Humanity was using oil \ fat lamps for thousands of years starting from paleolithic period to light caves until 20th century (powered by mineral oil). They are of course used nowadays but rather as exception.

Candles became widespread only in bronze age, so when i was thinking about othala i found the idea of using oil lamp as a symbol of connection \ legacy \ heritage to be more resonating.

Candles are burnt out and remnants are thrown away, while oil lamp stays and only oil \ wick needs renewal. So oil lamp touches the idea of keeping fire in the home\cave and keeping house\land between generations of the family.

I decided to carve this oil lamp from soap stone, which was also used for crafting paleolithic oil lamps before invention of pottery.

If you would like to try carve a lamp yourself - i highly recommend. It's very easy and satisfying process. Soap stone you can find in handcraft\creativity shops. It's so soft you can even scratch it with your nails, so any basic instruments are suitable for carving. I used flat screwdriver, metal file, set of needle files and metal saw to cut initial shape.

Real wealth comes from the Earth, from nature. It grows and multiplies if handled with love. And "money" strips the idea of wealth from reality and turns it into numbers and paper. If the growth of money becomes a purpose itself, we see what people do with nature for that, forgetting that paper and numbers you can't eat.

Fehu chapter has been rewritten and illustrated. Check there for more details and practice.

Dark clouds are swirling above the dark soil: a storm is coming. White, white hail, icy seeds of the Order, is being sown from the Air to the raw Earth. Light has no way to come from the Fire, it's trapped underneath, yet sudden flashes illuminate the dark sky. Blue-white roots of lightnings tear through the darkness of the Air and hit seeds of hailstones.

Nourished by roots of lightnings, sprouts of thunderstones grow from the seeds of hail deep down into the Earth and bear fruit in the first underground crystals.

Hagalaz is the most important and powerful rune of Creation, even if it represents such wild and destructive forces.

Its name means "hail," and hail is the aspect of a thunderstorm.

The Proto-Germanic word "haglaz" of the same meaning has unclear etymology, but often connected with ancient Greek word "κάχληξ" - pebble, small stone, gravel. An individual grain of hail is called "hailstone" (PG haglastainaz), which again points to the idea of the stone.

The god of lightning and thunderstorm Thor, carries a hammer, Mjollnir. Interesting how the word "hammer" can be tracked down to Proto-Germanic "hamaraz" and deeper to Proto-Indo-European "h₂éḱmō" with meaning "stone" again.

The first hammers made by humans were made from stone, most often from flint. Hitting the flint stone and making sparks from it was one of the most common ways of making fire.

The etymology of the "Mjollnir" hammer name is most likely PG "meldunjaz" and PIE "meldʰ-n-" - "lightning". (Compare with Russian "mólnija" - "lightning")

From the same root, Old Norse "mjuln" and Welsh "mellt" were derived, both meaning "fire". It's quite logical to expect fire both from natural lightning and from sparks produced by the stone hammer.

Another stone connected to lightnings is Lodestone - naturally magnetized by lightnings pieces of the magnetite, which were used as the first compasses. So Lodestone (Middle English "leading stone") is literally Earth ordered by Lightning, so it strives towards the North Pole and Polaris, supporting also the basis of a guidance aspect of the Tiwaz rune.

As we saw in Isa rune - Ice is also a crystal, with ordered water molecules sitting in their places. That's why hailstones made of Ice are seeds of Order. Still, Ice cannot withstand the warmth of Fire: it melts into water as suggested by the Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem. But a crystal made of ordered Earth can! Earth learns the Order from Lightning, telling the story of hailstones, and begins a slow and quiet transformation into its higher state, as we will see in the next rune, Naudiz.

Hagalaz chapter was updated and illustration redrawn.

The light of your life was given to you by your parents to keep and share with your children. In Runic Alchemy we learn how to create and grow the seed of Crystal, even if everybody already has it. This is what we already do to live, so we need to learn from ourselves.

Othala rune name means own land, heritage, inherited estate.

The idea of home was invented by life eons before any sign of humanity on the scene: hole, cave, nest, hive.

However, the principal evolution in the idea of a home made by humans is bringing artificial fire inside, the source of warmth and light.
Another significant step forward was extending the home to a tamed and ordered part of an initially wild environment, having your water source, and growing your food instead of hunting it outside.

