[runes] and how i be casting them.

[moonvoice]

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

Comments

[earthguardian.livejournal.com]

this is pretty kickass. i too have runes, but no rune map o.o'' and have ended up using a typically flat surface.

i hand made my rune too, but from clay, and they're decent enough i suppose. but, i guess, my question is: i've been using runes for a year or two (on and off) and i still have a lot of difficulty with meanings, moreso when done in a casting. any idea how to fix that? i have the same problem with my tarot.

also, YES. i would love to learn how you read a casting (as it may answer my aforementioned question.)

:3

[azhure.livejournal.com]

You're making me want to get my runes out. It's been years since I've read them, though, and I've well forgotten how to. Maybe I need to hunt down a good book on interpreting them - any recommendations?

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Probably The Runes Workbook by Leon D. Wild, it was also published quite recently.

But I have my own rune interpretations here which you're welcome to print out:

http://www.wildspeak.com/vilturj/other.html

[scarletwildfire.livejournal.com]

I've had a set of runes for a few years. They were gifted to me, and I've never quite known what to do with them.

Thank you for this! And if you want to do a how to read runes primer... I'm all about that too :)

[end-of-the-mind.livejournal.com]

I'd be extremely interested! I dabbled in researching the runes back _mumblemumble years ago, but it never really played out. The texts were dry and difficult to fathom.

[psychrobia149.livejournal.com]

Awesome! :D

[erynn999.livejournal.com]

I wrote quite a bit about reading techniques for random castings in my ogam book. I like that method best unless I'm doing a quickie 15 minute reading for somebody.

[zuki-san.livejournal.com]

So. Very. Much. Interested!

I'd love to know a little bit more about how the process works.

I tried doing a rune casting for a friend once and it turned out okay...but I was working off of half-remembered everythings at the time. Even if your method turns out not to be my method, I'd love to know, pictures and all!

(Heh, I've still got the sketch of her reading around here somewhere...I could go back and take another look at it)

[e-falki.livejournal.com]

I really like the idea of saying thank you to those runes which end up face down or on the floor. I think I'll do that from now on. :-)

[lupabitch.livejournal.com]

Heh--I still have to practice casting bones without having them all automatically end up in a little pile in the center of the casting skin.

Thank you for the info-post! it's always neat seeing how other people do things.

[ebonhost.livejournal.com]

This was a very interesting read, thank you. I've never been interested in the hole 'drawing the runes' theory myself, which is why I usually have used my tarot cards instead of them. However, this notion seems like it would suit me much better, and I may have to try this out. :)

[tsukikokoro.livejournal.com]

I would really love to read a "How to Read a Casting" article by you :3 This was the most clear-cut explanation on how to cast runes I've ever read. The pictures help a lot.

I only have one question: when you are about to open the bag above the mat, should it be in/close to the center?

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Yeah I position mine directly over the inner circle. :)

And thank you! It always surprises me that there isn't more information about casting, because it's dead easy... but maybe people just don't know how / and books don't publish pictures about it. But hehehe, I had so much fun taking the pictures. Lol. I don't care if it highlights how 'non-fancy' my materials are.

I'd like to break down a 'how to read a casting' one, it'd need to be multiple entries though I think. Reading can be quite complex.

[firehauke.livejournal.com]

this is cool. Is this Futhark? I do prison outreach and one of the religious items the inmates are allowed is the Elder Futhark, and I would love some basic reading information with picture guide to put along with them.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Yup this is Futhark, I read with an Uthark (Fehu is the 24th rune for me), but yeah it's the same 24 runes. :) If you want to use this as a model or use it in general, go ahead. It's pretty basic to cast, and runes are so convenient because they don't need to be highly pictorial like tarot. :D

[bewylderbeast.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing. I've always been curious about how runes are cast, but whenever I ask I'm fobbed off with mystical-joo joo-only-you-know-how nonsense.

^_^

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

It's also really easy to cast, once you know how and make it work for you, it is much faster than picking out individual tarot cards (which I also enjoy doing). The fastest part of a rune casting is the casting itself. Heh.

[freyaw.livejournal.com]

*memoried*

[firehauke.livejournal.com]

hm, now i just need pics of all the runes to get to crafting!

[elvenstars.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the lovely pictures! Your materials look fine. It's real and nonfancy stuff, which I never had a problem with ;)

And yes, please do post about reading them.

[darakat-ewr.livejournal.com]

Thats so cool, thank you very much for this. I learned to draw runes but never to cast them, its quite a insight.

[sidheblessed.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this, this was excellent.

[copperbeech.livejournal.com]

That's awesome, complete with pictures! Runes are one of about three tactile media that work for me. Everything else just sits there dead. But runes worked from the first tentative touch. Funny how that is. They are a love affair all their own, yes?
Hope you're well!

[cloversix.livejournal.com]

Teeeach meeee how to reeeead!!!!

*glomp* <3

Thanks for that! That was fascinating!!

[moonreviews]

I'd be interested in another rune post :) I recently starting using them a bit too but I made a set from cardboard as there weren't any stones nearby. Next time I'm somewhere with a lot of stones I'm going to search out a few to use.