Photo by Marsý

The Passing of Breath

It may be very useful to examine Ansuz as meaning “the passing of breath.” This short conceptual epigram links its communication aspects to its ancestral overtone, as well as to the idea that Odin gave us the original breath or “inspiration” to live as humans. “Inspiration” is etymologically linked to the breath, and further back to the word enthusiasm by the Ancient Greeks, who would use the word to signify “god-breathed”. It is entirely possible that this is a cross-cultural idea.

In terms of the ancestral lines, not only blood and genes are passed, but something less tangible — a breath passed from parent to child since the beginning.

The Passing of Breath also links this rune to communication: language, linguisitcs and the ordering effect that symbols have on human consciousness. The transmuting effects of symbols on the mind in undeniable — and herein lay a great magic to uncover.

Underlying all this is our basic need to “pass our breath”, that is: share meaning, communicate, persuade and order the universe symbolically. It is not only the gene that needs to survive, but the meme: the memory. The Name.

Giants Versus the Aesir

The gods of the Aesir represent order and consciousness (contrasted to the prior rune, Thurisaz, which represents unconscious and proto-conscious forces, the “giants”) so Ansuz’ chief magic is that of ordering and transmuting the unconscious into the conscious through symbols. This war between the giants and the gods, is actually a very perceptive metaphor for the pre-conscious, unawakened forces that struggle against the awakening consciousness in the universe. We can see this war play itself out everywhere, within us and without.

Ansuz represents the civilizing, ordering tendency that language, oral or written, brings to the otherwise wild and chaotic semi-conscious or totally unconscious intelligence that existed prior. Properly used, its power is meant to awaken, not impede, human potential toward godhood, that is, the expansion of the Aesir’s aims in the universe.

More of this war, which culminates in the ancient idea of Ragnarok will be understood by looking into the rune prior to this in the Aett, Thurisaz. I will also include much more about this idea in my upcoming book.

The Magic of Naming

Central to this rune is the magic of “Naming” which is so fundamental to our minds that it should be explored, in depth, by any serious seeker of human mysteries.

Naming includes the use of symbols, definitions, classifications, labels and all attempts at signifying something through words. It extends into the domain of sharing such symbols in a community (communication) and attempts at transforming the understanding of Others through persuasion. That we all do this, constantly, is what makes us human. The drive to make the process powerfully conscious is the quest of the magician, and done consciously, Naming has a supreme affect on the hearts and minds of those exposed to it.

Poetry and Word-Consciousness

It is no accident that our dreams use images in a highly subjective and poetic form, where certain images that may otherwise seem concrete tend to represent entirely different ideas. Cultivating an ability to decipher the symbols your unconscious uses to communicate with you through dreams and visions will also strengthen your ability to listen more deeply to the unconscious symbols others use while speaking. Indeed, this near-psychic ability has marveled people since the dawn of human history. A careful attention to people’s choice of words, whether intuitive or practiced, has likely long come across as mind-reading, prophecy, and clairvoyance.

Listening as a word-conscious being is a large part of mastering the magic of Naming. As Odin’s particular magic often revolves around his poetry (we could also call it spellsong), it is important to emphasize the study of poetry — the ability of those who understand poetry to use it as a kind of “divine cypher” cannot be underestimated. It is essential to probing the unconscious symbol-matrix of the Self and its Society and Culture.

This representative nature is key to understanding communications from other life forms (plants, animals) and higher beings who may not have an immediately understandable form, and must communicate with you indirectly. Much of the universe is like this. Therefor, human language must transcend itself if it hopes to communicate with the non-human intelligences in the surrounding world. Such communications sometimes come with a sort of divine protection, a gift of insight directly from the gods, or perhaps the god-within. Pursue Algiz to explore such possibilities further.

Persuasion

Our Western society is persuasion-obsessed. Though persuasion has always played a part in human interactions, our particular epoch is riddled with the pseudo-science of changing people’s beliefs on a mass scale through the use of words. There are volumes now written on the subject, and we may explore the idea very deeply.

The verbal art of persuasion falls squarely into the realm of Ansuz magic. Though so often twisted to the task of marketing, public relations, propaganda, persuasion itself is not a negative thing. Manipulative uses of Ansuz, however, can soon lead us into a blacker realm of magic and psychology. Remember: it is rare the individual who can deceive others without sooner or later deceiving him or her self. It is indeed the Truth that shall set us free.

Contemporary Exploration

All the modern language sciences would be useful to exploring this rune at extremely great depths. Linguistics is the study of the encoding of all languages. Etymology is the study of the ancestry of words and how language evolves over time. Memetics — ‘meme’ being a buzz word of the past decade — is the study of how symbols and ideas spread through complex human communities, horizontally through space and vertically through time. Finally, Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols, divided into three branches: Sematics, which is the relation between a sign and the things to which they refer; Syntactics, which is the relation among signs in formal structures (such as sentences) and Pragmatics, which is the relation between signs and their effects on those people who use them.

In an age of massive changes to communications, the way information is transmitted and the psychology of persuasion, Ansuz becomes a very important rune in understanding and reflecting upon these changes — as well as what has NOT changed. We have unparalleled access to the related sciences involved.

Murkstave: Ansuz Reversed

There are a host of limits and reversed energies — pitfalls to watch for when using Ansuz. What follows are two major ones.

Dishonesty

Ansuz energies are very often twisted past the point of mere persuasion into the domain of bullshit and point-blank lying. We all, invariably, invent stories and lie to ourselves to one degree or another — we must be sure to study the virtue of honesty to self and others — dishonesty is very harmful to the spirit. Breaking one’s word was considered dishonorable, to the ancients.

Repeat a lie enough, and you will come to believe it. It is a weak magic that relies on illusion. Ansuz is most powerful when aligned as close as possible to reality. But therein lay another treacherous flaw inherent in over-dependence on this rune.

Over-Conceptualization and Duality

The word “tree” can be defined in many ways: as a plant with a hard bark, a source of wood, as growing leaves and forming a canopy, either deciduous or coniferous. But neither the word tree or its definition, or its visual image in our minds — however vivid — is an actual tree.

Here we approach the limit of Ansuz, and there is a very strong, unconscious tendency in Western society to believe too heavily in the name, too heavily in the idea, or theory, while neglecting the infinitely more complex, subtle and interconnected nature of the universe.