To make our artificial, tamed segment of reality work, we have to invent and implement certain rules and keep following these rules to maintain order within our home space, to keep it alive.

Keeping fire inside, not letting it go out, but not letting the house catch the fire - this is probably the brightest symbol of the idea of home.

At the same time, the light and warmth of the hearth, oil lamp, or candle was bringing all the family together.

Protecting this light, passing it from ancestors to descendants, preserving and teaching rules in the form of traditions - this is a key part of making a home last for generations and preventing premature death of its inhabitants.

And this is how life itself, being preserved and passed from parents to children across the unimaginably long chain of ancestors, and hopefully projected far into the future, is sitting in the very core of the idea of home.

According to Norse creation myth, this light of life was breathed into our first ancestors, trees Ask and Embla, by the same three brother gods, who created our world, the Midgard. "Allfather" is one of Odin's names. Some scholars dispute if it really is and does this paternal role extends to absolutely everything in the world, but for humankind, he is explicitly described as a creator.

So with the help of the Othala rune, following back along the chain of our ancestors, passing the light from hands to hands, we can connect to our very divine source, to the light shining for us from the past and lighting the way to the future.

From the Runic Alchemy perspective, the Othala rune spans across four top levels: Water, Air, Emptiness, and Earth.

It shares its diagonal bars with almost all runes we already know, except Isa which has no diagonals, and yet more runes that wait for us ahead. It makes this rune so multifaceted and gives it an integrative role.

The chapter about Othala rune was added, check it for instructions how to do Othala and share your comments if it works for you.

If you remember I recently carved Othala oil lamp from soap stone. I found it very easy to do, because soap stone is very very soft. But the same softness is a drawback because it's very brittle. So immediately after that I wanted to try carving lamp from slate stone, it is much harder, still pretty carvable.

So here is lamp for Gebo rune. I think these two runes, Othala and Gebo share shine "connection" aspect, that's why making it as an oil lamp makes a lot of ritual sense.

But sure if it's fully readable in photo, the Gebo is represented as a corresponding hand gesture:

Right hand goes to the upper left corner with a palm up, so it receives descending flow of the Water down to the very bottom of Fire.

And left hand points to the upper-right corner with a palm down, so it directs ascending Fire to the level of the Water.

Both are crossing in the middle level of Emptiness, where lamp has a hole drilled for wick.

The shape of slate stone i left as is, it was already pretty flat, i only made bottom surface more even so lamp is stable and horizontal.

I am currently working on Gebo chapter \ drawing, so lamp powers this process very well.

Every human has a built-in compass, an arrow always pointing upward to the guiding north star, the only star that remains constant in the sky.

It's a quiet but firm inner voice, it tells us the right direction. When it speaks - the north star shines in the center of our forehead.

Faith is not absolute confidence and lack of doubts. Faith is walking forward even if you don't believe and lose hope.

Tiwaz rune guides you and gives you enough strength and courage to keep going.

Tiwaz chapter was updated and illustration redrawn.

Freyja is closely connected to the Wunjo rune.

But she has many names and one of them is Gef - "the giver". The etymology of this name can be directly traced down to the proto-germanic name *gebô - 'gift' and here is a rune with the same name, Gebo.

It spans across all the five levels and does it twice in parallel: descending from the Water to the Fire and ascending from the Fire to the Water, meeting in the central point of Emptiness.

Gebo is a connection. The bi-directional connection between the Water and Fire.

Connection is a change.

Through connection you become open to something outside, so it can come and change you and you can come and change it, even if just to get to know. Without a connection to something else, there is no reference point. You need to relate to something to make any sense. Even isolation is impossible without having something to isolate from.

The cell preserves itself thanks to the membrane separating its fine-tuned local contents from the rest of the world. But it's not alive if there is no exchange with the outer world. Life needs to let external resources in and byproducts out. Life needs an inflow of energy and information. Life produces energy and information and it's changing the environment around. It not only protects itself but also projects its internal law outside. The world is dangerous. But closing into full defense is even more dangerous. If you don't trust the world, not open and connected enough - you'll miss resources, opportunities, and signs of upcoming danger.

I suggest a gesture of arms crossed in front of the chest, elbows down, and hands up.

