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When we choose a thing from a set of things as part of ritual or fortune telling, such as pulling a rune or tarot card, we are practicing three different skills. The one everyone knows about consciously is that we are practicing the application of knowledge we learned about that system. For example, if we work with the Elder Futhark we might associate Ehwo with a horse. There are two other skills that reading runes teaches us. One applies to all rune readings, like knowledge-based interpretations do, and the other only applies to picking from a set.

The second skill is psychometry. When we either cast runes or pull a rune we get psychic impressions off of the runes by touching them. This skill may generalize to other systems. For example, a practiced rune reader may get impressions off of tarot cards too, even without knowing anything about the tarot system. A practiced rune reader may even get impressions from objects that are not fortune telling lots, or from places. For example, decades ago when I visited England I got psychic impressions from the henge at Avebury and from an old church, which I wrote about in some of my earliest posts on this blog. My trained ability to get impressions from my rune stones generalized to getting impressions from a standing stone circle and other buildings.

Recently a forum member asked about what sort of lucky symbols he might put on a box intended as a gift to someone who would keep tabletop role-playing game dice in it. He asked about using lucky runes or the symbol of a god or other such being.

Here is my answer:

Luck is a more spiritually connected concept in heathenry than in modern culture. If one is lucky at gambling it's a sign of having good wyrd / orlog. Games of chance in which one can win money have some bearing on one's real life. It is appropriate to invoke luck to try to win money because it benefits the gambler and his family / household / village / warband / etc. RPGs aren't gambling though.

RPGs are a form of improvisational theater. Sacred theater was totally a thing in the ancient world, but the roles and plots were generally connected to mythology and were non-random. If you invoke a specific entity for what is essentially a form of theater, be prepared for that entity to at least watch and possibly interact. If things don't go well for that entity or the story doesn't follow the mythology the entity may be displeased. I wouldn't use any being's real empowered symbol for an RPG myself. There are Icelandic Magic symbols that are for general good luck, but again, I wouldn't connect that to an RPG. A human being's personal luck is tied to their wyrd and orlog, to their ancestors and descendants, and their family and community. RPG gaming is far too similar to ritual drama and has too much risk of character death or other negative outcomes to tie one's personal luck to a game. Rather than expending personal luck on something that does not bring prosperity, health, etc. to onesself, one's family line, or one's community, I'd suggest that if you want to put runes on a game dice box, instead of luck runes, spell out words to encourage social ties with the friends with whom one would be playing, which would be a positive for the player and community no matter what happens in the game.

Note: the forum to which I refer is the Asatru Facebook Forum, which I manage along with my team, the Trollslayers. Readers of this blog are encouraged to join. To apply, one has to fill out a short membership application and answer all 3 questions. We screen membership applications to exclude spambots, trolls, neonazis and white supremacists, and other undesirables. To apply for membership, go to this web address: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AsatruForum

Here are some commonly used herbs and the runes that correspond with them. Reminder: this is gnosis, not lore, and none of this is set in stone. If your gnosis differs, go with that. If this doesn't resonate with you, go with your gut.

Oak and ash and thorn, from the folk song, can be interpreted in many ways. Giving it a heathen interpretation, Oak is Odin's or Thor's, representing the higher worlds. Ash is Askr's. Askr was the first man, according to heathen mythology, along with the first woman Embla. Ash represents midgard, the human world, or could represent the world-tree which connects the worlds to each other. Thorn is one of the names of rune known in the Elder Futhark as Thurisaz. It can represent either the thurses, that is the giants, or Thor, but here it represents the thurses, the lower worlds or lower dimensions.

This is gnosis. Here on Gnosis Diary I post a lot of gnosis, but also stories that happened in my life, and general Asatru info, so to be clear: the following is my personal gnosis about correspondences and with different aspects of working with herbs and runes. This information may be at odds with other peoples' gnosis. When it comes to gnosis, let intuition be your guide. Some things will just feel like they flow easily, or are just right, and other things will feel unapproachable, or warm or cold. If you feel like a different thing will work better for you, or your working group or guides or gods have given you something different, then go with what works for you. When you receive gnosis of your own, you can practice discernment, ask if others have the same gnosis, check with your usual powers which help you, look for omens, etc. None of this is set in stone.

Sun Runes

You can create your own set of sun runes (or cards if you are feeling particularly crafty). 

There is always something good somewhere, even in hard times, even in hard lives. "Stop to smell the flowers" has become a cliche, but we said it so much because it's useful.

In Taoist and Buddhist traditions they have the concept of the yin and yang, which are depicted always having a tiny spot of their opposite inside. Like the good in Darth Vader (lol, sorry, I'm such a geek I couldn't resist.) Heathen philosophy doesn't put this concept so starkly in a visual symbol, but in our mythology the entire universe was generated out of the dynamic combination of two opposites, the runes fehu (primal fire) and isa (primal ice.) So everything we see around us is both matter and energy, both power and pattern, both potential and the universal laws of physics that make potential reach its physically manifested form.

Title: The Long Chain (The Arcane Casebook Volume III)