Naming and describing does not necessitate understanding. Yet, our minds have the unconscious habit of believing that if we can name, describe, theorize, explain, then we have true understanding. We mistake this layer of symbols, this ‘psychotopography’, as the real world all too easily. We often confuse the map for the actual territory.

Labels are always reductive. Classification always fragments and divides a universe which is not, in and of itself, divided. This can trap us in a mode of thinking that is out of alignment with the truth. Beware this veil of words: it may fool us into believing that just because we have a word for something, we know what it is, and needn’t investigate further. Words can expand understanding, there’s no arguing this. But it is wise to see that they can form walls as well.

And what about a thing that is real, but no word in our language exists for it? Or no word in any language? Can we think about such things, and experience them, regardless?

Conclusion

A word itself makes nothing more or less real, except in our minds, though this is not to understate the power and potential of our minds! Symbols shape and order consciousness. They can increase consciousness, but they can also lower it. Words affect people, and people affect the world. Words may inspire us to action, or mold the beliefs which guide our lives and shape the attitudes in our society. Remember though, that that ‘action’ is beyond the energy of Ansuz. Ansuz only inspires it.

You may talk the talk — but that is often a far cry from walking the walk — which may actually be why the rune Raidho (Ride, or Journey) follows Ansuz.

You can visit Claire and see some of her other poetry on her Spider Tribe wordpress.com website.

Wealth is a comfort to all men
But greater is the good of riches shared,
The barrow’s treasure is a dragon’s den
Of teetering gems ~ hoarder, be prepared
For the wolves that track the scent of gold,
Give to the living, for death lies cold.

The up~horned aurochs is fierce and proud,
Great girded warrior of the moor
With eyes of fire and spirit loud,
Savage and feared as a god of war
But the man who is brave, or the man who is wise
Might show the mettle for the beast’s demise.

The thorn is sharp to human flesh,
Push against it ~it will win the duel,
One thorn can hide a wicked mesh
Of thorns, demon company is cruel.
Best be vigilant or be easily caught
On the barbs of evil deed or thought.

The mouth gives shape and sound to words,
Is the comfort of councilors and Wisdom’s pillar,
On the palate of the ageless sky, the birds
Are blessed and confident; Woden is Healer,
Prophet and Sage and as Shaman he gave
More than his eye to cut the whisper on the stave.

The saddle is soft and the way is clear
In the journey of a hearth~dream, but the dreaming fire
Is no preparation for the hardships that will appear
On the mile~paths cruel with rock and mire.
The wise traveler and his horse are bold
When the ashes of dreams have long lain cold.

Torch is known to the living by its light
And heat of flame when the nobles are within,
When men of common purpose talk into the night,
When they are gathered together, kith and kin.
Its beacon is sure and true and courage
Is like oxygen, empowering its quiet rage.

Generosity is for men glory and exaltation,
A word of kindness can mean more than gold,
However small the gift, express appreciation ~
The grudging man pines, but he who is kind and bold
Seldom has cares, even the man who is broken
Can give or receive the simplest token.

Joyful is he who knows no sorrow,
Has little want and bears no pain,
Who thanks the day and does not fear tomorrow.
Sadness will come, but do not seek to attain
Its touch of grey ~ Wyrd has enough bliss
And woe for all ~ bittersweet, the parting kiss.

Hail is the whitest of grains, fleet
As the messenger with urgent news, cold mortar
Through the vaults of heaven, a sleet
Of arrows that sweetly melts to water
Having felled the golden legions of the field.
And so, in times of plenty, make good your yield.

Need is an aching in the breast, but then
Just as the medicine with the bitter taste
Can soothe, need is comfort to the sons of men.
Hardship, like guilt, is better faced ~
Be strong and certain of brighter days
And the gods will hold you in their gaze.

Ice is over~cold, a skater’s dream,
A walker’s nightmare, a floor of frost
Cold glass and gems, the faraway gleam
Of all we desire that is easily lost.
Crystals and opals and diamonds all,
Cruel and worthless when we fall.

Year is the hope and joy of men, She
Who is Earth and of the earth, who bears
The fruits of earth and flesh for all humanity,
Rich and poor alike, is all beauty when she wears
The green and blossoms as her gown, the sky
In her hair ~ and so shall be when we all die.

Yew is outwardly an unsmooth tree
Hard and fast in the earth, the shepherd
Of fire, roots earth~locked, tangled as mystery.
Its branches sky~reaching are, as the web of Wyrd,
Questing for the seven worlds, seen and unseen ~
Irminsul, a joy on the land and evergreen.

Hearth is to the proud the place of laughter,
Song and recreation, where the warriors in the mead hall
Sit now blithe and companionable after
The giants of flesh and mind and heart, all
Have been slain for the day; when battles are chessmen
And challenges are riddles, all is pleasure then.

Elksedge, waxing in the water of the marsh,
Has a hilt to suit the warrior’s grasp
But it meets the flesh with substance harsh ~
Hilt becomes blade, a living rasp
That sears the flesh and burns the blood.
Be strong, to clutch at straws will yield no good.

Sun, bright sail of the tranquil sky,
Is ever a joy to the farers of the sea,
When dreams are fish shoals and hopes fly high
With the sea birds and confidence and opportunity
Rise with the halyards, until the steed of brine and foam,
Courser of the deep, brings them gladly home.

Tiw is a guiding star, the warrior’s friend,
Ever moving over night’s mist and darkness.
First of the gods, ever burning to defend
The fields of men and the shining fortress,
Stronghold of the gods that we call heaven,
Keeping faith with princes and trust with all men.

Birch bears no fruit, yet brings forth shoots
Until its crown is splendid, laden with leaves,
Heavy in the air ~ and so it is that its fruits
Are those of healing and enchantment, such spells it weaves
Out of green and time as the creative fire communes
With the mind of man, is the flesh of wands and runes.

Horse, proud in its hooves, at the helm
Of warriors is a joy to princes and royal
In its mane, be it on the mile~paths of its realm
Granting a hero speed, or standing loyal
Where the rich men barter words and impress
With deeds. And is ever a comfort to the restless.