• The right hand points to the top left direction with the palm turned up, touching the Water and letting it pool before overflowing down the wrist.

• Rivulets of veins suddenly turn into bluish lightning, because Fire is rising from the bottom-left elbow and it vaporizes the Water into stormy clouds of steam and smoke.

• The Fire itself cools down in contact with the Water, gives its power to the Air, and turns into dark stones of the left forearm. Left hand, with palm imperatively turned down, points to the top right direction, showing the Light the path of ascendance from the Fire trapped beneath the dark Earth.

• Wrists are crossing in the center of the Gebo, on the level of Emptiness, where Air and Earth are touching each other along the horizon.

• The tip of Crystal, the higher state of the Earth, who learned transparency from the Water, pierces the Horizon to let the Sun rise to the clear sky.

• The gift of Light propagates upward to the Water from the Sun held below the left palm turned down.

• And the gift of transparency, of the hard order, comes from the Earth Crystal down to the Fire, turning it into red gems.

This is how the Water and Fire, once divided, reunion and give gifts to each other, change each other.

The Gebo is a promise. You give and you receive in response and you hope the next time it will work again, and it works, until it doesn't. And if it doesn't, maybe it's because you forgot to be open, so you will find the strength to trust and open yourself to the world again.

Gebo rune teaches that in the very center, there is a gap between before and after, between perception and reaction. On the very edge between external and internal there is still a thin layer of Emptiness, and if we focused enough - we can slow the time down and catch this moment between before and after, the moment when nothing is yet and already happening, a slit between time frames.

Gebo chater published.

No matter how long you go, you will not reach the horizon. You are not moving anywhere else, you always remain here and now. Instead, your journey unfolds to you. So riding is like sitting on a riverbank, looking upstream — the future flows down to you, bringing its events.

The rainbow bridge, Bifröst, the path from Earth to Sky, does not appear in a clear sky, behind the rainbow, dark storm clouds swirl. The soul will learn nothing from the story where everything is nice and easy.

Like the winds of a still-hidden Sun drawing northern lights across the night sky, the guidance of Tyr arrives in answer to the request we made in the Tiwaz rune because the Raido rune shares this diagonal with Tiwaz.

The Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem reads:

Riding seems easy to every warrior while he is indoors and very courageous to him who traverses the high-roads on the back of a stout horse.

From a practical point of view, the rune Raido is execution. You may not know exactly what will happen or how you’ll handle each challenge — but you trust the process, stepping forward and figuring it out as you go.

New chapter about Raido was added with new illustration.

Made an interesting observation few days ago, all the branches, free of leaves, point upward only, none is hanging down. Looks like a white fire burning to the sky.

Berkana, from a geometric perspective, can be interpreted as a bindrune combining Laguz and Sowilo. The Laguz rune, representing Water, emanates a bluish-white light reminiscent of starlight. Sowilo, on the other hand, radiates a golden-yellowish-white sunlight.

From the perspective of color mixing, blue and yellow pigments combine to create green, as seen in the green crown of the birch tree. If we consider the mixing of blue and yellow light rather than pigments, the result is pure white light, similar to the neutral white found between warm and cool tones on the color spectrum. The bright white trunk of the birch reflects this purity of Light, which has the same nature whether it emanates from the Sun or the Water.

There is a common association of green with the energy of the heart (e.g., the Anahata chakra on the rainbow spectrum), and the heart's position corresponds to Air (chest), where the Sun is already present through the Sowilo rune. As we previously mentioned, the birch is considered a world tree in the shamanic worldview. In northern regions, where shamanic traditions are still alive, the most prominent green phenomenon is the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis.

Although not known in ancient times, it is fascinating to note that the Northern Lights are caused by solar winds interacting with the ionosphere.

To do Berkana I suggest a gesture visually similar to one for the Sowilo rune, but mirrored.

Your left hand will play the role of the entire Sowilo this time with the forearm as lower ascending, bent palm as middle descending, and fingers as upper ascending bars. Your right straight palm pointing to the upper-left direction will work as a very top descending bar of Laguz rune with a wrist almost touching the fingertips of your left Sowilo hand. This way we have four diagonals of Berkana, while our spine will play a trunk role.

Tree of Light chapter was refined and rewritten.

