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Fehu. It is said that the fire giant Surtr spread the flames of destruction across the world, and by so doing destroyed all save those gods and men worthy of living in the Idha plain on the reborn world. That is to say: The fertile plain of creation — and of destruction. For fehu rules the basic forces of fertility. But since it’s a rune of energy (as are kenaz and sowilo), its fertility is not that of a mother’s womb, but rather that of the mind.
The first airt of the runes delineate the skills the beginning erulian must master as s/he begins the journey down the path of the Odian. And the first skill delineated is mastery over the mind: Understanding the role of thoughts and ideas (inspiration and information) play on the process of creation. Together with the next two runes, uruz and thurisaz, the fledgling erulian learns, and is expected to master, the complete cycle of creation and destruction. Indeed, further progress, an understanding of the “mysterium tremendum” revealed in the next rune in the row, the tremendous power and responsibility contained in ansuz, is impossible without a complete understanding of fehu, uruz, and thruisaz.
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The above illustrates the process of creation present in the first three runes, fehu, uruz, and thurisaz. In this article, we’re going to focus only on the mysteries of the first rune.
Fehu poses two great challenges for beginning erulians.
First is the ability to correctly process information. Put another way, the long lost skill of critical thinking. One has to look no further than the (dis)information presented in this last U.S. election cycle to see just how poor the general public’s critical thinking skills are. As a collective, we are far more interested promoting our version of “the truth” than we are in discovering what the real truth of the matter is. And then we look at our daily lives and are completely mystified as to why they’re so different from what we tell ourselves we want them to be.
Quite simply, if you can’t analyze that spark of inspiration, critically and coldly analyze it and turn it into a smashing idea, then as that idea works its way through the other two runes, its going to be turned into something completely different than what you expected.
Why?
Because the Universe only deals with truth!
And we’re not talking about ye’ ol’ airy-faerie “capitial T truth” here — though at the macro-cosmic level it’s certainly a part of the equation. No, we’re talking about every day facts and figures. 1 + 1 = 2. Truth. Fact. Stand in the rain you get wet. Fact. Truth. You can not believe it all you want. But unless you’re more evolved than the Buddha, you’re still going to get wet! In plain language, the Universe could care less about your precious beliefs and preconceived notions. Like any good copy machine, it creates a perfectly accurate image of what you put before it, not the one you see in your rose colored glasses.
Which brings us to the second challenge fehu poses: Discernment.
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In the stillness of hagalaz, the great, still hailstone that lays directly below fehu in the rune row below; the place from which everything springs and to which everything must return; it is from that still place within one must analyze the results of the facts discovered. For hagalaz contains all the runes, all the mysteries, all the potentials of transformation and evolution — both for within and the world we perceive to be without. Not all ideas are good ones. As complex psychological beings we have within us the seeds of our own destruction as surely as our own evolution. Recognizing truth means also knowing our selves, our ability for self-deception, laziness, obfuscation, and so on as surely as our ability to soar to the greatest of heights and to knock down the mountains that lay in the way of our best interests.
So once the facts are known we must turn within: What do we do with this information, this idea, or this observation? Should we act on it (move it to the next rune, uruz), or should it be discarded as a bad idea, an erroneous observation, or one not in our best interests?
The truth is, the mysteries of the runes are at work in our lives all the time, whether we are aware of their work or not . . . That is up to us. We are creating all the time; fehu → uruz → thurisaz . . . They are working even now, in your subconscious. It’s up to you to make their power yours.
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