Rune: Sowelu ᛋ, Sun, The eminent spiritual force*
Animal Medicine Card: Snake, Transmutation into Divine Energy*
Ann: Hi Richard.
Richard Burton: Good morning, love, one of those mornings that makes me miss being human and taking in all the glories of spring, the breeze, the new growth - even knowing that the Leaden Echo is right behind the Gold.**
The trick love is to let it all wash over you, giving thanks for what is offered in this moment. And when this moment passes, looking for the light however well-hidden but which always resides in your heart.
You have come to a transition in your life. Your runes offer Sowelu, the Sun, and your animal card is Snake, the bringer and bearer of all, the road to acceptance and transmutation. For this, love, is what awaits us all, transmutation into spirit after death, and transmutation into an awakened, enlightened human being, even while on the planet, if we so choose.
This rune and this card are not for you alone, love. Everyone on the planet is asked to seek light in every possible, even the darkest, circumstance.
Ann: Richard, I know you are right, but, if I were living in Ukraine now, I don’t think I could do it.
Richard: Well, love, you are not living in Ukraine, so that is no excuse. Frankly, I find that sort of projection rather disingenuous, meaning of course, no disrespect, because I know the horror that is transpiring there profoundly affects your spirits. It is, however, to say that, if you don’t think you could manage in the worst of circumstances, then you may think, what does it matter if you make the effort here where challenges are so much less grave.
Love, we are not asked to live someone else’s life. We are asked to live our own. To tend our own garden, for if we don’t, no one else will. I speak from bitter experience as one who was gifted with flowers galore and left them untended while I chased my own demons.
I don’t mean to say that demons, mine or yours, are without power, for they are intimately designed to correspond with our most alluring temptations. Mine was sex, drink, and power, not necessarily in that order, all designed to combat deep seated self-hatred, the knowledge that I had clawed my way out of hell over the backs of my family. Yours spring from the same source with different iterations.
“No matter, child, the name,
Sorrows springs are the same:
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
it is Margaret that you mourn for.”***
In speaking to Margaret, an young child, the poet Manley Hopkins specifically calls out the knowledge that we all carry, that we are all inevitably bound for the fire. And we must understand that, without transmutation, there is no no further use for us in heaven or earth.
Transmutation is the bright sun of our connection with Source as many ancient rituals teach us. Transmutation shows us who we really are when all the trimmings are stripped away, and it assures us that we do not disappear at death, that we are more than the sum of our parts, that we have power, and that we can use it for good.
So take the sunlight offered you this day and ride it all the way to the stars and beyond where you can see who you are and what you have to offer. For each one of you, no matter your circumstances, has something vital to offer. It’s up to you to dig it out, treasure it, and offer it to the gods.
Ann: You did that, Richard, still are.
Richard: I am doing my poor best and a great joy it is to me now after floundering around for so many years on the planet. When you hit the vein, love, when you are in sync with Source and in the flow of its eternal sunlight, joy that can never be taken away is yours.
May 24, 2022
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Rune: Sowilu
Animal Medicine Card: Snake
*Poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo, 1882.
**From a poem, Spring and Fall: To a Young Child, by Gerard Manley Hopkins, British priest and poet. 1880.
Free Image Credit: Pixabay, Fotorech.