S. Kelley Harrell's Blog: Intentional Insights - Ancient Healing, Modern Shamanism, page 90

Wordless Wednesday

Kazaguruma Pinwheels

Photo by Edmund Garman

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The Weekly Rune – Raidho Reversed

Raidho - travel - Well, that’s never happened before.  The Weekly Rune has never presented a Rune, then its reversed position the next week. Most interesting about this is the promise of forward movement Raidho brought last week, and altered focus on detours this week. Note the photo shows Raidho brightstave.

Just to recap, this stave indicates how we tell our story, how we get from here to there, and all the details between. Reversed, of course, the story becomes something totally different. Instead of emphasizing the greater plot, arcs, and characters, it becomes more about plot twists, red herrings, and the deus ex machina.  When discussing how we like our literature, these elements keep us engaged, intrigued, and passionately raw. However, when we think of them in terms of our lives, we don’t want to live a dramatic page-turner.

For some this may mean a very static, boring week of the writer’s block variety. For others, it may mean re-examining details we’d rather be done with. For others, still, the focus may be gutting the story, re-writes, and unflattering feedback. Certainly one facet of how we share ourselves with the world depends on relationships, so those most related to our truths will be in the spotlight, now.

While Raidho de-emphasizes major plot elements of our truth, it forces us to focus on smaller, subtler aspects that we’d likely otherwise not even notice–until they become disruptive. This little detour isn’t a distraction, but an opportunity to fine tune the elements and influences that shape our stories–the threads of wyrd weaving into our own. Raidho challenges us beyond telling the story we think we want, to living the one that’s really ours.

This isn’t a hold up in the greater masterpiece of our lives. One way or the other, the story will be told. It can’t not be. That’s the consistency of Raidho–whatever position it falls in, the story that needs to be told, will. In the reversed position, it gives us clarity on the person who’s telling it.

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Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude

My weekly gratitude post, in the Celebrate the Small Things [ongoing] Blog Hop.

I’m thankful for awareness and perspective.

I’m grateful for my children.

I’m thankful for the support of my Rune work on Patreon.

I’m thankful for completing my first seidr year.

I’m glad to have made progress with platform solutions.

I’m grateful to be finished with my spring-summer semester.

What are you grateful for this week? How will you show thanks?

This post is part of VikLit‘s blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things. Participate by following the link and adding your name to the Linky list, then post your gratitude every Friday.  Easiest blog hop ever!

Click here to hop on… the hop, and thanks for coming with me on this journey of self-empowerment.

The post Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude appeared first on Soul Intent Arts.

Wordless Wednesday

Carcasonne Men, or “meeples” as they’re known, in celebration of the 11th year of That Board Gaming Thing!

Photo by David Goehring

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The Weekly Rune – Raidho

Raidho - travel - Finally, some movement! For the last few casts, The Weekly Rune has brought messages of exploring shadow, and sitting with it. This week’s advent of Raidho says we can finally take all of that intel and do something with it.

Raidho draws on my passions: words, travel, and animism. In short, this stave indicates how we tell our story. In a very literal context, it tells of a journey between two points. It emphasizes the mode of transportation involved, movement across space and time, and everything that occurs between origin and destination. In other words, it’s all about plot and conflict (as in what a character must overcome).

The best way to understand Raidho comes from examining it within the context of the first aett. The journey of the Runes in the first aett is about inspiration becoming form for the first time; thus, it emphasizes the realization of self-empowerment through connection with All Things. The stave before Raidho is Ansuz, often interpreted as “mouth,” or “breath.” Breath, itself, is empowering as life force, though with the breath our power to manifest begins. With Ansuz we begin ascribing words to concepts. We begin the murky examination of the thing versus the name we give it. Likewise, we become aware that as we build the language of our formed experience, someone is listening.

Following Raidho is Kenaz, torch, presenting the complex experience of sudden awareness, the spark that ignites, the Aha! moment. It is the moment that meaning has been derived from our experience.

With that fuller understanding in mind, let’s revisit Raidho.

Inspiration + Storytelling = Meaning

Ansuz + Raidho = Kenaz

This is a bit oversimplified, but it conveys well. Raidho clarifies the importance of holding focus over duration, over life’s journey, associating a starting point and result with every choice, decision, thought, and deed committed along the way.

