When I first decided I want to learn how to work with the Runes, I’ve been lucky enough to stumble into a Serbian course called “Raido – A Shamanic Journey”.
Raido is a course that takes around six months to complete and it was made by an underground chaos movement which existed here at the time. Its structure was simple – one week is dedicated to the each of the Runes and after the seven days of meditating on one specific Mystery, the practitioner was supposed to carve it into a chosen material(wood, stone, bone) and activate it with the blood, visualization or a combination of both.
Meditation method provided was:
- Sit down in Asana of choice. (half-lotus for me)
- Breath in a chosen rhytm for 10 minutes(5-2-5-1 worked fine for me)
- Lay down and do a relaxation ritual(one very similar to the one D.M.K. presented in Modern Magic)
- Do a centering exercise for 10 minutes. This consisted of me imagining a golden line running into the ground through my spine from the high, high above, and then focusing on it.
- Imagine a Rune-stave in front of you. Start chanting its Rune-poems(either in your thoughts and imagination) and focus on their meaning. Do this for 30 minutes.
The first four steps serve as an introduction to meditation and the fifth step is the real deal. There were also some other additional exercises that the practitioner could undertake, like banishing and centering rituals.
The first time I went through Raido, I wasn’t satisfied. I was struggling with basics like Asana and Pranayama and overall, I lacked the necessary concentration. Seriously meditating on the Runes is no easy job and it requires some proficiency in the basic Yoga skills of Asana/Pranayama and Dharana.
But despite my lack of meditative experience, after a few days of intense focus any Weekly Rune, my perception would change and I’d start seeing the world differently.
The meditations resulted in me getting some really interesting insight and ideas about the Runes, myself and the world, and sometimes I even got very interesting imagery while sitting in the asana. The visuals were similar to the one’s that arise while being in a hypnagogic state but they were dealing with the symbols I was working with.
Some other strange things that occurred.. Once I heard the Rune itself speaking to me through my mind(Kenaz) which was like having a thought stream that was totally independent of yourself – it was very clear that it wasn’t me who was doing the thinking and never before(or after) had anything similar happened.
All this stuff convinced me that the whole meditating thing is real and probably beneficial. Overall, Raido felt very enlightening and after a six months, I had my Rune-set finally ready for divination.
A year passed and as I was performing daily divination with the Runes religiously(not skipping a day once) I decided that it might be a good idea to go through the Raido course once more.
I started meditating again and this time I decided that I’ll spend two weeks* on each of the Runes(14 meditations)* instead of just one. I also figured that I’ll also scry each Rune for 5 times through basic pathworking**.
My second Raido cycle started 26. 03. 2012. and I haven’t came nowhere near the end since. I had periods during which I worked intensely, but mostly I was extremely iregular with the course due to the general laziness of mine and the various life interferences that I won’t be discussing here. .
At some point I decided not to bother until I change my lifestyle, which I finally did – so I decided to get back on the track and try to finish the Raido once more. This time I’ll start fresh and try not to bite more I can chew. I’ll commit to the original six month program where one Rune equals one week of meditating, since that is something I KNOW I can acomplish.
In order to be more efficient and clear, I decided to upload all my entries till now on this blog because typewriting is easier to read than my handwriting is, and hopefully it will be more enduring and stand the test of time. Paper is too easily lost or destroyed.
My new results will also be posted here and the whole blog will serve as an online journal of my Rune-work. I intend it as a guide-post for the others that are interested in this subject and hopefully someone will find it useful or at least interesting.
I think that access to stuff like this is important for the occult community to have, since the raw empirical material from workings and meditations isn’t really that common.
There’s a lot of unnecessary mystification and hopefully this will be the place where people can see what exactly can Rune-work offer.
* For those who don’t know what that means, a little introduction might be necessary. In its essence, pathworking is a way of investigating a Rune through imagination. It’s very similar to the dreaming about it and the difference is that during pathworking you are awake and the vision is less intense than in an ordinary dream.
** Its worthy of notice that I didn’t decide that I’ll spend two weeks instead of one for each of the Runes until I started working with Ansuz or Raido. At that time I decided that I’ll finish first Aett kinda loosely, like meditating on each Rune for around a week and then start again and fill in before I progress to second Aett. If that sounds confusing, I’ll put it more clearly: if I had 4 meditations on Thurisaz and felt I kinda understood it, I progressed to Ansuz and so on, but after I was finished with Wunjo I’d start it all again from Fehu and meditate on the Runes few more times until I had14 meditations with each.
afeatherintoxicated 