The man of laughter is dear to his friends,
Yet every kinsman will betray his fellow:
The time must come to all when laughter ends
And Sculd, by Her decree, lays flesh below
The living green and the solemn oaths of man
Are brought to nothing. Enjoy the laughter, while you can.

Water to men seems endless, when the rocking bark
Is fragile on the quake of sea, when the horse
Of the deep, thundering vast and dark
Defies the bridle. But still they plot a course
For new horizons, the reward of distant lands,
Seizing opportunity with trembling hands.

Ing was first among the East Danes
Seen by men, until he departed over the deep,
His wagon behind him and they with war in their veins
Named the hero. Rouse him from his winter sleep
When you burn the holly ~ he survives the snow
As the seed of life, with his corn~sheaf pillow.

Homeland, dear to man, won by the blood
And courage of the men of old, is the hearthlight
Of all that is safe and right and good,
The legacy for which we fought and still must fight.
It swells the blood with pride and sings
In the hearts of common men and kings.

Day, beloved of men, is the herald
Of Woden and the glorious skein of thread
Spun by Metod. Such comfort in that gold ~
Lightening the mind, the heart, the tread
Of rich and poor alike, of service to all
Is reason and understanding, fair and rational.

Oak is food for flesh, joy to the lips
Of man in the meat that grew sweet and succulent
Feasting on acorns. And oak is the faith of ships,
The trusted timber, stable on the torrent
Of the gannet’s bath and so we must ensure
That the acorns of our lifetime, as oaks endure.

Ash, much prized by man, is high
Steadfast and firm, swift when it grows,
Stout when it stands, straight when it streaks the sky
As a singing spear or a sleet of arrows.
Ash is ambush, attack, the power to advance
And yet is stockade, defence and vigilance.

The ax~hammer is a joy and an honour
To prince and warrior alike. It is bold
On the journey, intrinsic to the brave armour
Of war and fair on the horse, a sight to behold
As it hangs from the saddle, hellbent on battlefields,
The clang of war~gear and the walls of shields.

Ior is a river~fish and yet it feeds
Always on the land and lives a life
Of quiet joy, working hard to meet its own needs,
Building a home that is free from strife,
Encompassed by water. His is time well spent,
Is peace of mind and home~and~dry contentment.

Grave is the terror of all, even from birth
When life first warms the flesh, it is the only certainty
That flesh will cool and choose the pale earth
As its last companion. But thus shall we find equality
In that end ~ and a spur~ for the dead are dumb to speak
When the rich lie poor and the strong lie weak.

Photo by Tracy Misso

Othala traces back to certain words in Anglo-Saxon and Norse whose oldest meaning is ‘noble‘ or nobility, and are associatively linked to property, estate, homeland and nation-building. Othala’s core power is the wise management of resources both physical and psychic. Not the ruthless efficiency that leads to totalitarian states or monopolies, but a more harmonious give and take that leads to peace and freedom amongst the people, a state of balance between order and chaos.

We have legends in every culture about this perfect, harmonious city or place. Asgard, Atlantis, Avalon. Shangri-la, Shambala and Eden. We use the word Utopia, which was an imaginary place that Thomas Moore described in his book of the same name. All of these represent the inate human understanding that we, as a species, have the potential to create a harmonious and peaceful society.

Ancestral Spiritual Inheritance

It has been said that Othala contains the potential power of all the other runes. The main energy involved in this is the ancestral spiritual power, which connects us to our genetic wisdom, the unconscious and sometimes awakened unity that links us back to the first humans who began to think and seek something ‘greater’ than a simple ‘animal’ existence. This is one way in which Othala unites all of mankind, throughout time.

However, some groups hearken to a past they have no record of and cannot understand. It is common for us to romanticize the past. But, the ancients are quite clear with us that the world has sometimes been a very harsh place. Such romanticizing will not do. Although we may draw on the past, it is perhaps better to tend to our own lot in the present, honestly and with keen observation and judgement. We shall see that Othala is actually a forward-looking rune, a rune of continuation of the ancestral toward a collective destiny, not merely a reliving of the past.

The proper use for a group or community is to observe how it lives and breathes, the methods by which it functions, the social-psychology of its members, so one may gain a great understanding of families, groups and community’s in general, and to celebrate the kinship of awakening with others. A group that promote a culture of openness, fairness, honesty and freedom is a healthy group. A group (or cult, or nation) that focuses on conformity, making enemies with other groups, rigidness of thinking and mindless devotion is, in reality, quite insane.

Sacred Enclosure and Homeland

Othala is the root of why we honor the blood that was shed to take and defend a territory. That symbolic act of the warrior is representative of a deeper act, which the Greeks expounded upon in their philosophy, which is found amongst the druids and throughout mysticism the world over, which is: the expansion of the light of individual and collective human consciousness against the forces of ignorance and darkness of the old ‘chaotic’ world.

This expansion is illustrated quite profoundly in the constant battle of Asgard (consciousness) against the Giants (unconsciousness).

Seen as a sacred enclosure, Othala scales from merely a personal space and living conditions, to a home or a community such as a town or city. It scales to the level of a state or nation, and indeed, Othala rises even to the height of an entire civilization.

At it’s apex, Othala represents an allegience to all life on the planet, a global unity amongst humankind, and the potential ‘utopia’ that humankind is destined to eventually build together. Though the Nazis chose to try and do this through war, studied more deeply, Othala’s vision of a united world is inevitable because of the power of ordinary, every day, peaceful people interacting together in a mundane way, profoundly spiritual in its simplicity.

Nobility

Rather than representing genetic inheritance and blood (which it of course does but only on a lower level of meaning) Othala is actually the movement of society to transcend these ideas, and embrace all humanity as kindred, all the world as a single global nation. It is the rune of a sustainable planetary civilization, a utopia, or paradise. The ‘noble’ is in fact anyone who takes up the role of a person moving his portion of the homeland/personal-communal sphere toward heaven-on-earth.

This idea of nobility is especially poignant, because it was not always the case that nobility was bestowed due to blood. It could be merit, or a spiritual inheritance of some sort. In many ways of thinking, to be noble is to act noble. If you behave as a noble, as a king or queen, the power of your hamingja will organize the world around you, slowly and surely, to reflect this inner. The outer is merely a reflection of the inner. Therefor it is essential to understand nobility as something gained through one’s own actions and behaviors, not bestowed by birth, blood, title, or any other external circumstance. Therefor, the understanding of and responsibility for one’s inner-world is absolutely paramount, for its very essence will structure the minute details of the world around you.

