elder futhark & four elements

[palindrom]

hello again [happyface]

does working with the elder futhark render the working with the four elements "superfluous"?

i mean, there are some very "elemental" runes which you can contact for earthy, airy, firy, watery vibration;
and i'm not too sure how deeply anchored the idea of these four elements as being cardinal was/is in the northern tradition.
the four winds, yes, but the four elements?

on the other hand:
with my overtone-work, following the way the vowels produce the overtones, where i sense them resonate in my body, and how i perceive the vowels in terms of "elemental quality",
i came to the exact distribution of the elements in the body as bardon describes in his IIH (step four, i think);
and it feels pretty powerful, i love the combination of the elements with the vowels.
it seems to me like a natural phenomenon...

...perhaps the four elements are not to be compared at all with the runes?
i didn't find this kind of distribution in the body with the runes (also wasn't looking for it, but i didn't look for the "elemental order" either, it just happened);
and with my overtone-chanting, the runes sometimes form little tunes in which come to me, no single notes so far...
i also don't feel like the runes "choose" any special place in the body to talk to me.

but there definitely are "elemental runes" in my opinion..

*bit confused*

i don't know how clear i made myself here, but i'd be very happy to hear about other experiences with these things...

with kind regards

pali

[Shinichi]

The Elementary Forces and The Runes are two completely different things. You can learn them at the same time, but they are as different as Karate and Tai Chi are different.

Water, for example. Laguz is the Rune of Water, but it is a specific force of Water and is used in specific ways that are sometimes a little different from the Water "Element." You have to remember, in both cases, we are talking about energies and not physical substances.

Hermetically, "Water" as a cosmic force is defined as everything Cold, Wet, and Dark plus Magnetic (-). This means that a piece of glass on a dark winters night, frosty with condensation, is "Watery." But, that's not necessarily Laguz, is it?

Another way to consider it is that every Rune can be categorized as being under the rule of an Element, but every Element is not necessarily ruled by a Rune. This is the typical Kabbalistic way of approaching the subject (with the Hebrew Runes, anyway - the Alef-Bet), for the same reason that the Elements rule the Planets while in the Earth Sphere - the Elements are the most basic local Earth Forces, and therefore everything else must filter through their influence, the same way the energy of the sun must filter through the atmosphere before it gets to your skin.

Really, though. It's a complex situation to approach. There is definitely a connection, the same way Karate and Tai Chi are connected on the most base level, but they are different too. Perhaps you can look up William Mistele for more detailed help, since he does some practice kinda like this via Bardon's work.



~:Shin:~

[palindrom]

The Elementary Forces and The Runes are two completely different things. You can learn them at the same time, but they are as different as Karate and Tai Chi are different.

Water, for example. Laguz is the Rune of Water, but it is a specific force of Water and is used in specific ways that are sometimes a little different from the Water "Element." You have to remember, in both cases, we are talking about energies and not physical substances.

Hermetically, "Water" as a cosmic force is defined as everything Cold, Wet, and Dark plus Magnetic (-). This means that a piece of glass on a dark winters night, frosty with condensation, is "Watery." But, that's not necessarily Laguz, is it?

Another way to consider it is that every Rune can be categorized as being under the rule of an Element, but every Element is not necessarily ruled by a Rune. This is the typical Kabbalistic way of approaching the subject (with the Hebrew Runes, anyway - the Alef-Bet), for the same reason that the Elements rule the Planets while in the Earth Sphere - the Elements are the most basic local Earth Forces, and therefore everything else must filter through their influence, the same way the energy of the sun must filter through the atmosphere before it gets to your skin.

Really, though. It's a complex situation to approach. There is definitely a connection, the same way Karate and Tai Chi are connected on the most base level, but they are different too. Perhaps you can look up William Mistele for more detailed help, since he does some practice kinda like this via Bardon's work.



