Laguz in a Time of Draught

We in New Orleans are waiting for the salt water to reach up the Mississippi and overtake our fresh water supply. We watch the creeping, we read or hear of the more southerly parishes already invaded and left thirsty. We order water or rush to the stores to buy it, and are told not to rush to the stores to buy it.

Confession: I don't like to drink water. I will make it into coffee or tea, but otherwise, it's a hot hot day before I will just drink plain water. I drank a fair bit this summer. It was hot hot.

Persistant drought here and upriver has left the Mississippi River thin, and this allows the Gulf's salty water to come up, up, bringing weird fish and mild panic. It has happened before, but they say this time will be worse. It's funny, because aren't we supposed to be submerged with the climate change? I suppose the night is young, but...

Laguz, lake, water. It could be a cup of water, a teaspoon, even, but it is the life-giving water, the flow - with which we can go, from which we can grow. I struggle now to see it as a hopeful rune, which I usually do, in the face of this catastrophe. Go with this salty flow?

I will not reach for platitudes - that would be ignoring this reality we are encountering. This flow is harsh; sometimes it is like this. When we are feeling swamped, tumbled under by the waves, what do we do?

I used to surf, way long ago. There are waves you can ride, and waves you let pass, and waves you duck-dive under to avoid drowning. I have had my ankle leash (which tethers one to one's surfboard) snap, and the board catch a whole other wave than mine.

And so I swam, and not with the flow, but however I could to reach the shore.

It is in these desperate times that the choices we make take on extra imprtance; how will you get to shore? Will it be at the expense of others? Will we help those we meet along the way? Panic and bring would-be rescuers down with us?

Three days have gone by since I started this post. Three days of worry and despair and wondering. Today is a new day, and today I read the runes.

Starting with incense, and a song, and a question for Laguz itself.

Laguz, how will we get through this? How will we move forward?

Laguz. Mannaz, Kenaz, Ehewaz.

Laguz I pulled out deliberately to start, placing it on the moon. Prayersong and pulling brought out Mannaz, Kenaz (face down), and Ehwaz.

A word on Mannaz, which I usually read as two Perthro together, Man's Joy Is Man, of course. But here I take a page from Simon Lilly's Rune Equations and note the Laguz connection. We are made of water, we exist because of it. Man's joy is water - is water's joy man? Not lately. We need to change that. This current crisis is not just this current crisis, rather, it is a crisis of humanity's relationship with water. We need it, but we have not been asking what it needs of us. I say "we," and I mean it in a general sense, even as there are many among us/we who have been asking exactly that, and who have been fighting hard to get water what it needs.

Kenaz, the torch, the light we use to guide our way forward, or to burn it all down. It is a tool, it is fire. It balances out ice, which is water. We need to bring our tools to bear here - light the way forward to --

Ehwaz. The horse, teamwork, going together farther as one than we ever could as two, letting spirit come to us, giving Laguz a lift, so it can sustain us. Integration with water as equals.

In the immediate, we need to help each other survive, so that we can work together for a long term set of solutions. I know New Orleans and other communities will rise to help each other, even as we saw during Covid, and so many other un/natural disasters. We will organize getting water where it is needed.

That is all fine, but we need to move forward deliberately and get water what it is needed as well. Yes, this means work. This is work some are already doing, and which we need to join in however we can. Not everyone can be on the front lines, for whatever reason.

There are many ways to help - donating, protesting, conservation (of course and always), speaking out, being aware of what is threatening our water, our Laguz. Defending our planet. Sounds lofty? We are seeing what happens when too few of us are engaged in it. We are seeing the effects of corporations running roughshod over the earth, sea, and streams. We are living, and dying, with the effects.

My panicked questions, answered: How will you get to shore? With help and by helping.

Will it be at the expense of others? Others? We need to include Laguz in our number, and make sure the answer is, No, not at the expense of Others, for there are no Others. Will we help those we meet along the way? We must. Panic and bring would-be rescuers down with us? No. Work with urgency, and bring us all to safety.