Relationship to Time

As may be obvious by now, Othala is a rune concerned with time, and a past-and-future based sense. Jera, as the 12th rune, half of Othala’s position, concentrates on the cyclical nature of time, whereas Othala seems to indicate the arrow of time, as seen by the human mind. Therefor it connects the past to the future, and our ancestors to our eventual progeny.

Therefor, where Jera represents nature’s own ecology, Othala represents our relationship as a species to the land, to this planet, in the form of responsibility, stewardship and the potent and real consequences of human actions on a mass scale.

The Power of the Domestic

All this above may sound grandiose, but Othala is powerfully rooted in the mundane world. I will often define Othala in terms of the personal estate, that is the family, community and business affairs. It extends outward to include the political sphere, and then the human condition. But first comes the home. There are many factors in a happy home, but the nation should be measured by the extent to which these happy homes exist, and can remain peaceful and free from oppression. That means access to adequate shelter, food and water, education, love and respect between its members, interesting work for the community and so on. The home is often the outpost from which a good life is lived — “home is where the heart is”.

One of Othala’s prime teachings may be that “One who is unable to be trusted with the little things, cannot be trusted with the big things.”  Think that over carefully before assuming authority of any sort.

Othala Reversed

The perversion of Othala is the road toward totalitarianism, the inappropriate use or waste of resources, the disruption of the peace and security of home, and the denial of freedoms, sometimes in the form of various slavery. Nationalism, contrary to what may be believed about this rune, is a negative, energy-draining phenomenon, which creates inevitable conflict and war. Nazi Germany may have been a particularly extreme version of a nation, but the underlying trend is inherent within all nation-states.

The negative consequences of a system of ownership also fall under the murkstave of this rune. Ownership requires the co-operation and agreement of the community. When ‘ownership’ becomes imbalanced, more laws, more force, and more violence are required to uphold entitlement. Citizens and members of the community must be increasingly spied upon and mistrusted when only a few control the wealth and power of the so-called ‘nation’.

There can be only one destiny for a family, community or nation that does not live in balance, uphold the common justice of the people, and strive for the freedom and prosperity of its every member, and it is grim indeed.

Further Reading:

Othala – Rune Meaning

Follow-Up

What is the state of your home? Your community? Your nation? Now is a good time to reflect on the aspects of your life that create the place you live from day-to-day, and what you have the power to do to change it if it needs to be changed.

Your comments are most welcome!

-Tyriel

Thanks to Tyriel and the thought-provoking comments people contribute to Rune Secrets I have recently spent time pondering Fehu. The following are just some thoughts going through my mind – they are offered to you for consideration, which some of you will hopefully share back again, so we can all learn more together. Some of my thoughts likely reflect things I said in my previous Fehu article or in comments I have posted, but Tyriel encouraged me to write up these latest reflections as an article. Hopefully they are not too rambling!

Photo by Andy Allen

Fehu and Uruz – the Primal Cow and Ox
First of all, some of the commentary on Fehu has raised questions about whether the energy is male or female. I think that, just as each rune contains positive and negative polarities, so both male and female energy is present in each. Runic teachings actually seem to really underline the necessity of combining those energies in order to achieve the spiritual wholeness for which we strive. The deities most associated with Fehu are the male and female twins Freya and Freyja.

That said, some runes are more strongly associated with a male, or a female, core energy. In the case of Fehu, there is no real debate among Runesters that Fehu represents the female, Mother Goddess energy – the creative fire that melted the primordial ice and gave birth to all – both the Giants and the Aesir (Gods). Fehu is fiery energy associated with Adhumla the primal cow and linked to the Muspellheimr the fire world… I note the links we had to great page on Yggdrasil and the nine worlds are broken. I couldn’t find anything I liked as well, but at this link is a diagram and an interesting discussion associating the worlds to  Chakra’s: http://home.comcast.net/~chakra_system/other4.html

Uruz, the following rune, is associated with Nifelheim – the world of frost and represented by an Auroch – a wild bull Ox. Uruz is primal earth (originally frozen) energy. For life to occur this ice must interact with the creative fire, which melts the ice releasing raw, primitive, indestructible energy (‘brute strength).  It is the primordial will to survive.

When disciplined by the creative will and energy (Hamingja), Uruz is a force of health, healing and growth, which in turn feeds the Fehu fire and creativity. Undisciplined the force can be destructive.

These two runes are inseparably interactive and dynamic– both are necessary to create and maintain life.

Fehu and Abundant Wealth
To the best of our current knowledge, the wealth associated with Fehu is of the movable kind and represented by cattle that could be exchanged for other material needs – used to pay a ‘fee’. It is pecuniary (from pecos, Latin for cow) wealth that the individual or community earns. Tied to cattle, and other exchangeable commodities, we should expect it to ebb and flow, but also that if we work as we should that we will receive at minimum what we need to survive.

Our current global economic construction is so far removed from the ancient notion of simple exchange that understanding the concepts of abundance and wealth imbedded in Fehu are, I think particularly challenging. ‘Wealth’ to the ancients quite likely meant having all basic necessities met.

One very important question is, “what do we do with an abundance of wealth?” To me, the Rune poems and Hávamál seem clear – if there is abundance it should not be stockpiled. When some have more than others trouble will quickly follow if it is not shared freely. This is a cycle of reciprocity (Gebo), for wealth is fleeting and one who has much today may have nothing tomorrow:

Wealth is a comfort to all men,
Yet everyone must give it away freely,
If he wants to gain glory in the Lord’s sight
[Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem: Translation R.I Page; Aswyn suggests the Northern Lord of Judgement is Tyr]

Full-stocked folds had Fitjung’s sons,
Who now bear a beggar’s staff;
Wealth is brief as the wink of an eye,
Of friends it is most false.
The unwise man, if he should get
Wealth or woman’s love,
His arrogance grows but not his sense –
On he goes deep in delusion
[ Hávamál: 78-79; Translation Diana Paxon in Taking up the Runes]

It must be remembered, that in ancient mobile societies, an abundance could not be easily transported – wealth was what could be taken along – priority would be to meeting life’s necessities: Live cattle; dried foods; enough water to get to the next drinkable supply; and materials (clothes for warmth). It is also notable that the Hávamál specifically indicates that a woman’s love is as important as material wealth – neither should be taken for granted.