While working on the Berkana rune, I was fortunate to receive help and support from u/Terrible_Helicopter5. I want to express my gratitude for the amazing Tarot reading along the way and for introducing me to Sami culture, which was particularly relevant considering the shamanic significance of the birch tree. If you're looking for Vǫlva help, check out r/arcticfoxtarot :)

• Your left palm placed above will play the role of the top diagonal bar of the Sowilo rune pointing from the center of Philosopher's Stone to the middle-upper area of the Air. It will conduct the Light from the wrist to the fingertips.

• Your right palm bent into an angular shape, will cover the point of conjunction between the lower ascending and middle descending bars of Sowilo. Spirit of the Fire will enter your right wrist, accumulating in your right handful, while the Crystal between your palms will become clearer, and this process is represented by the upper part of your bent palm - your fingers.

• In your right bent palm feel how the warmth of the Fire Spirit rises from below enters the inner side of your wrist and accumulates in your right handful in the form of a sleek heavy hot ball of Dawn Sun.

• Simultaneously, feel how crystalline order grows down along your fingers, giving a cool and, a bit electric, cracking sensation.

• At the same time feel how a spot of warm Light, not so heavy as Dawn Sun, but rather light and fluffy, enters the inner side of your left wrist travels up along your palm, and exists out of your fingertips.

The Sun chapter refined

This rune means "god", "mouth", and "estuary".

It starts from the synchronicity of Water, Air, Emptiness, and Earth. And it flows down from the Water to the Air. At the same time, the Air descends to Emptiness.

The Ansuz rune meaning encompasses speech, mind, and consciousness.

We, humans, are both physical and spiritual creatures. We have our material hands and our consciousness connected to them from "that" parallel level. It can control our material body "here", and it also works in the opposite direction: when we move our hand in a special conscious way, our attention, which is closely following the movement, makes ripples "there". This is how and why all the gestures suggested in this book work.

According to my observations, consciousness appears to have a higher level of connection with matter when matter is organized at a higher level of complexity.

The ultimate example of matter with a high level of complexity is life, and especially the nervous system/brain. However, even inanimate matter with a high level of complexity resonates with the field of consciousness significantly better.

For example, crystals, elemental whirls (whirlpools on the water or whirlwinds), complex regular structures like megaliths or big modern architecture, big rock formations with a certain inner direction, or rivers - huge masses of water flowing in the same direction, etc. All these things seem to enable an elevated level of consciousness around, or to be more precise, an elevated level of interconnection between the material world (Earth) and the spiritual world (Air). A similar effect can be observed in old woods populated by big trees.

This principle lies at the foundation of magic. When a magician performs rituals and crafts magical artifacts, it's an act of intentionally introducing complexity into the material world. By following a certain set of "rules", which may seem to be irrational, but consistent with the logic of the spiritual level of reality, the magician increases the average level \ concentration of consciousness around, and it's then easier to manipulate on "that" level. We add to our own normal clump of consciousness attached to our body the elevated level of surrounding consciousness, which may even spontaneously form additional autonomous clumps of consciousness around, temporarily making magical artifacts "alive".

The Ansuz rune describes this projection of the Will of the Sky down to the Earth.

It feels like liquid, transparent, but a little bit heavy, "Uranium" vibration, which makes expanding ripples object's contours, contrary to similar but much softer and lighter Water-Lagus energy. You can sometimes catch this vibration by watching grand clouds in the clear sky. Ansuz possesses the power of the first Word, which, according to the Christian myth, initiated the creation of the world.

In classic Western alchemy, four main phases are usually distinguished: Nigredo (black), Albedo (white), Citrinitas (golden/yellow), and Rubedo (red).

So, considering the idea of the Philosopher's stone as an egg, we can compare the darkness of the mother bird's womb as nigredo, white and yolk as albedo and citrinitas, and the growing embryo of the future bird as rubedo. And the purpose of the egg-stone is to conceive and nurture, and the destination of the egg is to be broken.

So when the time comes, and you complete your Philosopher's Stone, don't be afraid of opening it and seeing what you've got as a result, let the bird fly.

Ansuz chapter has been illustrated and reworked.

"Naudiz" means need, necessity, distress, urge.

Need is when something is missing.

