Queen of Swords

Today I finally broke out my rune stones, put them in a bag, and drew one out --- the one that seemed to nestle itself into the palm of my hand almost immediately and stay there even as I mixed the others up.

It was Raido.

There are no hard-and-fast definitions of the meaning -- which drives my primary archetype nuts -- but that's also freeing.

The various images constellated around Raido include horse and cart, riding, journey, the Way, the sun path, right order.

As soon as I read about the horse, I thought of shamanism and otherworld journeys, which was affirmed a little later in Paxson's book. It suggests to me a bit more focused and disciplined attention to my spiritual path. The book that came with the runes also talked about it as a rune of union (as a journey unites "here" and "there" and a journey toward self-healing and union). Which was extremely pertinent, given a conversation I had last night with my teacher about my fears about losing touch with LM.

There is not enough time to explore all this right now. I mostly wanted to record that I Did It.

I've been reading tarot cards for something like 15 years, and I'm pretty good at it. I use the Robin Wood deck, whose images speak very eloquently to me. I love letting my subconscious interact with the detailed pictures.

Runes never interested me. The abstract shapes didn't speak to me, and the Northern belief system never drew me, despite the fact that my genetic heritage is one-quarter Norse, one-quarter Swede, and the rest a hodgepodge of English, Irish, Scotts, Welsh, and French.

But since becoming involved with LM, and his active connection with the Northern gods, I've become more open to that spirituality. He and I were actively working with Freyja in our sex life, and I've started working with Tiwaz as well. And over the past few weeks, I've felt an increasing desire to take up the runes and start learning them.

So on Sunday I gave in to the impulse and bought an off-the-shelf rune package, and Diana Paxson's Taking Up the Runes. The book impressed me very much, but I've been holding off on actually working with it. It didn't occur to me until after I bought it that maybe I should check in with my teacher first, because one message that I've gotten is that I shouldn't become too scattered in my studies. I have limited time, and need to focus time and energy in certain places.

My teacher doesn't work with runes, but when she asked her inner plane contacts about my interest, she told me she received an image of a rune: "The one that looks like an arrow pointing up."

"That's Tiwaz," I told her.

We agreed that that seemed a pretty explicit sign that I'm to go forward with this. I did express concern about time, but she suggested that I pull a rune in the morning before going to work, study it, read about it, then think about it on my commute to work and let it sit in the back of my mind all day.

"Good idea," I replied. "And I like the intuitive approach. 'Good student' that I am, I was simply going to sit down and start reading the book cover-to-cover."

"You can also do that," she said. "And in fact, that would be a good idea as well. Having a firm grounding in a divination system is always a good idea. It provides context for the intuitive work with the individual runes you draw in the morning."

Once again, I had found myself caught up in the either/or decision, instead of acknowledging that I can do *both*.

And I like the idea of having another simple daily practice to do to ground myself, in addition to The Rising Light Below (which I sometimes don't do until I'm at work).