Fehu, Wealth and New Beginnings
How then is wealth understood in the context of Fehu new beginnings? Today, moving to a new location does not mean leaving our money behind – although we may at times have to make hard decisions about property and other belongings. Nevertheless, as Tyriel recently reminded me, Fehu can indicate the need to make a new start – walking away with our head held high and only what we can carry.

For people who have experienced war or natural disaster, this is starkly true in a material sense when the ‘wealth’ they carry with them may be simply the Uruz-driven will to survive.

The rune may also be very apt in indicating the need for new emotional and/or psychological beginnings – where again we will also need to draw on the survival energy of Uruz to get ourselves to safety and new growth.

In today’s economic downturn it can also indicate a need for new material starts. We must ‘cut our losses’ and begin again to seek material security (a new job, a new home perhaps), but Fehu brings us the dynamic and creative energy we need for that. Uruz adds the physical stamina and sheer will to keep goinAg.

Fehu wealth then, in my ponderings, is very dynamic: sometimes abundant; sometimes scarce. It is about material need; but not material excess. It is about Hamingja – the creative energy that creates life; but also about the need for interaction and balance (positive-negative; male female).

First Aett Interconnections
All this got me thinking about how the whole of the first Aett could be seen as representing essential aspects-energies of life: Fehu and Uruz, the essential and inseparable primordial pair; Thurisaz, both Giant and Defender (Thor) – chaos and control. A dangerous barely conscious power unless tempered by wise application and direction (Ansuz). Raidho the road to be ridden and the wheels to ride – the means to move. Kenaz the torch – controlled and applied fire that creates “hearth and hall’ and guides communities; the knowing and the passing on of the knowledge. Gebo the essential balance – equal exchange or equalizing of energy and material necessities. And finally Wunjo the joy of being; and that being is good enough.

Related reading:

Fehu Rune Meaning (Basic)
Extended Fehu Rune Meaning by Mahryan

Photo by Blerina Berisha

Symbolism in Nauthiz

Symbolically, it seems that NAUTHIZ refers to two sticks rubbing together to create fire. It is also invoked in the common practice of crossing one’s fingers for protection and luck. If one replaces the symbol of HAGALAZ with the Younger Futhark symbol of a six-pronged star, the first three runes of the second Aett appear to be linked as a kind of countdown, alluding perhaps to Ragnarok. Nauthiz’ position in the second Aett tells us that, like the other runes of this row, that its workings are inimical to human desires, and that its laws are set in stone, so to speak, whether we like them or not.

The Love and Hate of the Need-Fire

The need-fire is a symbol of our love-hate relationship with fire, and other advanced human technologies. In the history of our species, fire in a controlled state has been a necessary tool, perhaps among the first significant discoveries of the evolving human mind. It has led to the further ability, in our own times, to discover and harness all sorts of useful energies: electricity, light and even atomic power.

But our dependence upon these fearsome energies can often be our undoing – for fire is not ever completely tamed, and is all too able to turn on its supposed masters. As a result of this principle, conflict and struggle are inherent in Nauthiz – for better or for worse. In this sense, the rune has a lot in common with THURISAZ.

Identifying Our Needs

Our relationship with our needs is often fraught with urgency, as they can sometimes go ignored, taken for granted and forgotten, only to be suddenly all-too-apparent. For example, from moment to moment we very rarely pay attention to something so fundamental as our breathing, but if we are short of air, we notice immediately, even reacting quite violently to satisfy our need for it. Such reactive force is locked tight within the magic of Nauthiz.

Our basic needs are easy to identify: clean water, food, shelter, clothing… but our many other needs can become terribly complex. We need our family, and we need love. We need time to ourselves but also companionship. We need power over ourselves and over our estate. We need to contribute to the world, but over-sacrifice and you’ll find ruin. Sometimes our needs conflict even with one another!

Complex needs are complicated to identify and complicated to fulfill. We can lead ourselves into deep ruts and create immense problems by ignoring our more complicated needs, and find we have toiled for naught. The universe is constantly teaching us of our needs, and it has little mercy. Therefor it is wise to spend time on considering one’s own needs very deeply, so that we can learn our lessons in advance of them being forced upon us by circumstance.

In hard times and desperate situations, Nauthiz allows us to do what must be done, when there appears little choice. Too often, we must pick the lesser of two evils, and sometimes in the attempt to properly fulfil our needs we are shown a darker side of ourselves than we care to admit is real. As necessity rears its head, constraint also appears – there may not be much choice at all. For more on constraint we look to the next rune in the Elder Futhark, ISA.

Life’s Lessons

Nauthiz is related to the Norns and fate, and there are various takes on this. Never the less, understanding of need is essential to manipulating Wyrd. A major way that this is so is the understanding of cause and effect, or karma. Our past actions create consequences. In other words, we are presently a pattern that has been woven together from our experiences and beliefs, and projects itself toward the future and our fates.

Our pattern will always draw to us the type of lessons that we need to learn. It will naturally shape consequences, over and over if necessary, until we change our pattern in some way. This will produce new consequences, and therefor present new lessons.

Recognizing these lessons is a particular act of awareness and meditating upon Nauthiz will assist you. If a lesson is not recognized and met consciously, we are doomed to repeat it until we can evolve past it. It is implied that for some lessons, this can take many lifetimes.

Photo by INOC

Symbolism in Mannaz

Mannaz as a symbol can represent a number of things. Odin’s two ravens, Huginn, who represents mind (thinking) and Muninn, who represents memory, is a common theme here. The symbol could also be a representation of the arch at the top of an old well, implying the power of the mind to plumb the depths of Mimir’s Well: our collective unconscious or our ancestral memory.

It may represent a multiple of WUNJO, being the total of the human tribes, friend and enemy alike, and all the conflict inherent in our united, but divided world. Another possibility is that it is DAGAZ-on-two-legs, alluding to our potential to attain enlightenment. All of these ideas would make sense.

