Finding my Runes - a peek into the right-relationship practices of Jane Webster, MAGpie Secretary

I recently relocated to Guam, but in the months before I did, I had the opportunity to spend a few months visiting my childhood home in Connecticut.  This gave me a wonderful opportunity to reconnect, not only with my family, but with the land that was both the backdrop and steady companion of my childhood. 

Personal relationship with the land can take many forms. Some people build a relationship with their land through frequent outdoor activities that put them in close contact with nature. Others plant flowers or crops, working with the land to cultivate life. Still others seek relationship with land through a broader lens, focusing on their role in the larger pictures of sustainable living and climate justice.

But for children, relationship with the land is sometimes as simple as play. 

As a child, I treated the land as a multi-layered space. On the surface, my backyard was just that: a backyard. It had property lines and telephone poles and all the things it needed in a mundane world of real property rights. But there were other meanings that could overlay the mundane, other worlds that could co-exist in that space. This is not uncommon for children; Jesse and Leslie had their Terabithia, and I had…well, I need not share all my secrets with you, Dear Reader.  Still, know that I spent a lot of time in the spaces that overlaid those Connecticut forests, and they were incredibly formative and meaningful for me (see my Hero’s Journey entry for Night 10: The Road Back).  

The forests in Connecticut are so different from those in Colorado. They move differently in the wind. The aspens in Colorado twinkle as each leaf flashes in the light like a spinning coin, twisting and fluttering, and that sparkle of movement tracks the wind across their canopies. They are dynamic, vibrant, even ecstatic in their interconnected dance. “Like a flock of birds,” as Dr. Grant would say, they move together. A choreographed response to the wind, even as each leaf flashes its own light. 

But the trees in Connecticut, those oaks and maples, move differently. They stand tall and stark, frayed at the top, and the stillness of their deep layers upon layers of narrow trunks are almost imposing. Then the wind moves through their multitudes, and they roar to life. You can see the wind coming, not through the canopies like you can with aspens, but through the body of the forest, barreling through the trees like a wave, each trunk bending nearly in half. I remember standing among them and watching them swing about wildly, then dip low in the wind as if leaning in to inspect their small, fragile visitor more closely.

These were the trees of my childhood, and perhaps, any one of them could have been appropriate for my project. Any one of them could have provided the connection to home that I wanted to carry with me to Guam. But if I was serious about my project, about tapping back into the sacrality of this land that I recognized when I lived here, then I needed to do this right. 

I had to go home. I had to visit my tree. 

So, I did. It was trespassing. I know. But I’ve always been more of a Chaotic Good alignment, and I have no shame or regrets about the decision.

Snaking my way between fences and tree lines, I made my way to the narrow strip of woodlands from my childhood. The trees had not started to bud yet, and I was struck by how close the river at the edge of the woods really was when the foliage is missing. But the distance is deceptive—these are not woods you can safely cross in a straight line. These woods were wetlands, and it takes familiarity with the firm paths lacing among the invisible muddy pitfalls to navigate without getting stuck. The complexity of the land, the length of the twisting paths it contains, made the space feel more expansive than it was. In the summer, the low branches and skunk cabbage create green corridors through the woods, and we would clear a maze of trails through the knee-high skunk cabbage to make it easier to avoid the mud. But in the winter, I had to rely on my memory of those trails. I am proud to say, I emerged clean and dry.

Because of the type of forest this was, riddled with deep pools and mud hiding under the leaves, right-relationship with this land had always required a walking stick to test the ground ahead of your feet.  We each had our own, carefully selected walking stick. When we invited new friends to the house, part of the ceremony of introducing them to our back yard was helping them choose their own stick for the woods. They were all stored together, leaned carefully against the same tree between our quests and excursions. They may have looked like just a pile of sticks, but not to us. Everyone knew their own waking stick. Some we recognized by their unique knots and whorls, and others by the initials or symbols we carved in their handles with the broken tiles we found in the woods.  Like Gandalf trekking through Middle Earth, we carried our walking sticks through all our adventures.  

