What is a Rune

by Collin Cleary

  The rune Fehu, again, is not a written sign. To understand the rune “cattle” is literally to see how cattle point us toward a fundamental mystery. This ability to “read” the natural world as an “emblem book” is a fundamental feature of the mytho-poetic mind (now largely lost to us).66 It is founded on a more basic human ability: our power to be arrested by the Being of things, to be seized by it, and to be carried away in fascination with it, opening to new connections, new layers of meaning and significance. But obviously I am now speaking about óðr. Now we realize that there is a deep tie between *wīhjan, which makes things *wīhaz, and óðr.

  Each form of *wīhaz is a case of something being removed—either literally or imaginatively—from nature and then invested with special super-natural meaning or significance. Wood or stone is carved into an idol or inscribed with special symbols; a plot of land is marked off and made into a space where the divine or the spirit of the people is encountered; a piece of cloth is made to stand for a people or an ideal; a natural object or natural kind is made to stand for some fundamental aspect of Being (a rune), etc.

  In each case, the ability to do this is founded on something deeper or more basic: the ability of the human mind to “separate” an object, through selective attention, from its background, to register the Being of this thing, and to invest it with some added Being, some added significance or meaning. But where does this meaning come from? How do we arrive at awareness of it? To repeat what I said earlier about the connection between will and óðr: making something *wīhaz depends upon our capacity to stand outside of ourselves (the literal meaning of ek-stasis) and outside of the immediate moment and receive or register both the Being of things, and their possible Being; what “ought” to be.

  We can now see that there are deep conceptual connections between what Odin and his two brothers represent, a point about which I will have more to say in the concluding section of this essay.

  But let us return, first, to an issue that seems to have fallen by the wayside. Is there any kind of connection that can be made between Lodur and Ve? We saw earlier that there is some reason to think that Lodur might be a Vanic god: a chthonic god, or god of the earth. Based on the foregoing reflections, what we might say about Ve, with some caution, is that he is a god of the hallowed earth. The common denominator in all the instances of *wīhjan we have discussed is that through certain human acts the natural, that which is of the earth or comes forth from the earth, is made to yield the sacred. We act on the natural in such a way that the super-natural, the sacred or numinous, shines through it.

  5. EKSTASIS, WILL, & HALLOWING

  On the whole, the gods in these stories reveal as much to us about human nature as the gifts that they give. One has to remember that these are stories, not philosophical commentaries, and that a story has a certain internal logic to it. This means that if one intends to tell a tale about how human beings were created out of trees, a number of things must be said—and not all of them are going to be pregnant with philosophical significance.

  As Aristotle recognized, human beings are two steps away from plant life. Humans possess certain “vegetative” characteristics, such as growth, reproduction, and nutrition—and they possess animal characteristics as well, such as the capacity for locomotion (moving from place to place), hearing, sight, and the capacity to make sounds. In telling the tale of how human beings were made out of trees, therefore, the poet must make mention of how the trees acquired animal properties—as well as mentioning those that are uniquely human. And so we are told that the trees acquired vital breath (which I’ve interpreted as conceptually bound up with the capacity for movement), hair, speech, hearing, and sight. And, of course, mention must be made of a new form or shape (ásjónu), since we certainly don’t look like trees anymore. And this form or outward appearance is pleasing (it has litu góða, “good color”).

  Óðr, of course, is the distinctly or uniquely human property that is conferred on the trees: the property that makes us fundamentally different from animal life. I have linked it (as others have) with Greek ekstasis. To repeat: fundamentally, it is our capacity to “leave ourselves” (stand outside ourselves: ek-stasis) and the immediate moment, and to be arrested or seized by the Being of things. When this occurs we become the vehicle for Being’s expression, we become inspired, and we are moved to give voice to it and to new possibilities that we glimpse when we are captivated. Óðr is at the root of poetic and artistic inspiration of all kinds, myth-making, philosophy, and even scientific discovery. Óðr takes a variety of forms and comes to us in a variety of ways. It can come, for example, in the form of frenzied physical activity—in fighting, dancing, or sex, to name just a few.

  A moment ago I said that óðr moves us to “give voice” to Being and to new possibilities it inspires in us. It should be mentioned, therefore, that Old Norse mál can mean “speech,” but can also mean “language.” Here we must leave behind everything we have heard about birds, whales, and Koko the gorilla: only human beings have language in the true sense. Language is not primarily a means of communication (this is all the aforementioned beasts have, if they have anything). Language, Heidegger said, is “the house of Being.”67 What distinguishes us from the beasts is that we are open to the experience of wonder in the face of the sheer fact that things are. And it is in language that we capture and express this experience—the experience of the Being of beings. Heidegger also tells us, “Man is the shepherd of Being.”68 (These are difficult ideas, which are discussed at greater length in “The Fourfold.”)