The Horizons of Human Potential

Mannaz is a rune whose principles hold true in scale from the individual to the whole of humanity. Range and variation in individual experience is unfathomably vast. It is both our individual human potential to perfect ourselves (the Perfected Human or savior idea is often alluded to here, as is our ancestral connection to the gods [see ANSUZ]) and humankind’s total potential to become a sustainable planetary civilization, utopia or paradise. The most positive energies of Mannaz make realizing our inner-savior and the possibility of heaven on earth into a real, attainable goal. If you feel strongly that we could solve the problems that beset and threaten humankind, then you are already activating Mannaz in your life.

The Building Blocks of Society

Mannaz is our ability to analyse and predict, to wilfully generate effects and shape our individual and collective future. It is the drive to better ourselves and society. This rune helps us realize our place in the big picture, where our energies and abilities are most perfectly positioned to shape Self and Society toward our ideals.

The harshness of the human world necessitates our co-operation with one another for our personal and collective survival, whether we like it or not. Here the joy and bliss of fellowship represented by WUNJO is balanced by the suffering of the human situation and its manifestations.

Socially, Mannaz can be seen as the tendency of anarcho-syndicalism — that is, the basic fact that humans organize into progressively larger groups, whether these be tribes, city-states, nations, cultures or civilizations. Many such organizations can exist along side one another, and that they exist at all is because we use our minds to create sense and order.

Ordering Principles

Whether you believe we do this for better or for worse, the human mind is an ordering-machine, spotting patterns and organizing tremendous amounts of data into knowledge, experience and wisdom. ANSUZ is also a rune of bringing order to chaos, but through language and poetry.

The mind has a stubborn drive to understand the human situation. Though knowledge of it seems so tremendously overwhelming and unavailable, we feel the pull of Mannaz to analyze, predict and think deeply about things, a drive that if faithfully followed will always push our intellect to its limits… for as mankind’s scope increases, so does our own.

Mind in Time

Mannaz speaks to us of our own shrouded origins, for instance, the lack of memory we have of our birth, and childhood. In a collective sense our species have existed for millions of years before recorded history, but living memory of those times have been lost.

Yet these secrets are still there to be discovered deep in our unconscious, for our ancestors have lived through them and they are in our breath, blood and genetic makeup. This is an aspect of Mimir’s well, or the Sanskrit Akashic Records, an eastern parallel.

Mannaz, too, covers the human situation in all its complex, chaotic scope in the present day. But rather than representing that chaos, it is the rune of the hidden structure and divine order to these affairs, the idea that there is reason and purpose to the affairs of humankind.

Projected into the future, Mannaz speaks of our limitless potential in face of the infinite years ahead of us. It is the horizons of all that each individual has ever thought or done, is thinking or doing, and can ever think or do. Mannaz is the rune of the genius and the visionary.

We see that the mind operates inside of time, and that a deep relationship to time is necessary for mental functioning. Without time, the mind goes silent. Both JERA and IHWAZ, positioned above Mannaz in the Aettir, have a lot to do with time.

Self-Knowledge and Self-Mastery

Fear of the unknown is absent with Mannaz, as the unknown only fuels those dealing with such magic to learn, excel, prepare, plan and master themselves to the fullest extent possible.

Perverted use of such powers will have us attempting to manipulate humankind and seeking to control those around us, as many in positions of great power have done. Properly understood, we seek instead to become the master of our own mind, with a strong, centered intellect and a firm knowledge of our position in society. We know our passions, our purpose, and we plan and revise those plans with graceful strategy, confident that there is a higher, rational order to things than we have yet understand.

The Vitki, or ‘Noble Mind’

On an individual level, Mannaz provides the inherent nobility in seeking to master one’s own mind, the triumph of reason over instinct and conditioning. It is tied to the ‘vitki’, the Norse word for an integrated and self-disciplined mind. Humanity, like nobility , is earned through deeds, rather than a birthright. This is a theme in the Northern mysteries, seen in RAIDHO, TIWAZ and OTHALA most often, and it is well that we should ponder over it at length. Why do we have such wickedness in human behavior alongside such beauty?

Mannaz in Relation to Nearby Runes

The human archetype is often seen as separate and divine, because of the radical differences between human behavior and that of other forms of life such as the plant matter of BERKANO and the animal nature of EHWAZ. But to avoid imbalance and toxicity (and our civilization has become dangerously toxic) we must also understand also what unifies us with all other Life, as the next rune in the third Aett, LAGAZ (analysis), will reveal.

Mannaz, combined and balanced with an understanding of Laguz, may reveal our roles as co-creator with nature. Further understanding of Life’s unswerving longing to create is witnessed as we understand INGUZ. That these runes are so solidly and sequentially linked in both their positions in the Elder Futhark Aettir and in conceptual analysis alludes to a greater unity in the rune row than is typically obvious to those beginning their studies of rune magic.

Further Reading:

Mannaz – Rune Meaning (basic metaphysical outline)

Algiz is the rune of higher vibrations, the divine plan and higher spiritual awareness. The energy of Algiz is what makes something feel sacred as opposed to mundane. It represents the worlds of Asgard (gods of the Aesir), Ljusalfheim (The Light Elves) and Vanaheim (gods of the Vanir), all connecting and sharing energies with our world, Midgard.

Image by H. Koppdelaney

The Symbolism of Algiz

The symbol itself could represent the upper branches of Yggdrasil, a flower opening to receive the sun (SOWILO is the next rune in the futhark after all,) the antlers of the elk, the Valkyrie and her wings, or the invoker stance common to many of the world’s priests and shamans. In a very contemporary context, the symbol could be powerfully equated to a satellite dish reaching toward the heavens and communicating with the gods and other entities throughout this and other worlds. I find this metaphor particularly useful, due to my embrace of technology, but if it doesn’t work for you, use the older interpretations.

Aligning with the Divine Plan

As a part of the second Aett, whose inimical nature is primary to the interpretations of the symbols, Algiz represents the divine plan as set apart from individual affairs, even in spite of human concerns entirely. Understanding the divine plan is ultimately beyond us while we live as human beings, save that it is for the greater good.

Algiz requires faith to work with. Like DAGAZ, it can be seen as the continual unfoldment of universal intelligence, particularly consciousness in all its forms. This puts the denizens of Midgard in a central role.