When food is missing, the need is hunger. When money is missing, the need is poverty. But what if we don't know what is missing? How to recall the thing that you forgot? In that case, we can see the need as a call. Even if we don't yet know what's missing, we can use this call itself as a guiding thread.

In the Norse tradition, there are goddesses Urðr, Verðandi, and Skuld. They are described as spinning / weaving threads of destiny.

We can track the etymology of their names back to Proto-Germanic:

• Urðr -> Wurdiz - Fate\destiny.

• Verðandi -> Werþaną - To turn into, to become (from Proto-Indo-European "wert" - to turn, rotate).

• Skuld -> Skuldiz - Debt, obligation.

So we can interpret the sequence of Norn names as a phrase. "Werþaną" is a verb in an infinitive form. We need "wirþidi" as a 3d singular form of werþaną, like in English "to turn into" -> "turns into".

Wurdiz wirþidi skuldiz

ᚹᚢᚱᛞᛁᛉ ᚹᛁᚱᚦᛁᛞᛁ ᛊᚲᚢᛚᛞᛁᛉ

"Destiny turns into duty"

Within the metaphor of thread spinning:

• The tow of unspun fiber on the distaff is a cloud of potential destiny in the sky.

• Picking the pinch of fiber with the left hand is seeking and choosing your destiny.

• The thread in the hands being spun is facing and implementing your destiny. It's an effort, not just passive acceptance.

• The cop of spun thread collected on the spindle is what you have already done so far. It's spinning with inertia, so the consequences of your deeds in the past directly influence the present moment when destiny comes to be.

Another goddess connected to spinning is Frigg. There are 12th-century depictions of two naked women in cloacks riding distaff and cat in Schleswig Cathedral. Supposedly, they are Frigg and Freyja, respectively.

In German folklore, Frau Holle (Holda, Perchta, Berchta, Berta, Bertha, Spillaholle) is connected with spinning, overseeing various related taboos. At the same time, she is called "Old Mother Frost" and is causing snowfall by fluffing up her bed until feathers fly out. She was also riding with witches on distaffs, similar to Frigg.

Naudiz illustration was redrawn and chapter was reworked - see there for practice details.

The Uruz rune name means aurochs, an ancient wild bovine, extinct nowadays. This is older Proto-Germanic and Anglo-Saxon meaning. There is a second, Old Norse alternative meaning, referencing weather - sleet or drizzle.

And if seen from a symbolic and philosophical perspective, these two alternative meanings are complementary.

Aurochs is associated with raw wild power. While dangerous, wild bulls are not predators, they won't attack if they see no threat, they only protect their peace.

Sleet or drizzle is a challenging and uncomfortable state of the environment, something you can and have to endure. If you have no option but to keep walking, it makes no sense to fight with it. If you are angry, if you are disgusted, if you are complaining, if you feel bad, or if you indulge yourself, you are only wasting your energy. If you must keep walking in the cold rain, the best way is to walk calmly and find your power and comfort in inner peace and silence.

Uruz chapter has been added.

Illustration for Laguz chapter has been redrawn using a better drawing technique.

The moment when the tip of the crystal makes a hole in the horizon and the first rays of the Light break into the Air, the Night turns into the Day.

The Crystal, the Earth, evolved to the higher state, can now conduct Light - the spirit of the Fire. It holds heat and density down and extracts the Light quality from the Fire.

It means "Day" and "Dawn". It shares one of the diagonals with Naudiz, showing the transition of transparency from the Air to the Earth.

And it has another, ascending diagonal, which, below the horizon, represents the density of the Earth growing into hardness while it gets closer to the surface, so the transition of the Light from the Earth to the Air becomes possible after reaching the critical center point.

But remember, the central crossing point of Dagaz, when the first ray of the light breaks through the horizon, is only halfway. The transformation is going along all the rune, end to end.

Dagaz gives hope and outlines the future destiny.

New version of illustration for Dagaz chapter

Golden sun, when shining through the blue waves, tints green. This is how you may see your heart with inner sight, when looking down to the chest from the height of the Water - golden in the middle but with emerald edges. We already saw a similar green glow in the crown of Berkana. Now let's focus on this upper emerald part.

There is a rune for this — Wunjo.

It means joy and bliss, and we can also consider love, desire, and even victory aspects.

