Rune Post #20: Ehwaz

Happy Wednesday! Today's focus will be on Ehwaz, the nineteenth rune of the Elder Futhark, and third rune in the third aett.

Ehwaz translates to "horse," and connects to themes of partnership, trust, friendship, connection between two entities, and forward movement. It can also connect to topics involving animals, and is often correlated with Sleipnir, Odin's eight-legged steed.

An Anglo Saxon rune poem reads:

The horse is a joy to princes in the presence of warriors.

A steed in the pride of its hoofs,

when rich men on horseback bandy words about it;

and it is ever a source of comfort to the restless.

I have so many funny stories with Ehwaz..... every time I draw it in the morning, I automatically think: "Two cars." In my personal experience this rune always means that I will be traveling with someone in tandem.

For example, I pulled this rune on a day my family was planning to go to a barbecue. I couldn't imagine why we would go in two cars, but sure enough in the afternoon my husband told me that our friend requested he come early to help set up, so we ended up driving separately.

Another day I pulled this rune when my daughter had a school concert, and my husband was running late, and so met us there after work.

Once I pulled this rune when my sister helped me take the car into the shop - she drove behind me so that we could leave together after dropping mine off for servicing.

Now my husband is in Sweden, and yet I pulled this rune last Saturday. I thought "this should be interesting!" My daughter had a volunteer project at a park that morning, so the kids and I dropped her off in my car. Later we decided to pick her up and head straight out to a park by a big lake nearby. Since the highway is the fasted route, I swapped cars to take my husband's as it has the SunPass (for toll routes) in the front windshield.

Even this morning, on the day I am posting about Ehwaz, I pulled Ehwaz. ;) On my way to work I thought I'd like a coffee, but decided to wait until getting to campus, and then I'd walk over to the cafe. In the end I walked over there with a colleague so that we could have a "walking meeting." Not car related, but certainly connected to partnership and movement!

Questions:

1) What other meanings do you attribute to Ehwaz?

2) How do you utilize this rune in your practice?

3) If Ehwaz has presented itself in your rune work or castings, how have you seen its energy manifested, or experienced its impact?

The Illusion of Permanence

I was walking near the shores of Secret Lake yesterday morning when I noticed a rather large ant mound rising up out of the grass and beginning to spill out onto the sidewalk. It was so complete, so busy, that I had to stop for a moment to appreciate the work. Between a smattering of tiny holes, red ants scurried with clear purpose, some carrying what appeared to be tiny larva. It was an active community of living beings that had spent countless hours, perhaps days, on the creation of their sandy home.

And in that moment I realized how terribly precarious it all was. One child mesmerized by the movement could, with a single excited swipe, destroy it completely. Or perhaps someone riding a bike, or a heavy rain storm, or even a park maintenance person out mowing the lawn. Any of these things could, in an instant, erase this ant town from the surface of the earth (temporarily though it be). And in fact it most certainly would happen.

But the cool thing about ants is that when the fruits of their endless labor are washed away, they will simply rebuild. Which got me to thinking about fluctuation and the impermanence of life. There are many cards in a Tarot deck that can point to instability and change. Some of the obvious cards include Death and the Tower. Some others include the Wheel, the 4 of Wands reversed (I call this the 'transition' card), and even the 8 of Cups.

Last week I pulled a card from my Viking Cards deck in a moment when I was feeling a bit oppressed by the movement in my life. I believe my actual question was: "What is happening to me?"  The card I drew was Sleipnir: Changes.

Viking Cards
U.S. Games Systems, 1997

I think I actually laughed out loud when I saw it, and said, "Yep!!!" What I found most helpful about this card was the correlation to Odin's mystical, 8-legged horse, Sleipnir, who is often described in the Sagas as being the wind that Odin rides to other dimensions. I love that concept. The book, written by Gudrun Bergmann, states:

"The Changes may be like the strong summer winds that blow across Iceland's interior and stir up a lot of dust, so that even the Sun is overshadowed and one cannot see clearly. But such winds also subside. Sleipnir tells you not to fight the changes, but to jump on his back and ride the winds of Change (pg. 88)."

There is something particularly revitalizing about the idea of jumping onto Sleipnir's back and riding forth into the great unknown; change abounds, but you're never without excellent company. Like the ants' intricate hills, like Tibetan Sand Mandalas, or Navajo sand paintings, changes are necessary, inevitable, and learning to embrace the movement is both empowering and healing.