I always liked finding a new walking stick. There is a very particular shape I looked for in walking sticks: about an inch in diameter at the handle, maybe less; tapering at the bottom, but not so narrow as to wobble; as straight as possible from its handle to its tip so it can prod the muddy leaves without bending; and smooth from shoulder to elbow height so it would be comfortable in your hands. It was not a particularly rare shape in these forests, but not so common that it didn’t take patience and discernment to find.

So imagine my joy at finding such a perfect walking stick waiting for me, there at the bottom of my tree. 

This tree is the World Tree in my nemeton. This tree has heard my secrets, witnessed my growth, and played an honored role in all the psychodramas of my youthful imagination. It has received offerings from me since before I had the words to name what I was doing. 

And when I came seeking support on my next adventure across unfamiliar, uncertain terrain, it gave me a staff to guide my steps. 

Reciprocity. With full honor and thanks, I accepted.

I’ve never had a rune set with personal significance, and I wonder if it is why I have always struggled with the divination portion of the COoR at home.  Still, I felt that if I was working with a tool that was a familiar guide, something that I could trust in and find meaning in from its mundane materials, even absent the symbols of the runes themselves, maybe they could have the significance I was seeking.  Now, I hoped that maybe the numinous quality of that staff, representing the walking sticks that guided me through those labyrinthian paths in the woods, could import those same feelings to my runes. That way, even if the runes themselves failed to reach me, I would always know that I still had that guiding piece of history, that link to the worlds and experiences that had meant to much to me as a child.

So I started my project.

* * * 

I started by sawing off 25 rounds from the walking stick. I choose to work from the section of the stick that I would have held if I were using it as a staff, navigating the woods: the smooth section from shoulder to elbow height. I liked knowing that the runes would be taken from the portion of the staff I would have held, like a guiding hand. I kept the rounds in order as I sawed them off, then lightly traced the rune on each one in the sequence they were cut from the staff.

Those of you who know the runes will notice I have one extra. Before I knew how common a practice this is, and how hotly debated this issue is, I decided I wanted a blank rune. I know that the blank rune is…not canonical.  I also know that many people find them duplicative, since Perthro can already represent the unknown. But I wanted a rune to represent silence. I wanted the runes to have the chance to decline to speak, without the connotations that Perthro already carries. 

I even considered adding more. As I sawed the blank rune, I was considering sawing off a few more rounds to add symbols for some entities I work with personally: the Nomad, the Midwife, the Scribe. As I was imagining what symbol would best represent each entity, I kid you not…the saw blade broke loose from the handle. I decided I had been given a pretty definitive answer: no more runes. I reattached the blade and finished sawing off the blank rune. I still wonder whether I should interpret that as a comment on the blank rune as well, or just on the thoughts running through my head as I was sawing. For now, the blank rune is still included in my set.

I processed the rest of the staff down into pieces. Some are long flat surfaces that could be inscribed. Others are just offering-sized chunks. I also kept a few longer pieces in case I feel called to erect one as a new World Tree at my altar. In the end, minus the sawdust (left as offering), I was able to bring the whole staff with me to Guam.

After some light sanding to take off the rough patches, I started to inscribe the runes. I used a piece of writing, stating my hopes and intentions in this work, as my movable workspace. It felt appropriate to use a surface of written words to make sacred the space for this type of work.  

​This was a multi-day process with hours of focused work, but I’m glad I did it in this way. Had I just painted on each rune, I would not have felt the same connection to the symbols. However, when you have to carefully, deeply etch each rune into the wood with a cheap soldering iron that periodically turns itself off without warning, meditating on the meaning of each symbol as you also avoid burning your fingers, you come away from the process with a transformed understanding of these symbols. When you then return to the runes to measure and cut thin gold wire to inlay into each deeply burned groove, delicately placing each gold thread into the rune and patiently setting it with superglue, your relationship with these shapes changes again.  And when you return again after the glue dries to sand off the excess glue with a rotary sander, smoothing each rune face until the wire and glue are flush with the surface of the wood and the wire gleams through against the blackened wood, your mind has been altered by the work just as the wood has been shaped. 

After sanding the glue, I oiled them with multiple coats of flaxseed oil, and they started to shine. 

I also made a basic natural wood stain with steel wool and apple cider vinegar to darken the back of each rune.  The contract of dark backs and light fronts has made it easier to quickly differentiate the backs and fronts of each rune when I cast them.