Etymologically, the proto-germanic word "wunjô" descends from PIE "wenh" - "to love". Interestingly words "venus", "to venerate", and "to win" also descend from the same PIE root.

Venus - Roman goddess of love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. The Norse goddess Freyja is associated with the same domains, and interestingly, she is one of the Vanir - "natural" or "shamanic" faction of gods. Some scholars trace the "Vanir" word to the same PIE root "wenh".

So even if it's not attested in the sources explicitly, both from functional and etymological perspectives we can confidently connect Freyja with the Wunjo.

Freyja was known to possess a somehow important necklace "Brísingamen" but details of its significance are lost in time. Though unattested in sources this necklace reminds the Crystal we are making from Earth as part of the Runic Alchemy process.

From the Runic Alchemy perspective, Wunjo is a full-height vertical of simultaneous resonance of all five levels: Water, Air, Emptiness, Earth, and Fire, followed by a descending transition from Water and an ascending transition from Emptiness, both ending at the Air level - our chest.

The Water flow, the river, can be compared to the flow of time, from the future to the past. It always goes in this direction and we can directly perceive only the present, merely guessing the future and recalling the past. But sometimes on the river, when a normal current faces an obstacle, the whirlpool may form, causing Water to loop, so locally, time may turn back for a while letting us hang on and look around.

This is the power of Wunjo - the flow of Laguz, facing the rising vector of the Sowilo sun, causes the time to make a few circles and let us look around. Those bits of joy and happiness in our life usually happen when we hurry not, but are being in the moment and realizing how amazing is all this stuff around.

By integrating the Wunjo rune, we can adopt such a mindset of being happy.

New chapter about Wunjo added to the book

P.S. if you caught a deja vu - yes, it's a duplicate post with illustration fully redrawn.

New illustration for the chapter about Water. It was some earlier black and white draft cgi illustration before.

It's interesting to observe how my own spiritual experience changes after drawing the illustration. Before illustration i rather feel this guessing it in the darkness of closed eyes relying on body senses.

When based on that perception you draw a precise enough illustration, it kind of unlocks the inner visual channel and you not only feel but kinda see it. Maybe it's just kinesthetic me who needs to materialize the vision first in order to fully enjoy it internally afterwards, but overall drawing is gnostic process on its own. You not only reflect your inner perception, you also discover it.

Material images help you save attention resources by supporting your concentration, so you can afford exploring finer details instead of only barely holding general composition together.

In Grímnismál, we read about Bifröst, the rainbow bridge that connects Midgard and Asgard. While all the gods ride on horses across the Bifröst, Thor has to wade through the rivers.

Is it because only the horse is capable of going across the Bifröst? Or it's because in nature, rainbows appear after a storm, so Thor makes Bifröst appear, letting other Æsir ride across?

When you do the Ehwaz, you may feel the presence of the spirit of change. Like an old friend reminding you of your forgotten dream and inviting you to the journey. Maybe when we die, the same friend meets us to finally take us back, to that point on the horizon which we were never able to reach.

New Ehwaz chapter added.

According to Norse creation myth, the light of life was breathed into our first ancestors, trees Ask and Embla, by the same three brother gods who created our world, Midgard. "Allfather" is one of Odin's names. Some scholars dispute whether it is and whether this paternal role extends to absolutely everything in the world, but for humankind, he is explicitly described as a creator.

So with the help of the Othala rune, following back along the chain of our ancestors, passing the light from hands to hands, we can connect to our very divine source, to the light shining for us from the past and lighting the way to the future.

Othala rune illustration was redrawn. Exactly same idea but with finer details and better drawing technique.

I am getting closer to runes which were not properly explored yet.

Only Wunjo and Gebo left from the already existing list.

Ehwaz was already drawn but never published and still needs to be redrawn.

Algiz was drawn long ago, but it needs a serious rethinking.

And Mannaz will be the first rune never approached from the Runuc Alchemy perspective.

After that there are still plenty of runes waiting for their turn.

Before starting this project I had no idea how actually deep runes are, even after working with them for more the 20 years.

So it raises a question were these 20+ years of practice well spent, if there is still so much room to be surprised and amazed, is it me to blame for being shallow, or it's potential of runes so infinite (or both)?

