Ur, the rune of raw material
Published: Fri, 01/10/14
I have another confession to make. I got seriously behind during
December and I am struggling a bit to catch up during January. I
feel particularly guilty about not getting the December newsletter
done before the end of the month. No point in making excuses but
one factor is that the runic theme for December is Ur and I have
been convincing myself that there simply isn't that much to
write about this rune. There is some justification in that there
isn't that much mythology about Vidar, but there is still
plenty to explore if I dig a bit. (If I have problems with Ur,
what am I going to do when I get to Ar?). It hit me last night
that although Ur seems like the least glamorous of the runes it is
the one you really need to start with. Ur means original, the
beginnings, the raw material or source of energy in its most basic
form.
It is very hard to create something out of nothing. Hence our
fascination with creation myths whether traditional ("In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1 v
1 or 'There was nothing, then there was a bang, after the bang
there was a universe' Paraphrase of 'Big Bang
Theory'). But we don't have nothing, we live in a material
universe which is absolutely seething with energy. All we have to
do is make something with it. This availability of plenty, excess
even, seems to accelerate all the time. This especially applies to
the availability of knowledge and information. It used to be that
if we needed to know something you had to go to the library and
look it up, or phone someone and hope you could get hold of the
right person, or even write a letter enclosing an SAE. Now you
just use the internet.
Knowledge is the most valuable resource you can have. Life changed
very slowly for ordinary people over hundreds of years. Then over
the past 150 years there has been an intense period of change,
brought about because of an increase in literacy and the
availability of knowledge in increasingly affordable and accessible
forms. Now we have instant access to information on how to do
pretty much anything. We keep being told that some things are
becoming scarce and we will run out of them. Maybe, but as the
supermarkets throw away tons of food every day, there are more cars
than ever on the roads and more consumer goods available than ever
forgive me for being skeptical.
What does not change is the effort, patience and creativity needed
to turn the primal material into something useful and productive.
Whether you are a 14th century peasant with a couple of acres and a
bag of seeds or a would be entrepreneur today with access to the
Internet you are actually in a similar situation. If the peasant
wants to feed his family he needs to dig the ground, plant the
seeds and nurture the crop. If you want to create a modern
business you need to find the relevant information and use it to
create your own project. Success or failure is dependent upon the
willingness to transform this raw material.
The Stav Centre here in Crewkerne is raw material really, just a
space at the moment. But it does have the potential to be
somewhere rather special if the right creative work is done. If
you think you are struggling because you do not have what you need
then see if you can be creative with what you do have. Get back to
the basics which Ur represents and try creating from there. That
is certainly what I need to be doing today.
regards
Graham
PS I am planning three weekend Stav courses here in Crewkerne in
March, April and May. It would be possible to put in 11 or 12
hours training over the Saturday and Sunday and that would provide
the raw material for you to train with on your own, or share with
others. I would limit numbers to 6 so that there would be plenty
of individual attention. We can sort out accommodation and
collection from station or airport could be arranged. More details
tomorrow. Before that we have day courses scheduled for January
and February, 18th of January in Salisbury, more details and
booking at http://www.iceandfire.org.uk/train.html