Umbrae, with all of the books out there...

Which would you recommend? I find your posts very insightful and helpful, so I'm not looking to buy another rune book right now, so much as to know how you learned and became so knowledgeable. I have Leaves of Yggdrasil and Lisa Peschel's book. I do not have the "psychic click" with the Runes that I possess with Tarot. For me, tarot card meanings are secondary. If I do rune readings (only for myself), I have to look up the meanings, I do not automatically connect with them. To me, runes possess a decidely masculine feel, to which I do not consciously relate. However, I have dreamed runes before.

So, which books might you recommend, and what methods have you used to familiarize yourself with the runes?

Before I chat about books, I’d like to chat about runes, masculine, and feminine.

Some folks have told me that runes have a masculine feel…if you carve your runes into disks made from the antler of a deer, elk, or moose, they will be very masculine, and wild.

Wood I find quite androgynous. But stone is of the earth; which I find feminine. However it’s not the whimsical feminine that one would expect. It’s the older wiser subtler feminine. Partially mother, partially crone.

There is something else about a nice set of Rune Stones…to some they may seem to be alive, to give off an essence. To some it is the power of the stones, to others it is the power of the Runes, to others it’s what occurs when the stones carved with runes are touched and seen; my opinion is worthless here, whatever the reason…they resonate.

They resonate in a far different manner than Tarot – and most folks are not used to that. Many attempt to impose a Tarot like frame of reference upon the Runes and they find they just do not ‘click’.

Many are not used to using something that resonates with a ‘power’ or an essence, so they ascribe the feeling as being ‘masculine’.

When you pick up runes, you are beginning to learn something quite new ( see http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?threadid=10792 ). Imposing what you know upon the runes is to do both yourself and the runes a disservice.

You need to open up and let the runes speak to you, resonate within you…not the other way around.

The runes…meanings…think in terms of concepts (models, thoughts, theory) and not meanings (value, worth, implication). Runic concepts are supple, variable, and that throws folks. Hagalaz is not always ‘bad’.

What book? Save your money. Go to: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?threadid=8545 to find all of the Rune Study Group materials. Warm up your printer and print them out. Most Rune books are trash (imo). I ran across one where the author bragged about teaching runes at some college course, and the book is his ‘text book’. Then he precedes to re-order the runes from a two-thousand year old order to one of his own design. Many authors re-write what Blum wrote, then they dismiss Blum as a nobody…What is here is the best – look no further.

Don’t worry about what the name of the rune is. Think in terms of the shape and concept. Read about a rune a day, or a rune a week. They won’t make sense until you learn their alphabet – their language (that’s the trick, they speak in a different tongue).

Don’t go and hunt down what they look like. Take the description, and find it in your rune set. I once had a guy send me a rune back…he said he received two Wunjos and no Thurisaz…the rune he returned was a Thurisaz. He never really ‘looked’ at them.

Then again, if you can’t learn by calling it Thurisaz, call it thorn! There is are no grades, and no pop quizzes…let me think about that…

Psychic click? That will happen after you study them for a while…one day you’ll be looking at a three or five stone spread and you will ‘hear’ them.

Many are not used to using something that resonates with a ‘power’ or an essence, so they ascribe the feeling as being ‘masculine’.

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This statement has made so many things pop into my mind that I cannot even keep track of the thoughts and images, agreements and objections.

Here's part of the streaming:

Power, power tool, black and decker drill, phallic, penis, masculine.

Essence, love, openness, target, tingly, oils, wet, feminine.

Apparently I see power and essence as gender-opposites, though I am, essentially, a powerful female. I associate runes with hardness, I mean, they are stones, or wood, always carved into tough, impenetrable materials You can't make a good rune set out of cheese, know what I'm sayin?

I think I could familiarize myself with runes in the way you recommend:

Think in terms of the shape and concept. Take the description, and find it in your rune set

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Supple, eh? I guess they are, if one practices the way you do.

I will take your advice and stop reading books and meanings. Hopefully this time, new dreams will come and they will make sense to me, unlike me handing Raidho to a lover over train tracks. Still can't figure that one out.

Thanks for your time and comments.

Umbrae, just now saw your pm. Replied.