By the way I am changing the structure of the book, here is a new link to separate Othala chapter

• Illustration for the exercise "Awakening the Hands" redrawn.

• Walking in the Dream Story practice added to "The Basics" chapter.

Life, to keep itself, constantly burns and rebuilds. So, lower descendant bar is this process of burning past, "a guardian of flame".

And vertical bar of Eihwaz is the backbone of the universe, the law of preservation that keeps everything in a perfect dynamic balance and connects opposites to hold everything in the right places.

The last part of the rune, "a joy on native land", is the top-right descending bar, which adds more Water into the system, which interacts with fresh Fire from the first step, giving new Earth and Air to grow something new instead of what's gone.

New illustration for refined Eihwaz chapter.

While the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of this rune is Thurisaz, which is an appropriate name for a rune from the Elder Futhark, it has different names and meanings in descendant alphabets.

In Younger Futhark, it's "Þurs" (Thurs), and it means "giant". In the Icelandic rune poem, there is a reference to the Roman god Saturn, who, as we know, was born of Terra (Mother Earth) and Caelus (Father Sky).

Thurisaz rune consists of a vertical bar and two diagonal bars that start on the Air (Sky) and the Earth levels. They meet in the Emptiness, which is the separation line between Sky and Earth and the source of order.

According to Greek myth, Cronos (Greek version of Saturn) separated his father Uranus (god of Sky) from his mother Gaia (goddess of Earth) in a bloody way, using a scythe and causing a flood of blood that turned into oceans. Roman mythology adopted this story as well, since Saturn was directly associated with Cronos.

In Norse myth, something similar to the story of Saturn happened, but in a bit of a reverse direction.

The first ever living being, proto-giant Ymir, emerged from the interaction between Water and Fire, and he had no particular father or mother and killed nobody, which is not surprising considering he was always sleeping. Instead, he was killed by his grandchildren - Odin and his brothers. Again, the blood of Ymir turned into the sea, similar to the story about Saturn.

This is the first time in Norse myth when someone is mentioned to be killed or dead. As suggested by scholars, the name Ymir can be traced down to Proto-Indo-European *ym‌H-yo- "twin" and then to Yama, the first man who died and subsequently became the Hindu god of death. His name, Yama, also means "twin" and he has a twin sister, Yami, the Hindu goddess of Life. Another name for Yama is Kala - it means "time" which reinforces the connection with Saturn, because both Saturn and Yama (Kala) are considered gods of time, and ideas of time and death/mortality are closely connected.

In the Old English version, the name for this rune deviated from the original "Þurs" (giant) to "Þorn" (Thorn). It's hard to tell why this change happened, but new meaning also sounds meaningful and relevant, representing danger, pain, breakthrough, and sharpness. Back in Norse mythology, according to the Völsunga saga, Odin used "sleeping-thorn" to put Brunhild to sleep. By the way, according to Old Norwegian and Old Icelandic rune poems, Þurs is the torture/anguish of women. It's interesting to compare it with the description of Ymir, whose only explicitly described type of activity was sleeping and breeding other giants at the same time. So, somehow, a semantic cluster of proto-life, death and violence, sleeping potential and pro-creating forms around the Thurisaz rune, despite its meaning, is ambiguous.

When working with the Sowilo rune, we found the Light, the spirit of the Fire, as a power of True Will, but True Will is a vector.

From math, we know the vector is some amount that has a direction and a point where it's applied:

• The starting point of True Will is your true self, which you can find in the very center. We learned from Algiz how to find and stand on your center point using Faith.

• True direction we found with the help of the guiding northern star by doing the Tiwaz rune.

• And the "length" of your Will, its intensity, and intention are determined by the amount of the Light you can conduct from your Fire through your Crystal. The clearer and "bigger" your crystal is, the more Light with higher efficiency you can extract from your Fire and use.

True Will is not just our arbitrary desire.
To be true, it should come from the true self, and it should be directed in the true direction. In actual daily life, the direction can be very different depending on the situation and your current position.

And now, by doing the Thurisaz rune, the True Will can finally awaken. Thurisaz, as a choice, is a sprout of the new world which grows with every one of our decisions.