  In the trio of gods in the Prose Edda—Odin, Vili, and Ve—we can learn more about man’s nature. Though óðr is the gift of Vili, let us set that aside for the moment and recognize that it is, in fact, Odin who embodies that property. Earlier in this essay I argued for the interdependence of óðr and the powers represented by Vili and Ve. Understanding anything unfamiliar requires translating it into the familiar, or the more familiar. And so I will now render these gods and the powers they represent by a new set of terms:

  Odin—Ekstasis (ecstasy)

  Vili—Will

  Ve—Hallowing

  It should be noted that I am choosing to use these terms in a special, technical sense: I am stipulating that they mean certain things, whereas their ordinary usage does not always convey what I intend.

  I have chosen to speak of Ve as representing a “hallowing,” as a way of capturing, in a familiar word, the human power to mark things off as *wīhaz (the verb that expresses this act, of course, is *wīhjan but this is an unfamiliar word which has no English derivatives appropriate for my purposes here).69 It can be argued that in this triad of powers we have a summation of all that makes us human. These powers are not separable, independent parts of our nature: they involve and found one another. Our task now is to understand them in fundamental terms.

  To hallow something—again, just as I am using the term—means to separate it from the earth (from the background of the natural or the mundane), and to invest it with some special meaning or significance. Once we do this, the object (whatever it may be) now means more than it “is.” However, it would be better to say that it is now more than it was. This special, new Being that we confer upon the thing or cause to shine through it is not something that is visible to the naked eye, or under a microscope, or detectable by a bloodhound. We are the only species that hallows things, and the only species capable of recognizing what is hallowed.

  For example, to a dog one plot of land is pretty much like another, and all have the same use value (for burying bones, defecation, etc.). But to us, one plot of land may be quite different from another because one is sacred, hallowed space and the other is not. Again, however, this is not something that can be appreciated through the senses alone. Nor is it appreciated through some mysterious psychic sense. The hallowed is grasped through participation in a culture that designates things as hallowed through various means: special acts, signs, partitions, etc. A member of that culture wh
o recognizes something as hallowed will feel the hallowedness of the thing as if it were a physical, sensible property.

  But this act of separating and hallowing things is founded on deeper or more basic mental acts or performances. Anything can be hallowed. To hallow this cup in front of me means to invest it with a new property that goes beyond the property it has “naturally.” But in order to do this, we must first register what that property is. In Heideggerian terminology, it must first disclose its Being to us. First I register that it is a cup, then, in a sense, I “overlay” a new quality on this: that it is sacred, because such-and-such has happened, so-and-so held it, etc. In other words, in order to hallow something we must first be open to the Being of that thing. And then, a further step: we must allow ourselves to be possessed, as it were, by the idea that this thing is now more than merely a cup, more than merely a plot of land.

  The cup discloses itself to us in its Being as a cup—but then layered over this it discloses itself as something else. It discloses a different, sacred Being. The cup is thus a cup and not a cup: it is a sacred relic, invested with a numinous Being (because, for example, it was used by some individual for whom we have reverence). This grove is a grove and not a grove: it is a place where we meet the divine. This cloth is a cloth and not a cloth: it is a symbol of our people (a flag or standard); in a sense it is our people. These cattle are cattle and not cattle: they are a rune; they represent one of the mysteries of Being. In short, hallowing is founded on ekstasis (on óðr): on our ability, again, to stand outside our selves and into the disclosure of Being.

  Hallowing is founded on ekstasis. But ekstasis comes to expression through hallowing. Ekstasis reveals Being to us in a new way and moves us to separate and venerate certain things. Ekstasis also comes to expression through will. This is, again, our capacity to alter or change what is to bring it into accord with a conception of what ought to be. I gave some examples of this earlier. Taking wood or stone and building a house out of it is will. Curing a disease is an act of will, since it is taking what is and altering it (in this case, canceling it) in order to bring about a new state of affairs that ought to be: health. Routing the enemy in a surprise attack is an act of will. Creating a painting or sculpture is will—it takes what is (clay, stone, wood, paints, canvas, etc.) and brings forth from it an ideal that exists first in the mind of the artist. Writing a symphony is will. Sounds are to a composer what paints are to a painter. Building a bridge is will. A political revolution is will. Social planning is will. And so on.

  Will is founded on ekstasis, just as hallowing is. In “The Ninefold” I write that

  Will is our capacity to alter or change what is to bring it into accord with a conception of what ought to be. Will depends upon our capacity to register the Being of things and to be seized by a vision of what they might be or ought to be. Animals are capable of action, but not will in the sense I am using the term. They cannot conceive of counterfactuals; they cannot register what is and imagine what ought to be. This is why animals have no history; fundamentally, nothing about them changes. A cat in our time is exactly the same as a cat in the time of Snorri.

  Will has both positive and negative forms. It becomes negative when it is disengaged from openness to Being. I discussed this aspect of will at length in my essay “Knowing the Gods.”70 (However, the manner in which I am conceiving will in this essay goes well beyond how I treated it in that piece, which was written more than ten years ago.) Without openness to Being, without ekstasis, will may become like Hœnir when deprived of the inspiration of Mimir: impotent and unable to act. What is worse, however, is when action happens—when will is exercised—without true openness to Being. Then will acts perversely, and attempt to force pre-conceived plans and conceptions onto things.