They may need some gloss eventually, or perhaps a wax coat, but the faces are smooth and even. I can run my fingers across the surface of each one without being able to differentiate the different runes. I can’t even tell the backs from the fronts with my eyes closed.

I have been warned that the color will begin to darken naturally with time and use.  Already, the color of the oiled faces seems to be deepening a shade. 

The following blog entry is a collection of journal entries in response to the Mountain Ancestors Grove’s 2018 Twelve Nights of Solstice program exploring the Hero’s Journey. These short presentations and guided meditations will each be made available for replay at any time. 

TWELVE STAGES OF THE HERO’S JOURNEY: ONE MAGPIE’S TRAVELOGUE
by J. Webster, Inaugural Chief-of-the-Folk

More so than parts 1 and 2, these entries rely heavily on the context of the guided meditations provided on theMountain Ancestors Grove Facebook page. The writer strongly encourages you to watch or read these meditations before reading these entries.

PART 4: NIGHTS 10-12​

NIGHT 10: THE ROAD BACK

In late high school, when I was writing daily and fanatically, I remember telling a good friend about a story idea I had, one that, like most of my favorites, involved a very literal “Special World.” This friend frowned a little, and said she had a very important question for me, one she hoped I wouldn’t take personally: “Do you actually believe in alternate realities?” 

I believe she meant well, but it was an uncomfortable moment. She didn’t quite hit the nail on the head, but she had brushed against a… maybe not a belief, but a value system? A perspective? And when she did, something in her tone made me feel like she had caught on to some shameful secret I didn’t even know I had.  I denied it immediately, brushing it off by explaining that it was just an easy story to tell. But the question stuck with me: Why did these stories about alternate realities, about what Campbell would call “special worlds,” so resonate with me? And why hadn’t I grown out of it yet, and I was clearly expected to do?

In adolescence, my favorite stories were always those that tied my own mundane world to another world in very literal ways: The Neverending Story, the Narnia books, K. .A. Applegate’s Everworld series, Gaiman’s Neverwhere, etc.  I was utterly captivated by the idea that my life could be connected with some vast secret, some setting where life was utterly different, and where important battles or explorations could play out in a way that might actually affect my own life. Like many children, I imagined myself in these worlds, playing out scenarios and daydreaming about the roles I could play in these stories. If felt good to imagine myself as the hero in these worlds, but it also felt…meaningful. It almost felt like practice, as if I could somehow hone my own character by vividly picturing who I wanted to be in these scenarios and deciding how I would react when faced with difficult decisions. Could I be the person with the integrity to stand up against “evil?” The person brave enough for self-sacrifice? The person smart enough to know what to do? These seemed like important questions, and stories that allowed me to imagine myself literally entering the plot felt like the right stories to test these questions.

The special world in the story I wanted to write, the idea that so concerned my friend, was one build of all the dreams, fantasies, and narratives of the characters who would be drawn into that world. I liked the idea of a set of characters having to find their way through the labyrinth of their collective psyches. Like all of the other examples of “Special Worlds” I had read, I liked to imagine how I would handle it myself. 

And this is why this little about of Young Jane is relevant today: At the time, I truly believed that, given the chance to experience such a world, I would choose not to return to the Ordinary World. What would that Special World be like if my mind were the only one shaping it, and what in the real world, I wondered, could compete with the richness, the meaning, and the liberty offered by the chance to explore a world like that? I knew, with the certainty that only a teenager can muster, that given the opportunity to abandon my mundane life to live in that “Special World,” I would never go home. I promised myself I would never go home.

Yet here I am… going home. In a number of ways. Not only during this internal “hero’s journey,” but in my external life. And that’s ok. A lot of growth and transformation can happen in the special spaces that are in some way separate from our ordinary lives, but the longer you stay, and particularly if you stay after that space has changed you in all the ways it can…then maybe any place can become an Ordinary World. The colors will drain, the facets of wonder will crumble, and all of its mysteries reveal themselves as mundane.  I have learned the importance of letting go of these special spaces when they lose the newness that made them special, of letting the memories of my experiences remain, but still moving on. 

