Thuriaz Meditation

Torn, Thurse, Thor

Harm, Chaos, Growth

Not all darkness passes from the complex psyche as easily as it does for the Auroch.

Not all beings reach sunlight at the same time – many sorrows are caused when a being lashes out in their pain.

Chaos has its time and place. Sometimes rigid regimes need to be disrupted, to topple. If a tornado destroys the seat of a dictatorship, it results in a chance to build something new. If it destroys farmlands, it results in too much chaos, leading to death.

Sometimes anger is useful. We can achieve great things when anger motivates us to survive against the odds, to make scientific discoveries that prove theories, or to believe that a “better” way can be found to do something. The drive to compete is similarly not bound entirely with “aggression.” Even the rage of the berzerker comes in handy if you must defend yourself, or kill a strong animal in order to avoid starvation.

Even disaster and disease, as terrible as they are, serve as a way, wholly indifferent to our opinions, to keep us in check. The storms and illnesses have gotten worse the more we tinker with our environment. Every time we stop one deadly bacteria, we create stronger, nastier ones. The more we prod at the earth with gene splicers and habitat destruction, the more it prods back.

Thuriaz also references the giants, the “Other.” When we look at members of the groups we identify with, we see their uniqueness. We think of the diversity of skills and opinions. Members of the “Other,” however, are “all the same,” and anyone who stands out as an individual is an “exception” - like Loki or Hela. It never occurs to us that a few obvious culprets, like Surt, have spoiled our opinion of others – after all, who are Skadi and Gerd if not also Jotuns? We look at extremists to define “them,” while dismissing the extremists among “us.”

While our strength is not equal to the damage caused by nature, there are times when we must confront and fight through our problems. Thuriaz is both the destruction, wild and unharnessed, caused by sheer chaos, and the controlled, decisive, forceful strike of Thor's hammer. Thuriaz is the will to not just trample over the problem, as Uruz would, but to stand and look it in the eye.

There will always be problems, competitions, and confrontations, but the hammer of Thor protects those, by definition, weaker than Thor is. When we shield and shelter the victims of natural disaster and economic ruin, we are using the energy of Thuriaz as Thor would – to ensure not only our own survival, but that of humanity itself, even in spite of our moments of weakness. Life is hard for everyone, so learn from your trials (even if you only learn when to be strong enough to ask for help!), and show others compassion during theirs.

Conflicts and challenges happen.

“Othering” is an epidemic.

Be compassionate anyway.
Emerge from life's forge, stronger than before.

Uruz Meditation

Literal Meaning: Wild Ox / Auroch
Possibly tied to Audhumbla.

Strength. Forcing through tough obstacles. Vitality.

Energy courses through you, raw, wild, free.

Drawn from the sun, the vegetation of the earth, even the wind itself seeming to lift your spirit as though it had wings. The path is simpler, somehow, and you feel stronger than any rocks in your way. You wonder why you ever felt burdened, why you ever imagined life was a dreary place. With warm sunlight, healthy food, and a confident step, you remember what you are, and that life can indeed make you stronger instead of beating you down.

We spend so much of our lives in a struggle against others, when often what we should struggle with are our own insecurities. When we confront our fears head on and trample them, the sunlight breaks through, and we can live healthier lives.

In the hunt, the hunter finds themselves, more than their prey. They confront their own power to bring death, their shadow, as well as their fear of starvation or losing their own life in a struggle against a large animal. These are dark places – but the best hunter would know how to hunt responsibly. While the Aurochs were hunted to extinction, when we know our own strength, as well as its terrible potential, quite often we find that we lose our taste for abusing it.

Those who crave power and become corrupted by it are often the ones who feel most powerless. They want to prove their power to control and bend others, not to their supposed enemy, but to themselves.

The one who does not truly know what a weapon does is the one who uses it. Once its destructive power is known, weapons are laid aside. Power is no longer a question, so much as how to use it in ways that do not lead to extinction. This is what turns bombs into power plants (and evolves those, if irresponsible, into something else yet again).

This nightmare of fear, war, death, and posturing vanish. Swords are beaten into plows, and problems are trampled and returned to dust by the Primal Ox. No power can keep it from seeking the sunlight, any more than water could keep a fish from swimming.

Fehu Meditation

Wealth. Food. Cattle (literal meaning).

Food goes bad, cattle die, money cannot be taken beyond the grave.

Yet many go to their graves early for lack of these things.

This rune had the idea of flow, against stagnation.

Wealth must flow within a community and not be hoarded, stagnant.

Historically, those who hoard food resources in particular, as a form of wealth, have often been murdered. For multitudes without food, it is also a life or death situation, and even when wealth does flow, a community may have difficulty deciding when it is best spent. China, for example, in the early days of this 21^st century, spends millions of dollars building empty apartment buildings... but not feeding the people.

The Ancient Norse knew what we have forgotten – any other economy exists to subsidize the subsistence economy. People are capable of growing food, and making clothes- these were as much “everyone does these things” as television or playing games on a phone are today. (There was not a gender split here – tailors and seamstress, farmers, could be anyone.) Clothing making was found to be simple, meditative, relaxing, and a way to keep the hands busy. Everyone who could grow food did so, and though that was sometimes hard work, by splitting the labor between as many people as possible it was in some ways easier. Home building was often a community event, and the same was true for barns, with a celebration held when the final touches were put in place. American midwestern “barn raising” parties descended from this, as did “housewarming” parties. We have removed food, clothing, and shelter from our own control, and given it over to those who use it to control us, keeping us eternally in their debt.

Can you imagine if clothing, shelter, water, and some food were a “given?” You trade some of your food with neighbors for a variety. You use any other skills to supplement this - to get additional food in trade from those who grow more, or some of whatever passes for technology in your era, and things like shoes that most people could not make. With security of shelter, the economy looks quite different. The economy we know developed out of that sort of economy, which existed relatively unchanged for hundreds of years – thousands, really.

Never since the feudal lords have people been so easily threatened into homelessness on someone else's whim.

Never, even in extravagant empires, has the gap between “rich” and “poor” been bigger.

Because wealth is not flowing. It is staying stagnant.

The wolf, which will destroy the stagnation, grows up in the woods – nature herself will collapse any economy based so heavily on pollution and throw-away consumerism.

Fehu's lesson has not been respected, and both economically and financially, Ragnarok will come if this does not change.

Runic Meditations Intro / General Intro

To kick off this blog, I figured I'd start with publishing a series of meditations on the futhark runes. Because they are still a work in progress, some of them may be back edited in the future as I finish the project.

These meditations can be used alone, but I highly recommend checking out another source with good information on the runes if you are new to them first.

One free and easy place to get started is http://www.runemaker.com/futhark/reading.shtml

More will come afterwards, however. Stay tuned!