 Berkana Like all the runes, Berkana symbolizes many things. When you pick a rune, never use reason to figure out what it means. Reason will get you nowhere. Reason, in fact, is not the highest state of human development. As Ken Wilber notes, the transrational is the next stage of development after reason. BUT: this doesn’t mean reason is tossed aside; to the contrary. It becomes a subset of the transrational. Reason is a very fine tool for many things. But not for understanding what a rune means in the moment you choose it. Using reason to try to “figure out” the meaning of a rune or which quality of a rune to contemplate doesn’t work. Not only is reason too slow, but it doesn’t have a clue about how to do this. If you haven’t already, read the steps in HOW TO. You must learn how to be ready for the immediate intuitive response that comes as soon as you see which rune you picked. Berkana, again like all the runes, covers a great deal of territory. It is the rune of beauty, naturalness, being yourself, being open and curious, being innocent, without guile or cunning; it is the rune of natural growth over time, of increase, gentleness, kindness, and so on and on. So, what came to me when I picked Berkana? A song I’d heard on NPR’s Celtic Connection the day before. I don’t remember the exact title or name of the singer, but it was about wild flowers. The lyrics were about how she, the singer, loved wildflowers. “You can keep your roses and your lilies” she sang, “But I love the flowers that grow by the way, in ditches and fields …” Wild flowers, unshaped by the hand of man, unforced to be different from their natural selves. I listened to the song while I washed the dishes and thought to myself, “That’s me, too. I love the wildflowers, the natural things left alone to be themselves.” I also thought of Berkana while listening to the song because Berkana is the rune of being natural, of being what one is, not what one is “supposed” to be to meet others’ expectations. Being a wildflower, a natural free human being, not imprisoned in an unnatural lifestyle eating unnatural food wearing unnatural apparel in an unnatural environment with unnatural anxieties over unnatural things. I love wildness, naturalness; I have been thinking of letting my yard go wild, too. The song made me feel good, like there’s still room to be more of who I am, really. Perhaps, when I die, I will be fully unconditioned. Uncivilized with regard to the bad ways of being “civilized,” which are not civil at all. I doubt I need to explain myself to you. You probably have a streak of wild naturalness within you, too, or you wouldn’t be reading this. So, all day today, as I interacted with people, I had the Mona Lisa smile of the cat that ate the canary, just thinking about being a wildflower. Yes, yes, yes! I would be me even more, without apology or holding back, from now on. It's OK to be who and what I really am! And if I am a weed in the culture into which I was born, I will be the best weed I can be. |  A "Common Weed" Cerule once thought to me: There is no such thing as a weed. There is no such thing as a pest. Along with these thoughts came the meaning. Every plant has its medicine and its purpose. Note how man confronts the dandelion with his killer herbicides in TV ads—but dandelion root is a medicine for digestion and the liver, and the bloom and leaves offer many nutrients. Intrinsically, There is no such thing as a weed! It is the dominant culture that has labeled some plants weeds because it has forgotten their beauty and medicine. Weeds, perhaps, like wildflowers, cannot be tamed. The singer said they would still be here long after man was gone from the planet. Nature does not need man; man, however, direly needs nature. (Of course, he is a part of it, but this he has forgotten in his urge to conquer rather than to understand and work with nature---and the latter is actually all he can do. The only conquering worthwhile or even ultimately possible is mastery of oneself.) There is no such thing as a pest. Not basically. Every creature has its function. Or had, until habitats were destroyed or humans introduced garbage and overcrowding into the world. Mice fed hawk and eagle, the dog and cat didn’t overbreed in a natural environment where they naturally maintained their numbers in accordance with the food supply. Mosquito and other insects fed birds and other animals. Human culture created pests. Studying Native Literature in Alaska and the Southwest, I don’t remember any reference to something called a “pest.” I am a weed, a wildflower, a pest! Always, what I have valued, my culture did not; how I wished to grow, my culture wanted me to grow differently, to “be like other girls”; and as a pest, I ask inconvenient questions. And it is OK. It has to be because I am what I am.  A Wildflower in a Riverbank |
 Ansuz Several times this last week I picked Ansuz out of my rune bag. It often happens that I’ll pick the same rune within a short period of time. This generally means that more than one quality or aspect of the rune will be important for that period.
