Runes and Grief 6: Berkano

Today's randomly-drawn Rune is Berkano. Birch, Birth, Death, Rebirth, Great Mother, Nerthus, Freyja, Frigga, Hel, Gestation.

Gundarsson, in The Teutonic Way, pg. 125, writes: "As Freyja, Berkano is the source of life; as Hel, she is keeper of the dead; as the Aesic Frigg, she is the silent keeper of wisdom..."

The figure itself resembles a pregnant person in profile, breasts and stomach filled with life. Or a top-bottom mirror image of cradle and grave. I imagine a stack of Berkano, cradlegravecradlegravecradlegravecradle in an endless cycle of birth and death and birth.

What do we do in that space between cradle and grave?

All our Berkano overlap - we see the births of some, deaths of others, and in some cases their entire cycle this time. There is constant becoming and departing. In our own lives, we have a series of births and deaths as well; ideas, phases, relationships, loved ones.

When someone dies, we go on in a changed world. It is not a conscious thing usually, but we have to re-invent ourselves without their physical presence. We enter a time of choice where the conditions are not of our making. It is painful, rebirthing ourselves.

This can be especially painful with the death of our own mothers. Whatever our relationship with them had been in their lifetimes, there is much to grieve. It could be the love now absent, it could be the love that was never shown by them. It could also be a relief, which might bring a sense of guilt. However you feel - all the emotions - are valid. Your relationship was unique, and your grief or relief is as well.

My relationship with my mother was complex. There were issues of mental illness, and its too-often cohort, addiction. I spent some time in foster care. I had spent a lot of time hoping for her recovery, hoping for her love, which was there, but which she had trouble expressing in a healthy way for years at a time. I was lucky that we made peace before she died, and those last years are treasures. I know that is not always the case.

What surprises me is how our relationship has changed since she died. I do not sugar-coat the bad times - and some were very bad, indeed. You don't end up in foster care otherwise. Rather, I have gained some insight into what happened to her and I as a result of forces beyond her control. I am able to see her as she wanted and tried to be in her better mind.

I am tending to my own rebirth by being aware of the threads I weave into my life now. Where do certain behaviours come from? Are they useful? Are aspects of them? Did I learn the best lessons from my experiences with her? Questions over the eleven years since she has been gone have come slowly, are answered slowly. Who and what to let into the new patterns of my life are more carefully considered.

My grave will open one day. I will be an ancestor, I will be my son's dead mother. While I am here, in this life, I owe him a better potential re-birthing process for when I am gone.

There are some questions a child (of any age) should never have to ask nor be left with when the parents are gone. "Am I loved?," is foremost. We can remove that question from the grief process of our children, and it is our duty to make sure "yes" is the only answer conceivable. In this way, we improve on the future Berkano birthdeathbirth cycles, and through this, the world.