I have also learned, at last, to love my Ordinary World. On closer examination, my Ordinary World has all the richness and meaning I always wanted, all the opportunities to practice Integrity and Courage, to solve complex problems, and to hone my character that I could want. I even have my very own paladin with whom I share my life.  I have, at last, a life that I would want to return to from a “Special World.”

I know, I know, “attachment is the root of all suffering” and all that.  Still…what a beautiful thing it is to have a life I would not lightly choose to trade for a fairytale.  

NIGHT 11: RESURRECTION

This chapter of our journey brought me face-to-face with a very specific memory, a memory of a time when someone made me believe that what I thought were pearls were only pebbles. A time I was told “No, this treasure that you think you have is neither treasure nor yours. Throw it away.” I thought this person was someone to learn from, someone to emulate. Maybe even a “mentor.” I respected them, and wanted to be worthy of their respect. So I believed them, and that belief changed me. Diminished me. Robbed me. 

It was not their fault. They meant well. Their values were just different from mine, and that’s ok. Multiplicity of truth and all that—they were permitted their own values, and those values were as legitimate and valid as my own. But their values were not my values, and even though I knew what I wanted and needed in my life better that they did, I tried to follow someone else’s values, someone else’s truth. 

I know that I am being vague and melodramatic, but it’s the only way I know how to communicate to you, Dear Reader, what I experienced in this meditation without revealing more than I’d like. I want you to have context when I tell you that this false “mentor,” this person who wanted me to abandon the treasure I am trying to bring back into my life… this is the figure who appeared to me as my Threshold Guardian. Theirs was the face that told me, in so many ways, that I could not leave the Special World with my reward: because it was worthless, because it was dangerous, because it was too heavy for me to carry. Reason after reason for me to drop it, leave it, crush it under my heel on the way out. 

Their eyes glinted with the dragon’s fire, and I understood that, just like the dragon, they did not act with malice. They were only acting in accordance with their nature, in accordance with their values. And my values are different. My values are all my own. And my values are reason enough to stand before this obstacle, and say “No.”

I was glad our meditation did not guide us to fight this beast. There would have been no winning against my Threshold Guardian, only clashing wills and mutual wounds. No…it was a far better choice to leave them to their fuming objections and judgment, leave them to their impotent flames, and to merely leave with my prize.  

I have a beautiful home, a beautiful life, and a token to bring home from my adventure.  Why would I waste any more time or energy fighting an unwinnable battle I walked away from a long time ago? Time to move on…

NIGHT 12: RETURN WITH ELIXIR 

Our last meditation had us, like Samwise, returning to our “garden.” This image resonated deeply with me, since I like using a garden as a metaphor for the life I have built.  

Life is a journey, and I remember many obstacle that I have crossed on my path:  the craggy mountains that tore the soles of my feet, the raging rivers whose chill I sometimes still feel in my marrow.  After my travels and obstacles, I feel as though I finally found a place to clear a patch in the wilderness, to build a home and plant a garden.  The walls started as a crooked frame, and the plants began as only fragile tendrils, but I did not give up. I worked. I repaired.  I tended. And as my home grew sturdy and my garden vibrant and alive, so did I.

Sometimes I feel small, tired, and scared. The prospect of starting again, at times, overwhelms me. But I have strong roots, well-practiced in surviving dark winters and wind-swept, stone-faced slopes. My roots have found rich soil and thrived, and thick and strong, they can press through vast weights of earth, crushing stone and seeking deep waters. I am no ornamental potted-pet, no struggling weed, no stunted brittle thing that must hide its flowing sap and soft buds from the elements. I can do this. I can accept and grow from what comes next in my life. 

Sometimes you have to build a house to have a home. I have done that work. I can do it again. 

The following blog entry is a collection of journal entries in response to the Mountain Ancestors Grove’s 2018 Twelve Nights of Solstice program exploring the Hero’s Journey. These short presentations and guided meditations will each be made available for replay at any time. 

TWELVE STAGES OF THE HERO’S JOURNEY: ONE MAGPIE’S TRAVELOGUE
by J. Webster, Inaugural Chief-of-the-Folk

More so than parts 1 and 2, these entries rely heavily on the context of the guided meditations provided on the Mountain Ancestors Grove Facebook page. The writer strongly encourages you to watch or read these meditations before reading these entries.

