Casting the Runes

(made by Nimue, written by James)

I came to divination about ten years before I came to Druidry, and it’s always been part of what I do. I have cast runes for other people, but not often, and not in a long time. I find it too emotionally demanding, and prefer to keep this personal.

This year, I’ve mostly not been able to see the runes as my eyesight has been too poor. I have however managed to keep casting. This has been entirely due to willingness from Keith to assist me. Keith has no history of working with runes, so we’ve had a process where he tries to describe each rune to me. Visual descriptions are interesting things – what seems important and what a thing seems to be like turn out to vary a lot. At times, we’ve resorted to him drawing them on my skin with his fingers as we try and work out what he is seeing. As an aside, we’ve been round parallel issues identifying plants and birds, only with less of the drawing. It’s been possible to work this way, and means I have to visualise the cast in my head based on what I’ve been told I’ve put in front of me.

This has also resulted in a lot of conversations about meaning, interpretation and the process of divination. There are many ways of understanding what divination is, and how it works. I use it primarily to clarify my own understanding, and as a psychological tool. At the same time, I am aware that a rune cast always has the potential to be a conversation with some other part of the universe. The act of divination is a way of inviting magic into everyday life. Sometimes it feels as though that invitation is being accepted, and sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, I find the process useful.

Excitingly, My most recent rune cast did not involve me having to get help. I can only see the runes if I lift my stones very close to my face, and even then it isn’t easy to make them out, but it is possible. In some ways, barely being able to see something does not represent a whole lot of anything. At the same time, the line between not seeing something, and kind of seeing it a bit is a huge difference. It’s a funny business.