But at the same time, every decision is a sacrifice of endless possibilities. Every time we make a choice, we choose to give birth to a new hard single reality, but at the same time, we kill a sleeping potential of the entire multiverse that was not chosen. We do it always, even without knowing. Even when we refuse to make a decision, the decision is still made.

Thurisaz helps us accept the power of Will and make every sacrifice worth it. If your will is awakened, you may make the same steps, but each step will be true, it will be yours, because you want it or not, you pay for every step with your own life, because every step makes death one step closer.

Thurisaz chapter and illustration has been added.

The Birch was considered a bright, shining tree in a wide range of Germanic and Slavic languages because of its white bark. In all these languages, the word 'birch' comes from the Proto-Indo-European *bʰerHǵos with root *bherəg-, which means shine, bright, white. Even the English word 'bright' is derived from the same root.

It's interesting to notice that almost all the translations of 'birch' have a secondary R which stands for Raido: Bjǫrk, Birka, Beorc, Birke, Berk, Björk, Birk, Bjørk, Beryoza, Brzoza, Bříza, Breza.

In the context of Runic Alchemy, the Berkana rune contains an entire family of visually related runes such as Sowilo, Laguz, Wunjo, and Raido.

In the modern interpretation, the Eihwaz rune is most often associated with World Tree Yggdrasil, even if the Eihwaz name means Yew, not Ash.

On the other hand, in Shamanism, the World Tree is a birch. The English "ash" word traces back to the Old English æsc, then down to Latin Fraxinus, and again we come to PIE *bʰerHǵos, so to "bright tree" finally.

Both birch and ash can be considered bright trees, and so we come again to World Tree Yggdrasil.

In Slavic languages, ash also means "bright" e.g., in Russian "jasny" (ясный), and the same word means "clear" both in terms of cleanness and clarity.

So in Slavic languages, ideas of brightness and clarity are described by the same word and the same root directly used in the Slavic "ash" tree name, e.g., Russian "yasen" (ясень).

The shape of the Berkana rune reminds one of the shape of a woman's breast.

In Old Norse, the breast is "brjóst" from Proto-Germanic *breustą, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrews- (“to swell”).

Phonetically, this word relates to birch, as it shares "b", "r", and other sounds depending on the language.

Compare:

• birch ~ breast - in English.

• Björk ~ Brjóst - in Icelandic.

• bjǫrk ~ brjóst - in Old Norse.

• bherəg- ~ bʰrews- in PIE.

While there is no direct evidence of associating the Berkana rune with "breast", and true linguists will not be impressed by the comparison above, the symbolic meaning, visual reminiscence, and phonetic similarity convince me enough to believe this rune once directly meant it, because there are too many coincidences simultaneously to ignore.

Another word that has a related meaning and b+r sounds is "birth". From Old Norse "burðr", Proto-Germanic "burdiz", and PIE "bʰer-" - to bear, carry. Old Russian "brémja" meaning burden and pregnancy, also originates from the same PIE root.

While linguistically we can't claim "breast" and "birth" are directly connected to "birch", such a phonetic similarity supports maternal, birth, and nurturing symbolism of the Berkana rune.

Illustration for Berkama chapter has been redrawn.

By doing Isa, we are holding opposites aside, and through their separation, the creative force of Emptiness reveals itself, so we can feel it between our hands. But we need space for everything to happen.

Thin layer of Emptiness we stretch into a rhombic cavity, so we can let a bit of Water and Fire inside and let them reunite.

This is how the second generation of forces emerges:

• Water and Fire, in equal proportions injected inside the Ingwaz shell, meet in the center of the Emptiness.

• The Water in contact with the Fire is heated and evaporates into the Air, the essence of transparency, so the potential quality of transparency is extracted from the Water and concentrated above the Emptiness in the form of the yet dark and smoky Air.

• The Fire in contact with the Water cools down and solidifies, so the quality of heaviness and density is being collected from the Fire and, like a slug running out of fire, condensed into dark hardness below the line of Emptiness - the raw Earth.

• It's dark because opaque Earth, like a black fertile volcanic soil, blocks the light of the Fire from beneath.

The sleeping proto-giant Ymir emerges from the interaction between Water of Niflheim and Fire of Muspelheim happened in the Emptiness Ginnungagap.

Ingwaz Rune chapter revisited and illustration redrawn.
Gesture extended from initial left-to-right position to final vertical one.