PART 3: NIGHTS 7-9

NIGHT 7: APPROACH

There is a scene in my favorite movie, the NeverEnding Story, where the characters discuss a terrible trial the hero must pass in his quest: a magic mirror that will show him his true self. When the hero’s companion mutters “That’s won’t be too hard,” another character responds, “Oh, that's what everyone thinks! But kind people find out that they are cruel! Brave men discover that they are really cowards! Confronted by their true selves, most men run away, screaming!”

I have faced this mirror before in my life. I expect to face it many more times. I earnestly hope that each time I face this mirror, I will be rewarded with the difficult truths about myself that I may not be facing properly, the discipline to face my Shadows, and the vision and wisdom to see my best and truest potential self 

Today, I see…

I have promised honesty to myself, but there are parts of myself and my Shadows that I hesitate to expose to an anonymous online community. I offer you my honesty, Dear Reader, but I am not sure that entitles you to full disclosure of all my thoughts on these meditations. 

I will say this: I have met many of my Shadows. Many of them have names, names that are an intimate part of my religious practice, and I hesitate to subject my practice to your uninformed scrutiny, to your possible ridicule. Is that hesitation the voice of the Shadow in me that wants to preserve your good opinion, that wants you to think me wise and reasonable? Or is that just good judgment and discretion? I admit that I am not sure… For today, I will try to walk that line carefully, but I will need to address that question more fully for myself in the future. 

Today, I see my Shadows of fear. I see the part of me that wants certainty, wants a “Plan,” because maybe disaster will be less painful if only we put in the effort ahead of time to prepare. I see her grasping, clawing hands, straining to hold on to some illusion of control or certainty. She clings to smoke and calls it stone, and shrieks in pain as it evaporates from her grasp. She… she is in such pain, and she seeks to make it mine. She seeks reinforcements by trying to share her pain and her fear, hoping that four terrified grasping hands can wrest back the control that two hands cannot find. She claws as my back, crying out for my attention. I name her, and she fades.

I see my doubts. My masochistic epistemologist, who argues that whatever belief hurts me the most must be true, and that I would be a coward to ignore her accusations. She cites all my mistakes and failures as precedent, cherry picking support for her claim that I cannot achieve the goals I consider setting. “You are too shy, too quiet,” she says when I ask about what leadership and service roles I may explore in Guam. “You have failed for so long, you window has closed,” she says when I ask about writing full time or seeking a clerkship. “You are too old to begin, your body has rotted in front of a desk for too long,” she says when I think about setting competitive physical fitness goals for Guam. On and on… she has so much to say. But I name her, and she fades.

As these Shadows fade, I see the face of my vanity glimmer briefly in the dark. She wants her turn. She remembers how it felt to know that she was young and beautiful, that she was a “favorite” among her classmates and peers, and perhaps most of all, that she was correct. She remembers how to critique those around her, how to secretly believe she was something better. She remembers how much she can get away with, how much she can take.  I see her whenever I silence my doubts and fears, wondering where the line of her territory lies, and whether my doubts and fears are the only things keeping her in check. For today, I name her, and she fades.

Other Shadows flit through my mirror, but they are not for your eyes. 

I hope that you will respect what I have chosen to share with you, Dear Readers. Thank you for listening. 

NIGHT 8: ORDEAL, DEATH & REBIRTH

I know the transition that is coming for me. This identity and this stable life I have built in Colorado… like all things, I knew it couldn’t last forever. Sometimes, our identities slowly devolve from entropy, gradually revealing something new. But other times… other times there is a Dragon. Maybe our Dragon is an unexpected event, one that sweeps down out of the mountains without warning to wreak havoc on our life. Maybe we see smoke in the distance, and like Ben’s hypothetical paladin, we grab our broadswords and charge across vast distances to face the challenge. In any case, our Dragons give us a unique opportunity for complete rebirth. Because no one faces a Dragon and comes away unscathed.

