Today's Rune is Algiz
Algiz/Elhaz ᛉ
Every morning I do a daily draw. I don't have a question or concern. I just center for a few minutes, choose a rune, and that's that. I do a light interpretation over coffee and then before bed that night I think more deeply on it related to the events of the day. If you're going to use any particular system of symbols for divination, this is how you build your personal lexicon of meaning. It's a slow process that can take months or years and doesn't involve Google, but pattern hunting is a great way to develop your intuitive mind. You'll learn to see connections in the world if you do this, as opposed to taking the word of some social media "authority" who may only be reciting ChatGPT garble.
Algiz
(Elk's) sedge has it's home
most often in the fen,
it waxes in the water
and grimly wounds
and reddens with blood
any man
who, in any way,
tries to grasp it.
Elk-sedge is a kenning for sword. If you look at the rune, it looks like someone raising their hands and head toward heaven, perhaps seeking inspiration or communion with the "divine" or "higher self".
Read the poem carefully. It sits there floating in the water (tucked away in the back of your head, in your unconscious), minding its own business until you reach into the current to pull it out - until you go seeking inspiration, awakening, divine guidance - whatever it is that causes you to want to plumb the parts of yourself and your connection to the universe that you might normally ignore. Then OUCH!
It hurts!
It cuts you as swords are meant to do, or it burns you. The reddening can be taken either way - the blade draws blood through it's edge or because it is newly forged and still too hot to be handled directly. Either way, you stuck your hand in the waters of your great cauldron self, wanting an awakening, and here you have it.
Most of us come to these ways of thinking and being via the New Age community, which has grown like a field of digital knotweed online. The Intergalactic Crystal Crew has been colonizing occult spaces for decades, and it shows in the language and views of the seekers I meet. The New Age community packages up the discussion around awakenings in some really soft language. It's always been a WASP-y, upper-middle-class suburban movement, hence the word-salad approach, and abundance of spiritual bypassing, appropriation, and toxic positivity.
I told you in the About Page that I was going to have opinions. Starseeds, beware.
So let's continue to be blunt.
Awakenings suck arse. Having your mind cracked open and your worldview shifted as a result can wreak havoc on your daily life. Ultimately, these often messy events are for the best, but in the moment, while you are forced to process this new knowledge, it can feel like a terrible burden. Nothing will go back to the way it was.
The trade-off is that you'll have a greater understanding of the world you live in. Or you'll be consumed by archetypal forces and end up doing something spectacularly dramatic and stupid. Either way, life will continue to unfold. The sun will still rise and set, the seasons will still change, and the people around you will continue to do their peopling. It'll be your energy that has shifted.
So I'll see how this plays out for me today and make a note in my journal tonight.