How to recognise a real soldier
Published: Sat, 08/15/15
One of the things that I do at Druid Camp is spend quite a lot of time in the Divination Area doing rune counselling sessions for people who fancy a reading. Other people do astrological readings, Tarot, crystal ball and various other things. There seemed to be a lot of interest this year and I did 18 readings over three days. Druid camp is usually the only time I do rune counselling, just seems to be the right environment somehow. No money changes hands, there is no need to explain too much and most people coming in generally have something significant to ask. I do get nervous when someone comes in, sits down and says. “My wife, husband (usually the wife though) says you are so good at this I must have my runes read.” It can result in an interesting reading, more likely there is nothing much to see or say. The reason is simple enough, if you come in for a reading at your own free will then be at a point on the web of life where a
question needs to be raised. If just sent in for your own good then this is unlikely to be the case. I could turn people away who are sent in on that basis but I can usually make the experience pleasant enough and sometimes some thing rather interesting does still crop up, for me if not for them.
Anyway, a young woman and a young man, a couple in their mid twenties came in and I did a reading for both of them. The young man sat down and I went through the usual rune counselling procedure. I explain what is going to happen, they will take out three runes one at a time, then place them down in order to show past, present and future. I then interpret according to the traditional meanings and associations and then we have a discussion about how this might relate to their life and situation. I emphasise three things that I consider important. Firstly, that it is their intuitive choice which runes are picked out so what we are doing is giving their subconscious mind the opportunity to bring up what is most important right now. All I am doing is offering a ‘classical’ interpretation of what the subconscious mind as flagged up. Secondly, I emphasise that I am not foretelling the future. The future is not fixed and the future
rune is simply showing the most likely outcome of the line the person is presently on. It may be exactly what they want, it may be something best avoided, either way it is sign posted. Thirdly, recommend that whatever comes out of our discussion following my interpretation, don’t take too much notice of anything I say. Just sleep on it and tomorrow morning you will know just what to do. Again, let the subconscious mind do the work.
Anyway, this young man pulled out Tyr for his present rune. I suggested that this showed some relationship to an organisation with a Herse aspect, possibly the military. I turned out that he had just left the army but was finding it difficult to adapt the civilian life, there was a great deal about being a soldier that he missed. I said something about my own military experience (most of it part time) and he said that he had noticed my issue water bottle which was on the ground beside my chair. If I needed any confirmation (not that I doubted him) that he was telling he truth this was it. Okay, there are lots of armchair warriors who can identify guns and tanks and other sexy bits of kit. But a real soldier loves his water bottle, boots and sleeping bag, pretty much in that order. This was definitely a genuine soldier’s RAC (see Thursday’s message if you have not read it yet). Want to know if someone is genuine or not, look for
what they notice without prompting.
I don’t mention rune counselling very often. There are various reasons for this. If you are doing Stav properly, by that I mean actually training and doing the stances on a regular, preferably daily basis then you are providing the opportunity for the subconscious to use the runes to communicate with your conscious mind. If you miss out a rune stance or a particular rune is flagged up then there is a message from your intuitive mind to think about. You need to know a lot about the runes and associated mythology to be able to interpret effectively. I don’t really think you can read properly with the runes in one hand and a booklet in the other. I know a lot of people read Tarot like that, enough said. Then there is also the transaction between the questioner and the reader to negotiate. As it says in the Havamal stanza 145 ‘one gift always looks to another’. As I said I find, Druid camp to be the only place where I usually
feel comfortable doing readings for strangers. Perhaps because at an event like that no one is really a stranger for long if they choose to really join in.
However, I have been thinking for a while about doing a rune study programme here in Crewkerne. I put up a page some time ago but have not fixed any dates yet, probably one Sunday afternoon a month. Have a look here and let me know if you might be interested http://somersetstav.co.uk/wyrd.html If I can get at least four people interested I will set a start date.
regards
Graham
PS If you want to know more about runes as used in Stav directly from the horse’s mouth so to speak. A lot of the three hours plus of the Stavcamp DVD is Ivar explaining runes and mythology. Also quite a lot on how to do the runic stances. You can order your copy from http://stavcamp.org/index.html