Working with Wood

Today I cut down the plum tree. It was into the neighbors garage foundation. The branches rubbed on the roof tiles and it didn't make too many plums. The city (Minneapolis) asked us to keep the branches out of the alley...well, it was quite a big tree. A couple of years ago I started three of it's babies to growing. So to make room for grandpa's fishing boat I took the plum down. I will make runes of some of it, stavs of some of it. Some of it will go to our neighbor boy for his smoker...he's a saucier extraordinaire at age 15. The main part I saved for myself was the fehu that the young branches made off the main stem. I will make a Yule candle holder out of that part and honor the life of that poor tree. I counted about 18 rings.

The twin plums that I left will have lots of sunlight now. We took out the outside chicken pen. Katie never hangs out in there anyhow. So we moved our firewood storage, chopping, and sawing opperation to the otherside of the shed.

The squirrels chatted and scolded me about that tree for around two hours.

Ratatosk the world tree squirrel will spread the news that another tree is down but the ones under it's canopy are being well cared for. And that Grandpa Cliff's boat will have a good home. He is sailing accross the veils now. We will miss him.

In this way, I work runes all day long, every day.

Why a RuneBlog?

Some of you have requested that I concentrate some comments on the runes. So this is a great format for this concept.

Let's start by drawing at random a rune from one of my sets (www.karitauring.com)

R
Rad
Wheel

The journey is long and arduous but the horse is swift and sure. The horse is the process and relationship by which you are able to move these great streaches of world. Take care of the process. That is your task.

The journeyman's rune. So you wrote your songs, learned your instrument and are ready to go out and share your work. That is the image of this rune for me (Kari). It signals a chance to perform. I see the arduous task...perhaps a better translation would be, it will take diligence to get there with all the lessons learned so you must take your time and enjoy the journey because it is a life's work!

Wheels in sanskrit are chakras. From our common indo-european roots, the wheels of chakras and energy centers would have been understood by the Nordic peoples of 2 - 8 thousand years ago. It is evidenced in their artwork.

At any rate, the wheels of the chakras must turn at a certain rate and in certain relationships to one another based on the work the physical body is doing. This rune indicates a time when attention must be paid to the intention of the physical body and the variant speeds and relationships of the chakras must stay in allignment with that.

There is a journey. Think if the charriot wheels are out of allignment and the goal for the moment is a watering hole and your horse takes off at full gallop...yikes!