Galdr-sound: LLLLLL
Letter: L
"Water is that which falls from the mountain; as a force; / but gold objects are costly things"
(Old Norwegian Rune Rhyme)"I know a 15th, which Thiodhroerir the dwarf / sang before Delling´s door. / He sang mgiht to the Aesir, power to the elves, / and understanding to Odin"
(Havamal 160)
The rune laguz is the rune of primal water, the rivers flowing from Hvergelmir, or the Seething Cauldron, the lowest level of the Well of Wyrd, from which the forces of primal water, holding yeast and venom, flow. In the Teutonic cosmos, it is the water flowing up through the well itself, as distinct from the well (perthro) or the path and action of the water (uruz). Laguz is essentially an undifferentiated force which uruz cleanses, shapes and guides. It also means the power of emotions, and the greatest of all emotions is Love, the deep waters we all fall into with ecstasy when the feelings and emotions are reciprocated in kind, and the terrible ordeal we can hardly face when the loved one does not love us in kind.
You can see this dual nature in the great ambivalence with which the Germanic
peoples viewed the waters of their world. Water is the bright waters of life
and the dark waters of death. The ocean was the great source of the Norse people´s
prosperity and their easiest road to travel, but it was also the greedy devourer
of shpis and man. Although the rivers and streams were, quite literally, the
waters of life for those who dwelt near them and could not live without them,
the Germanic people have more tales of ill-meaning wights in the waterways they
depended on than any other people. The most famous of these, of course, is the
Lorelei on the Rhine, luring sailors to their deaths; but her sisters inhabit
almost every stream and marsh in the North.
As well as being a rune of concealment and the unknown, laguz is a rune by which
life is brought forth from darkness and the hidden is brought forth into the
light. It is the waters of life which are sprinkled on the newborn child if
it was not to be left to die in order to show its acceptance in the circle of
the living. It is also a rune which shows and/or combat poison. The alternate
form of the rune´s name, laukaz, means leek, and this is the rune to which
Sigrdrifa refers when she tells Sigurdhr, "You shall sign a blessed drink
with these to ward against danger, / and put a leek in the brew. / Then, I know,
your mead will never be blent with harm."
The working of the rune in this manner is shown in the saga of EgillSkallagrimsson
who, suspecting poison in a drink that had been given to him, scratched a rune
several times on his horn, stabbed the palm of his hand and reddened the runes
with blood, whereupon the horn burst asunder as a result of the sudden
inflowing of life-force and yeast acting on the venom and the drink fell
out onto the staraw. All the plants of the allium family, including onion and
garlic, show the working and nature of laguz. While the bulb stays hidden, the
great life-force in it shows itself by the swift upward growth of the green
stalk, and all of these plants are powerful strengtheners in both the physical
world and the hidden realms.
Laguz is a rune of transitions between life and death the awakener at
life´s beginning and the water to be crossed at its end. You should remember
that Odin often appears as a ferryman to claim the dead. Laguz is used to fill
yourself with life- force and to send the force from world to world. It makes
your sensitivity to shifts in the flows of power around you greater, especially
when hints of danger may be felt. This sensitivity can also be applied to the
magnetic fields of the earth. Laguz is used to proble the subconscious and the
unknown, and mastery of this rune is needed to deal with the problems you find
in the realms it governs.
In workings of woe, laguz is the rune of seduction, deception, illness and poison.
It may be used to worsen chronic health problems and cause longstanding problems
of all kinds to surface.
Ritually, laguz represents the mead or ale used in the rites. It rules all
magicks of brewing and drinking. It is also seen in the magickal use of spittle
and blood, the body fluids which carry life-force.
In the personal sphere, laguz may be called upon for physical and magickal strength
and psychological insight. It is the complement of the conscious mind, mannaz.
Laguz brings out the effects of past workings.
Used with other runes, laguz is a strengthener; it may be used in sending runes
between worlds. If you wish, you can use it either to set runes to work in secret
or to bring them up from their root in the hidden realms of being.
A stone that works well with laguz is malachite, whose laternating bands of
dark and light green show the twofold being of this rune. Malachite is filled
with powerful life-force, a healer with might that flows like the wave. Its
layered structure also shows its nature within the Well of Wyrd, a hint towards
the use of this rune for sinking to the point of origin and claiming the power
flowing from your roots.
