New Year's First Readings

Hello and Happy New Year. At midnight-o-one, the first minute of January 1, 2022, I pulled a personal rune - asking what the first month of this year would be like for me. The answer: Murkstave Isa. This is good, as I am coming out of a period of stasis, and had that Isa been facing upward, I might have sighed a bit. As I see it, this indicates I have turned over the state of inaction and stagnation and am entering a period of growth and productivity.

Seen above is the amber rune from the set I used for that pull. Seen below are hagstone runes I used for the next pull. A future entry will discuss runes as things themselves and why I prefer to use the kinds I do.

The next pull I did, at about noon on that first day of the year, was for my city - New Orleans. My question was similar: What can we expect to see this first month of this year?

This is a great example of how runes get very situational, with special significance really factoring into the reading. Yes, each rune has a fairly commonly-agreed-on meaning, but the relationship every reader has with them will affect the communication, as will the direct subject of the question.

So, what do we have here? I've done a simple three-rune pull, what I like to call Norn-style, with a basic past-present-possibility pattern. Dagaz, commonly taken to mean "awakening" or the closing of day into night and night opening back into day; Berkano, often taken to mean Birth, coming to fruition; Kenaz, taken to be an indication of health, or a torch.

For New Orleans I read it thus: Dagaz signifies our city's fight with the corona virus; we started out going quite dark, being a hotbed of the illness, and we squashed that curve hard - moving into a place of light - the new dawn. We also are one of the more-vaccinated cities, and I see that as an awakening to the danger. That is our recent past; last year. This brings us to the now, where we find Berkano. We are a city of birth, rebirth, and birth again. We're doing it again - breaking through into the light and life. Maya Angelou's famous line, "Still I rise" could well be my city's motto. And, so - on to possibilities: Kenaz! In the positive health direction, and also the torch. We have here a tradition during Mardi Gras of the Flambeaux (video below), the keepers of the flame. In all, I see this Kenaz as an indication of building toward a good Mardi Gras, which is something we really need.

Now, here is the thing. It's one thing to just say, Hey, Kenaz, excellent, it'll be all good! But, this is a possibility of fate, not a guarantee. We have to keep doing the work to get where we want to be. We got to the rebirth (Berkano) by squashing that curve (Dagaz) - press on to feel the warmth of that flambeaux!

And remember to tip those guys for luck!