Rune Post #15: Perthro

Happy Wednesday! Today's focus will be on Perthro, the fourteenth rune of the Elder Futhark, and sixth in the second aett.

Perthro's literal meaning is largely considered a mystery (which is pretty fitting, really!), though some translate it to something akin to a "dice throwing cup." Perthro connects to themes of mystery, the unknown, örlog and wyrd, chance, unconscious knowledge, and even joyful fellowship (sharing cups).

Perthro is often associated with Frigg and the Norns, and there is an element of the "feminine mysteries" to this rune.

Power of the Runes - Voenix (US Games)

As a personal anecdote: today's rune coincides nicely with the fact that this is the first full day of a natural "flow" following my stopping the Pill several weeks ago. I wanted to rid my body of the hormonal influence, and allow it to resume its natural rhythms after so many years. I wasn't quite sure what that would feel like, or look like, and so it is quite like a rediscovery of myself, in a way.

An Old English rune poem reads:

(Perthro) is always

play and laughter

among bold men,

where the warriors sit

in the beer hall,

happily together.

Questions:

1) What other meanings do you attribute to Perthro?

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

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

Death as a Source of Power

As part of my participation in an April Instagram challenge, I drew a card from the Major Arcana meant to represent the archetype from which I draw power. As I started to shuffle, my mind began to wander...what card would appear? I can say that of all of the images that passed through my thoughts, I was not expecting the one that I finally pulled - and it is in those moments that the most interesting and unexpected insights emerge....

I draw power from Death.

Druid Craft Tarot - Art by Will Worthington

I see the tale of Ceridwen, Gwion, and Taliesen here in the cauldron's crest, and it has special significance for me at the moment, another iteration of a common theme of inspiration and transformation.

In Death I see the story of our ancestors. How many people have contributed to our bloodline, have died without their names or stories ever being recorded? And yet they influence us still, in our blood and bones, in our örlog and our hamingja, the substance of our very souls. We are their legacy. Death - even our own mortal one - is not the end of our tale, nor that of those who will draw on our guidance far in the future when we are in turn ancestors, when perhaps even our own names and stories have been forgotten. No matter what, our essence is an indelible thread in the fabric of existence.

I draw my power from my ancestral past, and from the mythologies that still serve to teach timeless lessons to us after thousands of years.

I draw my power from the cycle of death and birth, or creation, and change; death and life are indivisible lovers.

Yesterday's Hanged Man, drawn as the "source of my skills," brought to mind, as always, Odin's story of self-sacrifice. Today's Death furthers that line of connection: to greet its presence every day, even in its smallest measures - the death of a thought, a feeling, an assumption, a limitation, of an expectation or desire - to allow something new to be born in its place: that is life and growth.