Thanks in advance ~ sorry if this isn’t the muncey I am looking for.

I am an accomplished horse woman and ‘horse whisperer’ (by this I mean I have utilized the way in which horses communicate with body and emotion to train and rehabilitate them) and I feel that through spending the majority of my life in the company of horses, the strength of my connection and understanding of Ehwaz is intuitive and runs very deep.

The relationship between horse and rider is often viewed as a harmonious, beautiful thing, a true partnership transcending language, a connection of spirits into a single being. This idea is shown time and again in horse films and literature: the perfect partnership, galloping on an open field or a sandy beach, or deep into battle, together, with hearts aflame.

Often in this literature, there is also a ‘taming’ of some wild, unruly horse into a magnificent animal, and the view that the person who tamed him is ‘special’ and has ‘changed’ the animal. This ancient tale goes as far back as the stories of Alexander the Great and his horse, Bucephalus, and probably even further!

All these perceptions can exist in the real horse world, but not nearly as often as portrayed in fiction, and the ‘taming’ is definitely not done by the ‘better’ person who, with the wink of an eye, rides the wild stallion. By thinking on the presence of Ehwaz, I feel, somehow, that the rune is addressing this discrepancy between the real relationship and the perceived fantasy.
In reality, the horse and rider do not work as a harmonious team at all times, nor is there ever a point at which the horse and rider are at a state of permanent connection. There is always the give and take, the dominant and the dominated. The man is but a fraction the size of the horse, and can easily be over-powered and killed. A horse does not have the same ability as man to mask his own intentions, and cannot shield himself from the emotional manipulation of the trainer. There isn’t the same level of ‘thinking outside the box’ that is gifted upon human beings, and as such, the horse is vulnerable to manipulation in this way: man knows the herd ‘rules’ and man is notorious for using rules to his advantage. So, we are faced with the vulnerabilities of the physical lacking in the rider and the horse’s rigid psychology. Between the two there is always an ebb and flow, a give and take. Less harmony and more conflict, more harmony and less conflict, but never stable, never static.

The idea of the perfect, harmonious relationship is just that – a thought, an IDEAL, but it can rarely, if ever, be realized. Even in my most perfect riding moments, in which a horse and I connected so deep as to seemingly know the other within, there was much conflict, MUCH struggle, before reaching that point, and the conflict and struggle would soon return. This, to me, is Ehwaz: Balance, Guidance, but a Trade-Off, an expectation that the other in the partnership does have the power to manipulate your vulnerabilities, but trusting them to the betterment of the union. BUT neither can be ‘changed’ or ‘tamed’, these vulnerabilities and advantages exist as they are, always, and a ‘better’ person will not be able to alter them, only perhaps to accommodate, to understand, and to act in the best way possible. This can be seen in friends, family, lovers, and, of course, between the horse and rider.

I’m very very new to the runes, but I felt extremely compelled to share this with you, Kat.

I think I get what you are saying. I am really trying to use them as guidance for myself. I have my inner voices that help me through life, that I am trying to follow but sometimes they get mixed up with the noise of the outside world. I really am trying to look to the runes to kind of help me know which is which. This is why I pull a rune everyday and see how is applies to my life that day, but I do ask questions sometimes. I don’t want to get caught up in that though. I have been going through a rough patch for over a year now and just trying to figure out the lessons and what to do to move toward better in my life. Thanks tyriel and mahryan for all your input.

The exercise I mentioned to Mahryan that time was more or less based on my view that the runes represent a matrix of energies ever-present in our daily lives and in the world.

These energies are especially apparent in what we call our conscious, and unconscious.

So what is important to realize is that the stones, the symbols themselves, represent actual things in the world. They are currents, flows, reactive patterns, associations. Their concepts talk about things ‘out there’ and also things within.

Concentrating too much on the symbols themselves, concentrating too much on using the stones and expecting them to tell us something directly, is sometimes futile… because the stones, even the symbols themselves, have little to no inherent significance. It is the nameless, faceless truth that they point to that is of utmost importance.

And this truth has been talked about in every religion. Every philosophy and every science is a patient and methodical exploration of the truth. That is what I mean about the shift of focus from the runes to the outer world or inner experience. What is mere idea or concept represented by a mere symbol is an actual nameless, faceless reality. Look more at that reality than at the concept and you’ll do fine.