moonvoice | [runes] and how i be casting them. (Reply)

dibeartach asked me how I cast runes (as opposed to drawing them like tarot cards) and I thought I'd post about it. And take pictures! :)

Firstly, I can't draw my runes like tarot cards, because they are unevenly shaped (being made from hand-picked river rocks that I chose less over shape and more over their 'feel'). Also because I 'know' them. I know that the little hard one that's a bit colder than the rest is Algiz, and I know that the flat large one that has a nice feel to it is Hagalaz. Drawing was always going to be useless for me.

1. Get a bag to put your runes in

As you can tell from my decrepit purple and gold drawstring bag, what the bag looks like doesn't matter. Hell, if you want, you can use a paper bag. To prove that I do actually keep my runes in this evil looking bag, here's some thoughtfully spilled out onto the table runner for you.

Mostly, the bag gives you something to hold and meditate on before a rune casting. A few people say you need to use quite durable paint if you're putting your runes in a bag, but... I used plain white acrylic (and some blood), and no lacquer and mine have been fine for years.

2. Make a rune mat

Here's my decrepit rune mat. Heh. I've been using this for so long that every time I get it out I find myself thinking 'I really need to make a new one.' It's basically white canvas-cloth. The dimensions are about 45 x 45 centimetres. Find a conversion chart if you don't know what that means.

I've based this design off Kenneth Meadows rune mat (shhh!), because it's convenient. My new rune mat will have a slightly different design, but this one works for me. Centre circle is past/Wyrd, middle is the present, outer is the future, and the outer 'space' just indicates 'influences.' Also, the four lines radiating out from the circle demarcate the four basic directions - North, East, South and West.

You can make your rune mat however you want. But it is important to have one to delineate the difference between 'rune casting' and 'the floor.'

3. Cast your runes!

Grab your ~~decrepit~~ bag of runes. Grab your rune mat. Set yourself up. It helps to cast on a flat surface because if you cast on a sloping one, you may find all your runes make an escape attempt and roll away from you. And of course, if you cast on a bumpy one, all the runes may clump together and not give you an accurate casting.

I like to light a candle, give offerings to Odin in the form of water (and often blood), and then I like to meditate in silence on what issues in my life are at the forefront of my mind; or if I'm doing a rune casting for someone else, I will meditate on that person and any directions they've given me. I do this with my eyes closed.

Now, hold the bag (closed) about 15/20 centimetres above your rune mat (again, get a conversion table) and then let the bag open and the runes fall out. You can experiment with how far away you want to drop your runes. If you drop them too far, most won't land on the mat, and will skitter away and land on the floor. If you drop too closely, you end up with a clump. There's an art to getting the distance right, that art is called 'practice.'

If you get it right, you should end up with a fairly balanced casting, like this:

4. Remove all runes that are upside down or on the floor

As the bolded part says, remove all the runes that are either face down, or on the floor. Put them back in the bag, and if you like, say 'thank you,' (I always do).

Then, like magic, you will be left with about 5-14 runes facing up. If you are left with any more than that, or any less than that, check out your casting methods. This one is quite an average casting for me, about 9 runes.

5. Reading them

The joy of casting is that it's infinitely more complex (that's not a joy sometimes) than standard 'drawing' where you place the rune down and then read about it or think about it. That can be helpful, but a casting is better for long-term information, complex information, or just if you want a good, solid response from your runes.

It's like... a one tarot draw vs. a full Celtic Cross. The latter is just going to be a little bit more meaningful than the former because of the complexity of the interplay of the cards.

The reason being that where a rune falls, is just as important as the rune itself. Likewise if there are any runes touching, their interplay is more important to understand or interpret, than the runes on their own. Because you're not dealing with a rune on its own anymore, but two energies playing closely together.

Well, I could go into more detail, but I think this describes how to do a casting and if I go into how to read a casting I'll be here all day.

But maybe next time I'll do a 'how to read a casting,' would anyone be interested? There will be pictures! :D