You see yourself standing in the middle of a lush garden, and it is late afternoon of a sunny day. It is mid Autumn, and you know it by the light winds and golden leaves that have fallen on the ground. You beathe in deeply as to embrace the world, in perfect communion with Nature within and without. . The flower beds, the fruit trees enchant your eyes and senses and you start exploring, soon taking a pathway that will lead you to a conservatory. You get in and stand at the threshold, contemplating open mouthed the life-size marble statues inside. They are all male, beautiful and ... resemble the ones you once loved or thought you had fallen in love with in your life.
For a few seconds before you start exploring the statues at the conservatory,
you can close your eyes and examine your feelings or lack thereof towards your
past lovers. When you feel ready, open your eyes and wander around them, the
circle they form around you. From where they are now, beautiful and in marble,
they cannot hurt you in anyway.
The statues are of the purest marble, life-size and beautiful, but they lack
life and all that make love and passion meaningful to you. Incredible, but by
looking at these beautiful statues, you discover the obvious: had you stayed
with any of these specimens, you wouldn´t have become the person you are
now, and suddenly you discover you cannot conceive, you cannot see yourself
as the same person who loved these guys in different stages of your life, when
they showed up to share a bit of their lives´ journeys with you. Amazed
and amused, you realise that somehow you can even thank these guys for having
been themselves and as such helped you to have found out who and what you wanted
a lover and doer to be. For Life-Partner and Soul-Counterpart. So you blow a
kiss to each lovely statue in the circle and send them back to the real world,
not as statues, but as full human beings, wherever they may be in all worlds
at this very moment. And with a little magick, you transform the places where
the statues where into a garden of great splendor and amazing grace, full of
some of the most precious flower species you can think of. A festival of colours
and scents of immense variety and sheer beauty, Inner Nature in feast in the
outer. Kissing the past goodbye is such a necessary thrill! You think and move
on.
You sit for a while facing a pool with a beautiful fountain in the middle of
the garden. You taste then the limpid waters and suddenly feel like bathing
in the pool. You undress and like Freya and all Love Goddesses of 10,000 Names,
you want to come out from the deep waters of your feelings energized and not
needy or troubled.
So you dive and swim... to realize that the pool is actually much deeper than
what you initially may have thought. For a brief second, you feel you may feel
the pool might indeed be much too deep for your swimming skills, but then you
realize you can breathe within, and that you have become a mermaid yourself,
a creature of legend and fantasy, with a fish tail that looks very real for
you though! Water undines and dolphins are swimming nearby and you come to greet
them as one in kinship. And you heal at this very moment all the tales about
mermaids being what they are because they were seduced by the wrong lovers,
and out of revenge, seduced other men to death with a song of long lost desire.
Why can you heal the mermaid? Because you know deep within the key is to serve
Seduction and Love, instead of being the Hungry/Angry Seducer longing for blood.
Your breath catches when you reach the bottom of the pool to find a casket.
You open it, and find a treasure of immense beauty. You contemplate the riches,
the jewels and think of what you are going to do with the casket and the treasures.
You know that the casket is too heavy for you to carry on your own. So you decide
to leave the casket where it is, right at the bottom, in the knowledge that
you can get back for it later, if you still will it so. But will you? Perhaps
the right place for an enchanted casket is at the bottom of a pool, just waiting
to be re-discovered by those brave enough to dive deeper and deeper into the
waters of their emotions and dreams.
When you are about to reach the surface, you suddenly see a long tail and freeze
with fear. In front of you, underwater but asleep, there is a mighty sea dragon.
You control your own fright and swim without a noise, keeping your movements
as silent as you can as you swim away from the beast. So intent you are in escaping
the sea dragon that you don´t feel that when you finally resurface close
to the edge of the pool, your mermaid tail is gone, the white lillies on your
head too, and there is only yourself shivering with the experience, but strangely
energised as well...
By your clothes you find a silver cup full to the brim. The first sip of the
simple Grail you have just found is a libation to the gods, and then you sip
from the cup. Once you have drunk from it to quench your Thirst, you fill up
the silver cup and leave it to the next Soul Traveller. You feel at this very
moment that you are in love with the Universe, and that the Universe has just
made love to you.
Your breath catches when you see the Laguz rune now in a chain around your neck
and the clear voice of the Spirit resonating in your mind, inscribing the words
in your soul:
"By the waters of life and your desire to grow, may you be bound in Love
and in Freedom to all there is, the powers of the rune Laguz are yours to share
in all worlds you thread upon!"
In this knowledge, you open up yourself to joy and open your eyes to get back
to your room and physical reality you are also so happy to be part of. It it
is great to do magick, it is as good as to have a life to live and love and
make be to the fullest!
I deeply honor and value the quality of love and my deepest emotions
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