The first thing I do is attune to the aura of the person I'm reading for. Oh no, he's gone into something tricky. Actually, it's not really all that hard for me. I look at their words on the screen and just naturally pick up a kind of feeling from them. It unnerves me, really, because I can't explain it anymore than you could explain the sense of sight to a blind person. I find this feeling easiest to compare to the sense of touch. But whatever the [BEEP] it is, it deserves a Mystical page of it's very own!
Anyway (sorry about that, I need a leash to keep on on the conversation trail these days..) I hone in on that feeling, then draw the runes.
Depending on the type of reading requested, I either draw a single Rune to give the person a hint as to how their day will go, or I do a full reading. A full reading is the drawing of three Runes, one at a time. The first Rune represents the past, the second Rune represents the present, and the last Rune represents the future. Some use the terms "Background" "Problem" and "Outcome." I never really saw the difference until I actually started doing readings. Sometimes the "Past" Rune makes NO sense as "Past," but makes PERFECT sense as "background," as in the hidden causes of the problem the readee is currently facing.
How do I interpret them? Ahhh, that's the hard part. I find it easiest to give the recipient all the meanings of the rune, starting with the meaning that jumps out at me first. "Past" and "Present" establish my accuracy ("WOW! Revenge certainly is true for last night!!"). Depending on which interpretation the readee picks out for those two, I pick a meaning from the "Future" Rune, for instance if the readee picked the second interpretation for both "Past" and "Present," I'll give them the second interpreation of the "Future" Rune as the primary one. From the feedback I've gotten, I'm fairly accurate.
I've almost decided I'm going to start giving out free Rune readings from the page, but I'm not certain yet. I'll have a decision by, well, soon. Heck, maybe I'll see what the Runes themselves have to say about it. Couldn't hurt any.
Blessed be,
Firedrake
-July 19, 1998
9 is usually the preferred number. Grab nine runes out of the bag at random and toss them onto your table (some people make a special cloth for this). There are several different ways to read it; the most common seems to be treating the runes closest to the center of the pattern as most important, getting progressively less important the farther out they go. The runes that are face-down, I interpret as being more of a background influence than an obvious, direct one. Some people interpret face-down runes as others would treat an inverted Tarot card, while some people say that the face-down runes are simply muted or less powerful than the face-up ones. Then again, some people just ignore the face-downs altogether, as if they don't exist. Runes that are touching each other are usually considered to be one big rune with the combined meanings of the runes that are touching. Note: It takes a fairly experienced rune caster to toss the runes so that they aren't all clumped up together in the middle. It took ME a few tries, anyway...
X Rune Casts are usually difficult to interpret, much more so than the 3 Rune reading described above. Generally I only use the X Rune Cast to analyze a specific problem in-depth, and then only when I'm sure I won't be disturbed for an hour or so. A cast can get really complex, and it's usually a good idea to ask for help interpreting it if you're not sure. Especially if you're doing the cast on someone else's behalf, ash them what they think it could mean (after telling them what the individual runes mean, of course).
While 9 is the usual number of runes used, 12 is also fairly common. I've never done that myself, but it sounds hideously complex. Then there are people who just toss the whole bag out there...**shudder**
One last thing: feel free to just grab a handful of runes and throw them on the table without counting, if you feel like it. Someone recommended that to me once....and it came out pretty good!
Blessed be,
Firedrake
March 7, 1999