My Imbolc/Ewemeolc ritual was performed on Friday, February 1 at 5:00 pm, just after I’d gotten home from work. This was a solitary ADF style rite, following the full CoOR. Using the published ritual template found here, I honored Nerthus as the Earth Mother and Heimdall as the Gatekeeper, and Frigga was the primary patron of the rite, as Queen of the Hearth. I may not use this association in the future, but it’s the one that seemed to fit as I was writing the ritual. I brought the following offerings:
- Cornmeal for the Earth Mother
- Milk for the Outdwellers, poured out in the back yard
- Whiskey for Saga and Heimdall
- Incense and my silver ring for the Fire/Well/Tree
- A brownie for the Ancestors
- Oats for the Nature Spirits
- Whiskey for the Gods and for Frigga, as well as water shared from the pitcher I used for the waters of life
I offered whiskey even though I can’t drink it myself. All the offerings seemed well received, especially the brownie. Apparently my sweet-tooth is hereditary.
This was the first time I’d tried to go directly from “work mode” into “ritual mode” and the transition could have gone more smoothly. I will give myself more time for meditation next time, as I never really settled into the ritual. Also, this particular ritual script, though I like it a lot, was difficult to say at first – lots of alliteration (which is why I like it) was a little tongue-twistery until I settled into the poetic pattern. I’ll definitely use the ritual outline again though, as I liked it a lot – especially the Norse flavor of the poetry.
I felt like opening the gates went particularly well, but I didn’t feel as well-connected to Frigga as I’d hoped in this particular rite. My ease with the CoOR was definitely more apparent though, as I moved through the various steps, easily anticipating what would come next.
One thing I did notice about this particular ritual template was that I spent a lot more time “setting up” than I did actually celebrating the particular reason for the High Day. In the future, I’ll put more into the “celebration” aspect, so that it will feel more balanced. I definitely feel less at home with the Norse celebrations, so I need to do more research into their associations with High Days (or just do standard Neo Pagan celebrations, which I’m much more comfortable with, and give them a Norse flavor).
All the offerings, once made into their various bowls, were spread in my gardens as part of the blessing of the coming spring. My lime tree is in full bloom, so hopefully we’ll have a bumper crop of limes this coming year.
I drew runes for the first time in a long time for this ritual, since I was honoring Frigga, and it seemed appropriate. I received the following when I asked for the blessing:
- Uruz – Aurochs: strength, dross
- Nauthiz – Need/Necessity: oppression, lessons learned
- Inguz – Ing: fertility, ancestors
I’ll admit to being really unfamiliar with this particular divination tool, so the “textbook” keyword meanings don’t mean much yet. I’ve had to do some researching to find deeper meanings, both in the rune poems and in other sources. From the Anglo-Saxon rune poem, I found the following:
Ur
The aurochs is proud and has great horns;
it is a very savage beast and fights with its horns;
a great ranger of the moors, it is a creature of mettle.
Nyd
Trouble is oppressive to the heart;
yet often it proves a source of help and salvation
to the children of men, to everyone who heeds it betimes.
Ing
Ing was first seen by men among the East-Danes,
till, followed by his chariot,
he departed eastwards over the waves.
So the Heardingas named the hero.
I found that just going to the Rune Poems helped a lot with finding a bigger meaning. From this, I get the following impression of the omen.
You will be given strength as you need it to overcome the coming troubles and trials, but that trouble will lead you toward fertility and peace.
This is, honestly, pretty similar to other omens I’ve been drawing on this Dedicant Path – that things are going to be rough at first, but that I just need to stick with it, and I’ll be glad for having made it through. I’m taking the similar omen to mean I’m not done with the troublesome part yet, which seems about right, as I’m still feeling a lot like I’m in the “action” part of “belief follows action”. Still, I am further along than I was, and I know this will take time.
This message is applicable to my personal life right now as well, which I can’t really discuss here.
It’s also a little trite, to be honest. It’s one of those divination messages that could apply to anyone at any time, and maybe that’s because I asked a very generic “What blessings do you give in return” question. As a blessing, it’s somewhat of a positive one, or at least has a positive outcome.
Either that or I’m totally barking up the wrong tree – a possibility that I’m not leaving behind, as almost every divination I’ve done (or had done) regarding ADF has said something about being troublesome and difficult but with a good outcome. We’ll see how the rest of this year goes.