Taking the last few weeks’ emphasis of shadow into consideration with this formula, what does it tell us about how we define ‘shadow?’ When we learn the language of shadow and interpret how it shapes our lives, how do we see ourselves? How does our view of shadow, itself, change?

We’re told all the time how life isn’t about the outcome, but the journey.

I’m pretty sure Raidho says it’s about a delicate balance of both.

The post The Weekly Rune – Raidho appeared first on Soul Intent Arts.

Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude

My weekly gratitude post, in the Celebrate the Small Things [ongoing] Blog Hop.

I’m thankful for the long holiday weekend.

I’m grateful to have a job.

I’m thankful for the support of my Rune work on Patreon.

I’m thankful for clarifying work with a new seidr ancestor.

I’m grateful to be finished with my spring-summer semester.

What are you grateful for this week? How will you show thanks?

This post is part of VikLit‘s blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things. Participate by following the link and adding your name to the Linky list, then post your gratitude every Friday.  Easiest blog hop ever!

Click here to hop on… the hop, and thanks for coming with me on this journey of self-empowerment.

The post Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude appeared first on Soul Intent Arts.

Wordless Wednesday

This stamp was released on September 3rd, 1956 in honor of Labor Day.

Photo by Karen Horton

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The Weekly Rune – Eihwaz

Eihwaz – Yew - Eihwaz doesn’t come up often as The Weekly Rune, though it when it has, it always portends an end. Following on the heels of Kenaz reversed last week, our journey into shadow will end, as will some erroneous perception of ourselves.

Note that Eihwaz cannot be reversed. It can’t be avoided. We are going here.

The 13th and middle Rune in the Futhark, this stave represents the turning point, or death. As it is symbolized by the yew, which is both sweet and poisonous, so its teaching will either make or break us–likely both. What is significant about this stave is its emphasis on self. While the evergreen yew can be sweetly enticing, its seed is deadly, which made it a perfect toxin tipping arrow points in battle.

Isn’t that the greatest challenge of authenticity–knowing our strength without killing what we adore, what we need–without doing ourselves in? Yet, we also have to realize that we really can’t take prisoners or passengers on our life path. This is the true bittersweetness of Eihwaz. It is the reminder that as we rise into our True Selves, we are alone.

This means we can take no skeletons.

This means we can take no BFFs.

What does it mean to have to leave past perceptions of self behind? To leave behind who we want to be and realize who we are?

This week expect truth to be challenged in a way that requires revealing the True Self rather uncomfortably. There likely won’t be a lot of support stepping into and expressing personal truth, though the support that comes after is genuine. It’s all about the risk in culling out the reward.

Because if being our True Selves was merely realizing that bright spot in a vacuum, we’d all live who we really are on the outside. It’s never that simple is it? There are always forces in our lives that want us to remain hidden in shadow. Negotiating that balance is one we can never win, and Eihwaz is the reminder that such gambles are a facade.  We are all-in, always. Know that now.

Eihwaz is the mirror image of self we can’t look directly into, yet crave most deeply. Through it we learn that we are the point of power we want to attain without realizing we’re already its center.

Go gently, go boldly.

The post The Weekly Rune – Eihwaz appeared first on Soul Intent Arts.

Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude

My weekly gratitude post, in the Celebrate the Small Things [ongoing] Blog Hop.

I’m thankful for reconnection with my Home Spirits.

I’m grateful for an educational experience at the MBS Expo.

I’m thankful for optimism.

I’m thankful for the Internet.

I’m thankful for AC, AGAIN.

I’m grateful to my ancestors.

What are you grateful for this week? How will you show thanks?

This post is part of VikLit‘s blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things. Participate by following the link and adding your name to the Linky list, then post your gratitude every Friday.  Easiest blog hop ever!

Click here to hop on… the hop, and thanks for coming with me on this journey of self-empowerment.

The post Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude appeared first on Soul Intent Arts.

Wordless Wednesday

Pilot Mountain, NC

Photo by Bob.

The post Wordless Wednesday appeared first on Soul Intent Arts.