![]() 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. |
AuthorLinda R. Reneau Archives
December 2019
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