Benevolence and Boundaries – 6th – 12th March 2023

What rune are you working with at the moment? I’m working with Uruz through this lunar month and it’s bringing out my fierce side. Over in the Hearthspace and on Instagram I’ve just opened a month of work on rune healing – and it’s roused my inner aurochs just a little bit.

In Norse mythology we are told that, in the primal times, the first being to emerge was Auðhumla. How she was birthed we do not know but it was she who fed the giant Ymir from her milk and she who licked away the layers of salt to reveal Buri, the grandfather of the Gods. Her name comes from auðr ’riches’ and humala ’hornless’. She is only attested to once, in the 13th century Prose Edda but she is thought to be a very ancient being indeed and, perhaps, one of several bovine goddesses. We find her echoes in the rune Fehu, the first of all the runes meaning ‘cattle’ or ‘riches’. Hers is the power of indiscriminate life force offering itself to the birthing universe. It does not say no, it does not judge, it does not separate the worthy from the unworthy.

Around the world, most ancient breeds of cattle had horns, but in the Norse countries the majority of cattle were hornless. The second rune, Uruz, is sacred to the horned aurochs which spread in very early times across Europe. It is tempting to imagine Auðhumla and Fehu representing the divine feminine worshipped in the earliest of times and Uruz and the aurochs representing the fierce masculine energy of the Gods to follow. Tempting but not evidenced. What is true, however, is that the most potent power of the runes comes when we work with them in combination.

I called on Auðhumla for wisdom this week after a thread I just happened to see on Instagram got stuck in my soul. I have seen many like it before but something about this one snagged at me, asking for attention. In it, a spirit-worker shared a public comment made by a long term follower who had just clocked not everything offered was for free. The commenter made the claim that profiting from our gifts is wrong as they were intended to be freely given. Now I don’t normally give much heed to threads like that. Unlike Auðhumla I do not have endless resources of energy at my disposal. I have, however, seen too many talented healers and seers turned off the path either because of poverty, or because of judgements made about them not being in poverty. So this is for them.

• The Fehu rune originally meant cattle, their life force was the symbol of the flow of energy across the land. They were the sustenance. Then the meaning changed to become wealth and then gold. The energy of wealth is therefore the energy of Auðhumla and no one is undeserving of that. Wealth is not negative, but it can be put to negative purposes by those wielding it.
• One of the earlier runes, Kenaz, symbolises craft and the ability to transform. No distinction is drawn between someone whose craft is building or teaching and someone whose craft is healing or visioning. I am glad to have found my spiritual home in a tradition that sees all gifts and talents as being precious and worthy. There is nothing, in my book, that means some of your precious talents are undeserving of Auðhumla’s life-giving power.
• The rune after Kenaz is Gebo, the rune of gifts and exchange. It holds within itself the inviolable law of reciprocity. If we receive something that is valuable to us, we should honour that. Not to do so is disrespectful to the giver. On some level, I believe most of us know that, so when we don’t offer fair exchange we are likely to energetically ‘refuse’ the gift anyway. So if you are trying to take someone else’s energy without fair exchange you are, at best, wasting both of your time.
• Finally, and pay attention here because I really, really mean this. Fehu force is powerful. Whether it is bound into money or any other form of abundance and vital energy. I want good people to have access to that power. I am tired of us channelling our wealth towards people who hold on to it, hoard it and use it for purposes I don’t agree with.
• And just in case the point hasn’t landed yet. Wealth does not corrupt. Fear of not having wealth corrupts. A culture that consumes without valuing corrupts. Judgements made without compassion corrupt.

Auðhumla is a divine being, an ancient, ancient force flowing through the universe. She nurtured other forms: more boundaried forms able to defend themselves when needed. Uruz protects that flow. Incidentally, there are some schools of thought that indicate cattle with horns are more gentle and more social because having sharp pointy weapons on your head acts as natural warnings to show some respect. Auðhumla exists as a force flowing between us, when there is no flow we are in trouble.

In Middle Earth Readings we looked at rune magics with 6 of the Elder Futhark. Next week we will be completing with the final 6 runes of this cycle.

References
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1871141315002462
Prose Edda, Snorri Sturluson