  In its positive form, will goes hand in hand with an openness to Being: it allows beings to disclose what they are and to disclose their potentialities, i.e., new ways of ordering or conceiving them. It allows beings themselves to reveal these. It does not demand of them something that they cannot yield, or act so as to twist and pervert their nature. When true openness to Being is absent, when we merely impose schemes and conceptions onto beings, beings still disclose themselves—but they disclose themselves only partially or in ways that show a mere semblance or distortion of their true nature. This is what happens, for example, when human beings are approached as if they were machines, as in the computational model of the mind. Yes, the human mind can be seen as a computer and aspects of human nature will reveal themselves when we are seen in this light. But much else will conceal itself as well. Such a conception conceals more than it reveals, and is thus untrue to the thing in question.

  One might be tempted to say at this point that only the positive form of will is founded on ekstasis, and that the negative form has become disengaged from it. But this is not the case. Both the positive and negative forms of will are founded on ekstasis. The man who envisions a monstrous, concrete superhighway cutting a giant swath through primeval forests has ecstatically “left himself” and been seized by inspiration. So too has the socialist revolutionary, the peacenik, the Puritan fanatic, the one-worlder, the atomic scientist, the multiculturalist, the radical feminist, and the neocon. Ekstasis—óðr—does not necessarily lead to anything good, nor does the will that acts on inspiration.

  In the positive form of will, however, ekstasis involves a genuine openness to Being. As I have said, it allows beings to disclose what they are and to disclose their real possibilities, rather than imposing pre-conceived notions on them. This attitude of genuine openness is similar to what Heidegger means by Gelassenheit (a term he borrows from Meister Eckhart), often translated “letting beings be.” We can thus see that there are positive and negative forms of ekstasis, which found, respectively, the positive and negative forms of will.

  In the positive form of will, founded on the positive form of ekstasis, there is something that approaches hallowing. To be genuinely open and to receive the Being of things involves a kind of reverence. This reverence can lead to removing the thing from the realm of the everyday, to hallowing it—or it can lead to reverently making the thing over according to ideas we have won from inspiration, aware of our debt to the thing, and to the earth that gave rise to it. There is thus a close kinship between the positive form of will and hallowing.

  6. CONCLUSION

  In sum, we can now see that these three qualities—ekstasis, will, and hallowing—found one another; they require one another, and each is what it is only through the other two.71 Hallowing and will are both founded on ekstasis. And ekstasis only comes to expression through hallowing and will. Will in its positive form is founded on the positive form of ekstasis, which involves a genuine openness to the Being of beings. This openness is, in a sense, reverential—and thus there is something in the positive form of will that is akin to hallowing. In the negative form of will, founded on the negative form of ekstasis (which lacks genuine openness to the Being of beings), there is nothing reverent at all and thus no kinship with hallowing. (Which is why the negative form of will is profane, irreverent, nihilistic, and barren; it is at the root of all modern ills.)

  Finally, we must note a further special kinship between hallowing and will. It is possible to understand every act of hallowing as an act of will, where will simply means (very broadly) changing what is so that the ideal, or what ought to be, shines through it. A simple example will make this clear. Taking wood or stone and carving a representation of a god out of it is will—and hallowing. First we must be open to the disclosure of the Being of the wood or stone—and to its disclosure of itself as a suitable vehicle to bring forth the god. Then we go to work on that material, literally altering it to bring out the god that slumbers within. All such acts of shaping the natural to reveal the sacred are acts of hallowing and of will. The “shaping” here, by the way, may take place only in the mind, as when we “see” that a grove is a place for meeting the gods. The grove is now “changed,” but
it has not been physically altered at all. In a sense, therefore, all acts of hallowing are acts of will—but not all acts of will are acts of hallowing, as the example of building a house shows.

  In sum, each of the three is closely bound up with the other two. And it is the three together that offer us an account of the fundamental aspects of human nature. This is the wisdom that the Germanic anthropogeny bequeaths to us. Only human beings

  have ekstasis, will, and hallowing. Only human beings can open, reverently or irreverently, to the Being of beings. Only humans reshape the world, for good or for ill, according to ideas of what ought to be. Only human beings perceive the dimension of the sacred; only human beings hallow things. To be human means to have these three in dynamic interplay.

  However, to be human is fraught with danger, and it is an inherently tragic condition. At least this is true—or especially true—of Western man. As I said earlier, both the positive and negative forms of will are founded on ekstasis. All inspiration seems good at the time, but we are often tricked and deceived by ekstasis. Odin, the god of ekstasis, is not an entirely benevolent god. There is within us, and within him, the capacity to err: to go too far, to pervert and corrupt in the name of “the good,” to rebel against all limits to will or to knowledge. Odin is both Ginnarr (Deceiver) and Sanngetall (Finder of Truth). He is both Sváfnir (Sleep Bringer) and Vakr (Awakener). He is both Bölverkr (Evil Worker) and Fjölnir (Wise One). We have the same oppositions within us. We have the capacity to open to Being—and to close to it. We want to receive the mystery—and to cancel it; to penetrate everything and obliterate all mystery. This is what I will call, drawing on Oswald Spengler, the Faustian element in us—in Western man—and in Odin, our god.72 (I will have much more to say about “the Faustian” later in this volume.)