Activating the Higher Self

When Odin sacrifices himself to Himself to receive the runes, it can be interpreted that Odin was setting an example for us: to sacrifice the things that make us small or petty, to give up our fetters, addictions and vice to seek something much greater within ourselves. Algiz lifts us away from the limiting egocentricity which comes part and parcel with ISA‘s rune vibrations.

Alignment with the divine plan activates our Higher Self, pushes us from within toward the self-actualization of MANNAZ. In doing so, Odin invites us to seek godhood, just as he once did, and give ourselves over the the pursuit of wisdom, higher awareness and service to the heavens.

In exchange for such a sacrifice (which you may eventually see as no ‘real’ sacrifice at all as you explore TIWAZ and GEBO), a number of specific magical and psychological benefits are bestowed upon us.

Protection

The first of these is protection, as is to be expected because of the rune’s esoteric meaning. Alignment with the divine makes a person sacred — set apart from the mundane and therefor blessed by divine protection. The courageous garner favor with the gods. This can be in the form of increased luck, stronger Hamingja, and this protection is renewed by passing certain ‘tests’ of one’s courage and honor, often administered by Odin in one of his various forms.

Communication with Divine Entities

The second is the ability to communicate with gods and entities of the Higher Realms, particularly Heimdall and the Valkyries, who are the guardians of Valhalla and watch over their favored warriors. The symbol, reversed, might be used to access the realm of the dead, giants, and the unconscious. Tread carefully!

The Protective Teaching Force

Thirdly, Algiz is a channel for the protective teaching force, that power which great teachers and mentors transfer to students or seekers, a relationship also touching on KENAZ. Its intensity ranges from divine guidance to sitting in a classroom during a lecture from a favorite teacher, but it is the same energy, and can manifest in countless ways.

Teachers and mentors come in many forms and often test our humility and our readiness, requiring our attention, our service and our unique ability to think for ourselves and integrate knowledge into the mix of our own associations and life experience.

Beware the so-called ‘guru’ who acts in order to convert you to his views, opinions and thoughts. How to think, and why to think for yourself, should always be more important than what to think. Avoid accepting as mentors those who do not truly wish to assist in awakening you to your own, unique powers — they’d rather an ornament to their own ego.

Facing Fear with Courage

Finally, Algiz is the rune of Fear, and the proper use of fear.

Where PERTHRO represents the unknown, ALGIZ represents the courage we must exercise in order to face our fear of the unknown. Algiz gives us the counter-phobic urge to move toward our fears and conquer them rather than be ruled by them.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the will to right action in spite of it. It is important to move toward fear rather than avoid it, because it is in the dark areas obscured by your fears that you can truly grow and learn to live fully.

Wisdom and courage are the two things you can take to the very doors of death, and up into Valhalla, accumulating Hamingja which will carry on into your next life. Therefor, they are both divine pursuits and invaluable qualities.

Important Psychiatric Warning on the Dangers of Algiz

The divine power of Algiz is intoxicating and dangerous to the untrained.

Communication with other worlds can be intense and hazardous to the unprepared, resulting in psychiatric conditions like mania or schizophrenia — in other times such patience may have been shamen, sorcerers or oracles, but our culture has largely lost the knowledge and methods by which a person is prepared for these roles.

If you are experiencing an overload of Algiz, you may be hearing voices, feeling paranoid and ‘receiving’ new ideas and awareness that is not normal for you. You may feel invulnerable or filled with energy. Some of these experiences are quite authentic. However, it is extremely important that you are able to cope with the necessities of your life and care for yourself in the mundane world!

If you cannot eat or sleep, and are experiencing symptoms of psychosis, or uncontrollable emotional outbursts, seek help from a psychiatric expert. They are here to help you. I speak from experience, and I promise that coping with your powers and attaining self-mastery are much more essential to the right path.

It is much more powerful and courageous to find a stable center within yourself, be in control of your emotions and mind, and be able to eat, sleep and speak clearly in a way others can understand, even relate to.  If you need the help of medication while you learn to cope, it may sting your pride at first, but in the long run, it will help!

If you cannot cope with the day to day mundane aspects of your life, you cannot cope with the divine — their seeming duality is an illusion! At the level of the Higher Self, they are one and the same. You will find this paradox at the root of the DAGAZ rune meaning.

Good luck, and be wary.

Related Material:

Algiz – Basic Rune Meaning

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Image by Thunderchild

A Note on Using the ‘Blank Rune’

The rune meaning of Perthro includes Wyrd, Fate, the mysteries of the unknown and unknowable. Most agree that it represents a ‘lot-cup’. It is the rune of the runes. Because this is so, we can immediately see why a ‘blank rune’ is an unnecessary addition to the 24 elder futhark runes. Typically, the ‘blank rune’ represents exactly those things that can be discovered and explored through Perthro — adding a blank rune into the strictly ordered futhark is at best redundant, and at worst a confusing impediment to genuine understanding (at least in the context of the system described by Rune Secrets.)

The Power of Guessing

Though on the scale of everyday life we tend not to think about it, we live in a multiverse of unknowns and unknowables. We live by certain axioms — we can depend on gravity, on sunlight, that we are in a primarily physical world. Often, we possess unexamined, if pragmatic assumptions. In the end, these are simply our best guesses. Perthro is the ‘guessing’ rune, something we constantly do, but that is a remarkable ability, in both psychological and magical contexts.

Guessing is an unbelievably extensive component of our interactions with the universe. The cosmos forces us to make such guesses constantly: we cannot ever stop guessing, barring a perfectly silent mind or perfect enlightenment. The mystery perpetuates itself! Science has never come close to running out of questions — there will always be more questions than answers, in any form of knowledge.

A guess, especially an unexamined one, is really a bid for certainty in a chaotic world. Perthro is the rune of questions, doubt and guessing, so it makes sense that it was inscribed on ‘lot-cups’ and used for luck in gambling and other games of chance and/or strategy.

The Game of Life

The ‘guessing game’ that this playful universe invites us to celebrate is infinitely complex, spontaneous and beautiful — the stakes can sometimes be high, but for better or for worse, Perthro frames the makeup of the universe as uncompromisingly playful. Remember that the second Aett is composed of Orlog: the elements of reality that are inimical to human life, that continue on despite our wishes and designs. The universe is unapologetically playful even when we do not feel like playing.