Little Druid on the Prairie 
I was going to go straight into rune interpretation, but I realized that might be considered impolite or otherwise undesirable. So, I ask: Would you like another viewpoint on the runes you pulled? 🙂
Sure. Though I tend to stick with my original interpretations when it comes to reading and doing divination, additional information can be filed away for future use.
Uruz tends to represent “manly strength,” but only if you are up to the challenge presented by the aurochs (wild ox).
Nauthiz is “work without reward” and oppression from the outside that nothing can be done about. However, there is an opportunity to learn lessons from the situation, if these lessons are learned early.
Ingwaz (as I prefer to spell it) is a rune of Frey. Frey is a God of fertility. Ingwaz can also be a rune of honoring Ancestors.
Since I don’t know your particular situation, I will refrain from trying to combine all of these into one general interpretation. I hope this helps. These interpretations are gleaned from Rev. Danglers The Very Basics of Runes available through his shop The Magical Druid. The book is available in print and as a Kindle book (might also be in PDF, though not sure). I’ve found it invaluable to helping me make sense of the runes, since the poems never made much sense to me.
Many blessings,
Victoria
I’ve seen all of those interpretations, so I’m not sure I have any better insight into the Omen than I did to start. As I said, it fits into the pattern of the omens and other divination I’ve been drawing recently, much of which is making me wonder if I’m making a poor decision to throw myself feet first into Druidry. I’ll probably pick up a copy of the Basics of Runes book, though I’ve got a copy (borrowed for now) of Diana Paxson’s Taking Up The Runes as well, but I’m finding that there are just too many interpretations to make a lot of sense of things. That’s why I went back to the rune poems, and based my interpretation off of that (and what I know of Frey). I mean, using your interpretations, I could just as easily say that the omen means “You need more strength than you have, and you’re working at a fruitless quest against outside forces that will stop you.”
This is true. Rev. Dangler’s book is inexpensive and simple in the interpretations it gives. Most runes have two or three paragraphs, but some only have one.
The bottom line is that only you can decide what the Omen means and what you will do about it. 🙂
Don’t forget that only recently did I start to finally figure out divination. I wasn’t great at it when I started on the DP (I had very little experience). The more practice you get, the better of an idea you will have of what the Omen is saying.
I’m fairly experienced with tarot cards and divination in general, but the runes are a new system for me. There is a lot of contradictory information about various runes out there, and the general scholarship level of the Norse devotees means that I’m a lot more worried about getting bad sources than I would be for tarot (where I learned the standard meanings and then just went to a more interpretive reading from there). “Standard meanings” is a bit of a misnomer with Runes, since we can’t know how they were originally interpreted, so there’s a lot more variables involved. When you start throwing in things like people’s interpretations after using the runes for years, it gets really complex, really quickly. But because there is no pictorial representation to read, just a symbol that has no greater meaning or symbolism in the way that a picture would, I’m stuck with other people’s reports of what things mean, and that’s just frustrating when nobody can really agree.
I disagree. Paxon’s book does have pictorial representations of each of the runes, with the rune worked into the illustration.
There’s nothing wrong with using Tarot in ADF rites, however; I think a lot of people use it. I don’t use Tarot myself because a lot of times I don’t understand what the picture is trying to say. Not to mention I can’t seem to find a deck I “click” with.
True, but those pictures are not ON THE RUNES, AS YOU DRAW THEM. The benefit of using a pictorial system is that you don’t have to go look up in a book what the pictures are, they’re there when you read them immediately, so you can get a sense of what the divination means without having to look it up to find the information you want. You don’t “read” the pictures on a rune, they’re runes. The pictures that someone else has created in a book might be useful if I printed them out and made them into cards, but they’re still just one person’s (albeit well researched) interpretation of what the letters mean.
It’s just a different type of divination system from how runes or other similar things (like ogham or the greek alphabet oracle) work. I don’t know the runes well enough to read the nuances available, and I’m finding it hard to get a definitive answer on meanings, which is frustrating. I know I can always go back to tarot, but I’d like to give this a try (even though I gave up on the runes in the past for the same reason).
All I can say is keep trying. If you’re still having trouble after a couple months, go back to working with Tarot. At least you’re giving runes a shot!
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