My Dragon had wings like storm clouds, beating humid air against my skin in ceaseless waves. My Dragon stalks the canopies of the jungle, slithering and coiling, stealing bird eggs and leaving silence in her path. My Dragon’s neck twists upon itself before unwinding to lift its swaying head, waiting to strike. Her round, glassy eyes do not blink, but their vertical slits narrow to slivers as I approach.

I tell her I am not here to destroy her, but that I will not lie down and be her passive prey. 

I tell her that I know she has more power to change me than I have to change her, but I see her chains, and I know that it is my choice to free her, to face her unrestricted strength. I tell her that I know I still have choices, even when I cannot know their consequences.

I tell her I do not know what she is. Not really. I tell her that I don’t know what she will do to me, only that she will do what is in her nature to do, and that I will no longer be what I am now. 

She speaks to me…

I tell her that I know that I can trust her to be a Dragon. No more, no less. I understand that she will do what Dragons do, and when she does, this “Jane” will end. The Dragon guarantees no more than that. We are in agreement.

I knew this was coming. I have had opportunities to turn back. No one has forced me into this position. I am here because this “Jane” is ready to die. She is ready to peel away, like the hull of a seed or the husk of a cocoon, and let some new life walk on in the body she leaves. She is ready to be a memory, an echo, a source of strength for the next Jane on whatever paths she chooses to walk. 

With my talisman in hand, with the guidance of my vision and my Shadows silenced, I release my Dragon. We understand one another, and I am ready.

She exhales.

NIGHT 9: REWARD, OR SEIZING THE SWORD

In Campbell’s monomyth, the Hero is rewarded for facing the Dragon. Sometimes the reward is tangible and external, like Jason and the Golden Fleece, or intangible wisdom, like the Childlike Empress’s new name. Scott Pilgrim is an amusing example of a meshing of the two: an internal reward made, by the magic of metaphor, into a tangible sword. 
I have not given much thought since I started these meditations to what my reward would be, what treasures I would earn from my Dragon. I had no explicit goal in mind, since my main goal was to fully explore this “journey.” I know that narrative has power, and that building a narrative understanding of our identity and our lives can have a profound effect. This is not limited to our spiritual or religious practices; narrative therapy and even narrative medicine  may indicate that conscious narrative-building can have a beneficial effect in healthcare and therapeutic practices. 

Sometimes, the power of narrative is a double-edged sword. Some stories we tell ourselves empower us, while others lock us into destructive habits, victim mentality, or baseless mistrust. This is why it can be helpful to check in on the stories we are telling ourselves, making sure that they are the beneficial stories that we want to be feeding through repetition, or the damaging ones we need to respond to or rewrite.

All of this is to say that I embarked on these meditations with only the journey as a goal. I expected the story itself to be its own reward, and gave little thought to what my prize might be. But I think I found it anyway.

I will not tell you what I found in my visualizations. That part of my experience is mine. But I will say that it was something I had misplaced over the years, familiar, but restored to me now as a new, changed thing. I think I know what it means.

I have a passion for writing, and the good fortune to have that passion paired with some talent at it. Or at least that was what I used to think, that my writing skills were due to “fortune.”  I used to make beautiful things with this gift, but I’ve redirected my energies over the years, and my writing practice has become almost nonexistent. 

My writing practice. Essentially, that is what came to me in this journey. I don’t think I have ever given enough credit to the fact that I was good at writing because I practiced. I was writing all the time. Daily journaling, 8k words of fiction a weekend, random rambling passages in the margins of my notes at school. The time that I now kill on Netflix, YouTube, and sundry other “enter-drain-ments,” I used to spend writing. Most of the writing was nonsense, never to be read, but I was still doing it. I didn’t think of it as practice. I thought of it as a necessary exercise of my identity, a behavior that fed and even defined my soul. That practice is part of what I have abandoned over the years, and even when I came back to writing, I only ever wrote with an audience and a purpose in mind. Because I was no longer practicing in private, the perceived high stakes of every public piece of writing paralyzed me. 

I promised myself when I began that I would waste no time on regrets for lost time. I can only move forward with the knowledge, skills, and discipline that I have now. 

I know what I need to do with the reward of this realization: I need to have a disciplined daily writing practice. And I know that I can do it, because part of my prize is the memory that I have done it before.