The first time I picked Ansuz, the quality for contemplation that stood out for me was on learning, on being a student, open to new information. This is the quality that zen people call “beginner’s mind.” When our mind is full of thoughts and our vision is clouded by past knowledge, we cannot see anything new even when it’s right in front of us. The immediate intuitive message was: “Today someone is going to be a teacher to you. Someone is going to bring you information you could miss or discount if you’re the least bit closed off.” I also had the sense that the information would be primarily for someone else. And so it was; it turned out to be medical information that helped clarify the cause of a patient’s symptoms. As soon as the person began speaking to me, Ansuz popped into my mind, alerting me: this is the message. The second time I got Ansuz, the quality for contemplation that stood out was responsibility. After meditation, I realized that lately I was being presented with more opportunities to respond to others, especially strangers, in small but unusual ways. For example, twice that week in line at the grocery store the person ahead of me was short and I piped up, “I’ve got it,” and though it was a small amount, it seemed to generate an inordinate amount of good feelings with the cashier and customers. At the time, I barely noticed it; it seemed normal and logical, yet I’d never done that before that I remembered. I also gave rides to two strangers. Not at the same time. One was a young man walking to a job interview at Home Depot and the other was an older lady walking home from the hospital, as it turns out. What caused me to stop for the young man was the certainty I had to give him that ride; it was as if he were glowing with light. I stopped for the lady because it was raining and she was on a stretch of road with no houses for quite some distance. And, besides, I had that certainty again. (I am aware that old ladies are not always to be trusted.) The day before I first received Ansuz, I had been thinking about tithing. Giving something away regularly. I prefer to tithe directly rather than to an organization. And I was thinking about a very satisfying “tithe” I had made to a person some months back. He had only asked me for directions, and I had handed him some money for lunch. He thanked me with such sincerity and delight that the giving had been a mutual blessing. It wasn’t like an exchange in which the person feels apologetic and ashamed to receive and the giver feels unclean for having given. Rather, when I said, “Here, have some lunch,” he was as surprised and happy as a surprised child, without the least expectation, and I left feeling like he had given me back as much as I’d given him. If not more. It is wonderful to give when the giving is freely received. I remembered thinking to Great Spirit: I want to do more of that. The third time I got Ansuz, I was with a friend by a river between Oklahoma and Arkansas where we would spend a few days canoeing and hiking (we just got back a couple of days ago). We were on a nature retreat, you could say. The quality that came to mind as soon as I received Ansuz was communication—but not superficial communication. It was deep. Very deep. It went far beyond communication as we know it. The words that came to me were, “Touch more. Let in more. Open up more. Connect.” At first I was mystified. What? I’m already doing that. I'm doing that a lot! But as I sat in meditation, some things came together from different times in my life. Things people had said to me. Conclusions I’d come to. I don’t really want to go into it too deeply, but I will say this: the word “communicate” basically means to “touch” or “connect.” The walls communicate with the floor and ceiling. Two rooms communicate with a shared door. All things in the universe communicate—exchange information. To communicate is also to commune, “to share one’s intimate thoughts and feelings with,” says the dictionary. I have no problem communing with God and nature, but with people? I discovered an invisible barrier within myself I had not noticed before. In one way, I am more open than most people to communication—if it’s about any topic on the psychic spectrum. But I am perhaps more closed when it comes to sharing intimate thoughts and feelings. These were devalued by the culture I was raised in and I learned to keep them to myself. Today when I think of Ansuz, I see rune notes of music coming out of its “mouth.” One traditional symbol for Ansuz is the mouth of a river. As the rune of sound and air, Ansuz is the rune of breathing, chanting, vibrating, channeling knowledge, and singing. It is time to get out my flute and discover a new song. You may have noticed that divination is an aspect of contemplation. For a new take on divination, click on Divination. Receiving/perceiving/divining information across time and space is something we do all the time. A system like the runes or target coordinates and structure in CRV (controlled remote viewing) simply helps us apprehend and organize it.
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AuthorLinda R. Reneau Archives
December 2019
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