act of Gebo - a barter.
As I said before, my first set of runes were given to me in exchange for a custom crocheted tarot bag. This exchange happened very quickly after Frigga's mandate - the speed of which and the ease of the exchange I honestly feel is a testament to her showing me that she won't simply mandate or require things but will also aid in making it happen so long as I don't hesitate.
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