The biggest game, with the highest stakes, is our life and death. This is where the idea of Fate comes into play. Fate is a tricky subject — it is a word often used but perhaps mostly misunderstood. It represents the things and events chosen for us, instead of by us. Examples include parents, date of birth, birthplace and all the initial conditions of our lives. Fate represents the patterns of your thought and behavior which attract people, events and environments into your life. It is the unchangeable, or unchallenged factors that someday will lead to your death. The idea of ‘doom’ is when fate has become like a curse.

Fate and Wyrd

Fate is governed by the Norns, who must be negotiated with if things are to change. Wyrd, or the ‘Wyrding Way’, is the magic we all possess (and often unknowingly use) that we can learn to use in order to change or guide our fate, where necessary, or alternatively discover it and work with our Fates instead of against them. One such application is discovering certainty over your purpose in life, and how you can transform your patterns to align yourself to that purpose. This is perhaps the highest function of Wyrd: the removal of fetters which hold us to our negative patterns and the perfection of our positive patterns so that we can accomplish, in this lifetime, what we are meant to do, what we chose to come to this world for. Part of the game is that we have to guess and gamble, taking risks even with these highest of stakes.

Fate is the study and manipulation of consequences. There are innumerable factors within our lives, both conscious and unconscious, within ourselves or our environment, which we may or may not have any awareness of. These causes (and effects, which then in turn became causes) form our patterns, our ‘primal cause’. The laws of cause and effect play themselves out and lead us into our future selves. Whatever control and awareness we can gain over these consequences, that that extend we can guide our fates, use Wyrd, or work with the unchangeable rather than toiling in futility against it. This magical working is at the core of Wyrd, and it allows us to shape our destinies and often the destinies of those who depend on us in some way.

Perthro in Divination

Much is hidden and unkowable. Perthro can represent the void from which all things manifest, itself being the unmanifest, the unknowable in the sense that it is yet to exist. If it once existed, it may be accessed through our collective unconscious with LAGUZ, or our memories via MANNAZ.) In a rune lay, Perthro will often mean just that. The runes sometimes say: “Your guess is as good as mine.”

For a more basic metaphysical interpretation, see the entry on Perthro – Rune Meaning.

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The Laguz rune meaning is “Water”.

Image by Cristian Bortes

Water is the ancient mirror — the first surface that the evolving ego had to identify itself was the calm surface of a body of water.

We all have this surface identity of conceptual associations, this “I” or “Me” experience. While ISA is concerned with the totality of that ego experience, Laguz is concerned with transcending the ego in order to experience the unity of all Life and the collective unconscious.

In exploring LAGUZ, the intellectual, mind level of MANNAZ is but the very surface of things. In order to pierce the veil and see past our thoughts of ourselves, we must delve deeper.

Ego is an academic term that obfuscates what Freud was getting at. He himself never used the abstract term “ego”, it was added in translations. Freud said ‘the I’ and ‘the it’ (id), a duality which the principles of Laguz suggest we can transcend.

Laguz teaches us to look into the darkness of our unconscious, at what the reflection — our constructed identity — is leaving out. Jung calls this evasive body of self-ignorance the “Shadow”: what we fail to see about ourselves, baggage we often refuse to claim as ours and often project onto the world and those around us. The occult process of embracing our dark side as well as our light and thereby growing in wholeness and power, is very natural part of Laguz.

The reflection is also an apt metaphor, because “reflection” can be interpreted as thinking or analysing, the domain of Mannaz. As the next rune in the Ordering, Laguz suggests that the unconscious is much vaster, that beyond thought is depth, and that our ideas and thoughts of reality are mirror images. The reflection is not so much a property of the water as the observer — it does not actually exist on the surface of the water at all. In this way it is ultimately an illusion.

The true nature of water is that it is the great unifier of all Life. Laguz represents life “as it is” and the challenges of transcending our ideas about living so that we may truly live. I would argue that this rune is less about survival and all about life’s overwhelming cry to be lived. Laguz magic is not merely a ward against physical poison, but can free us from our toxic psychic fetters that hold us back from fully living. One of these fetters is our fear of Death.

In Norse mythology, those who fail to fully live, consistently over many lives, become sleepy and remove their weary spirits from the cycles of rebirth. They are ferried across the river to the shores of Hel, (which is largely agreed to be associated most strongly with the HAGALAZ rune meaning,) there to wait until Ragnorak, when the unconscious forces (Loki, Fenris and the “giants”) bring a final battle upon the gods (ie. the evolution of consciousness). Hel is not the burning torturous place that the Catholics threaten us with. Laguz’ place in the Ordering suggests that it represents Hel, as it is beneath IHWAZ (the cosmic axis of Yggdrassil, the world tree). Therefor by association, Laguz could refer to the unconscious, the collective unconscious, sleep, dreams and certain aspects of the Death experience.

However, because water is the essential unifier of all Life, Laguz teaches us that Death is an illusion created by our fearful ego, that our fear of death is ultimately just a pathological fear of losing our ego identity. This begs elaboration.

Most of our bodies are composed of water, which upon physical death will return to the great cycle of the world’s waters once again. It has passed through and been recycled by our atmosphere and all other life, since the very beginning, and will continue to do this until the very end. Even as we live, our fluids are only with us a short time before being traded anew, and rejuvenated.

Our mineral composition, too, follows the same principles, as does our energy (as energy cannot be created from nothing nor ever cease to exist). It follows that aspects of our consciousness too are borrowed from the universe for the sake of this temporary ego, and are permanent, eternal components of the cosmos.

So what is there to lose upon death save that very self-reflection that prevents us from seeing into the depth and unity of all things? Laguz holds the key to unlocking such secrets, if we dare to reach into its well to seek our true selves. We have tale that Odin magically did just this when he removed one of his eyes to plunge it into Mimir’s Well, thus revealing all things past and present to him. The psychic powers of clairvoyance and clairaudience are thus clearly governed by Laguz.

The 5th axis of the Ordering tells us of Life’s Journey (RAIDHO), the initiation into the runic mysteries and knowledge of the mysteries of Life and Death (IHWAZ) and finally of the ultimate illusion of death as the ego is surrendered (to begin a new journey). The three runes represent a closed cycle of life, death and reincarnation, particularly the experiences of such as a journey into our eternal selves.

Related Material:

Basic rune meaning of Laguz

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