~:Shin:~

hey shinichi

i certainly agree that runes are not "pure" elements.
am quite on a new journey here at the moment - i decided to focus on the northern paradigma for the time being, leaving the kabbalah aside for a while (still reading in hebrew though, but no rituals with hebrew, no GD-stuff, no kabbalah-books);
just to get clearer, not so mixed-up with different ideas.

now, interestingly enough, i feel like standing here with just a few scratches on a surface (the runes), with a few words (their names), and with... sound. vowels. vowels who are somehow marrying colours, consonants coming to join them, and it all is telling me a story, and i'm just like "what the heavens am i supposed to do?" [happy]

...reading starhawk right now. she wrote something very beautiful, about how she had to learn to hear for a long time - that's exactly how i feel right now.
standing here with my ears alert, silencing the mind as good as i might, letting the sounds and colours come.
it's very hard not to order things (around)

goodness me, i feel quite a bit lost, but, funnily enough, am really happy about it [happyface]

...might change, naturally, the happiness, but right now it just feels like letting go of a big rucksack full of beautifully coloured lenses.

i suppose you've been there, at this point?

...didn't get what you wrote about everything filtering through the elements in the earth-zone. am not sure if now is the moment to try to understand it;
but naturally, i'm interested [grin] is this now something "absolute", and if so, how does one look at this when NOT working with elements?

have a good evening! [happyface]

pali

p.s.: thanx for the mr mistele recommendation - i had a look at him, but right now it doesn't really connect with me...

[Shinichi]

now, interestingly enough, i feel like standing here with just a few scratches on a surface (the runes), with a few words (their names), and with... sound. vowels. vowels who are somehow marrying colours, consonants coming to join them, and it all is telling me a story, and i'm just like "what the heavens am i supposed to do?" [happy]

It's all vibrations.

Think about the imagary of modern String Theory. If the universe were a harp, the Runes would be the strings. When the strings are in motion, there are vibrations. Vibrations have frequency, which explain the colors and different tones, and when we blend Runes together in Formulas, it's like we are plucking the strings to create a melody - which induces change.

Of course, for us, the strings are sort of alive and wild in their own right, so rather than playing a harp it's often more like surfing. [rofl]

...might change, naturally, the happiness, but right now it just feels like letting go of a big rucksack full of beautifully coloured lenses.

i suppose you've been there, at this point?

It's not a bad place to be. [wink2] It's not all about the destination. Enjoy the journey.

...didn't get what you wrote about everything filtering through the elements in the earth-zone. am not sure if now is the moment to try to understand it;
but naturally, i'm interested [grin] is this now something "absolute", and if so, how does one look at this when NOT working with elements?

You have to understand the old paradigm of Hermetic Cosmology a bit to understand what I meant. The Ancients did not map Earth at the center of their cosmology because they thought it was literally the center of the universe, they put Earth at the center because it's where you actually are, and where you begin your journey of ascension. It's the "YOU ARE HERE" point of the map. All energy in the universe, the energy of the planets, the stars, and everything else - it all comes to us through the filter of the Earth's atmosphere, her protective aura. And on Earth, that means that Hermetically, all other cosmic forces are filtered through the Four Basic Forces (Elements). This is why the Four Elements have no correspondence when they are alone, and yet each Planet has an Elemental Correspondence. And because the Stars have to pass through the whole solar system and Earth's atmosphere, this is why each Zodiac has both an Elemental and a Planetary Correspondence.

If you want to look at it in a more neutral way, then Hermetically that would be through Aether. Or the "life force" energies, which can be categorized elementally but are essentially their own thing.

Nothing is absolute though. There's always more than one way to approach a problem, but as for Hermeticism, this is the Old School way of looking at things, from before Kabbalah was brought to the West. [wink2]

p.s.: thanx for the mr mistele recommendation - i had a look at him, but right now it doesn't really connect with me...

That's alright. [smile2] I may also recommend that you do a bit of research into the Greek Tradition, which is far more the Root of Hermeticism than Hebrew Tradition. The Jewish stuff was added in to Western Hermeticism much later, when the Hermetic Adepts were mostly Christians who were looking for Judeo-Christian things to practice instead of their Greek Roots. As an added bonus, there is a fair bit of scholarly discussion over how much the Greeks may have influenced Germanic Tradition, with the two societies almost certainly having been in contact at some point. And whether it is that or something else, there are several points of similarity between Norse Mythology and Greek Philosophy. You just may find a little more clarity digging into that corner of Hermeticism instead of the Hebrew corner. [gz]



~:Shin:~