Jack's Pull

Jack reached inside the bag and pulled the one that felt the warmest. Funny, it turns out to be isa, the ice rune.

Now, we had that one last time so you are familiar with it. One line from top to bottom. Ice.

We continue to go slowly, move slowly, quietly so as to hear the subtlest crack. We are expecting an ice storm tonight here in Minneapolis. As the rain turns to snow we will all have intimate experiences with going slowly in the morning.

What does it mean to Jack? At age 8 with all the energy of an Aries/Leo it could be about waiting for things to be ready before moving ahead. Wait for the cookies to cool, wait until your chores are done before playing, wait for mom to be ready to tuck you in. He's not the best waiting around guy in many ways. So I will help him be still and quiet, to do without doing!

Kari

Wizard Women of Winter

As Huldre live cozy inside the mountains and woods, so we live cozy inside our homes. This Thanksgiving weekend brought the first real accumulation of snow here in MN, and with it a lot of thankfulness for the new windows I had installed in my 100 year old home this year. Huldre don't probably have to worry too much about drafty windows, but I, having my feet in two worlds, am finding the balance between flicking a little magic around and practically meeting my physical needs with heavy new drapes.

The universe has confirmed yet again its support of my cross-world existence, encouraging me to continue exercising balance, with an unexpected and relatively large check in the mail. I think it was delivered by one of my sisters-under-the-hill… Whomever brought it, it allows me to proceed into winter with my needs met. This is one Wizard Women of Winter who is finding cross-world living an ever awe-inspiring magical, if sometimes emotionally challenging, way of living.

Until next time…

Maren

Huldre Eventyr - Tales of the Nordic Earth Folk

Huldre, I imagine, spent many long hours crafting stories as the churned butter, or kneaded dough, or stitched their cloth. I imagine that Huldre had as many stories about the "Over-landers" as the Scandinavian people did about the "Fair-Folk in the Mountainside". Unfortunately I have not found a true Huldre tale, but rather I have unearthed many human tales - stories about the Huldre.

So here it is mid-November, and all of my neices and nephews will shortly be recieving the newest installments of my interpretations of scandinavian fairy tales... Oh wait, I have yet to finish writting them! I've got three complete, out of twelve which I comitted to retelling in this chap book style. (You can see them at http://www.karitauring.com/HuldreEventyr.htm ) They will make fine gifts for my neices and nephews this Holiday.

Christmas presents are always a wonder for me. It has become so material, so needlessly complicated, this winter giftgiving holiday. What happened to brown paper packages tied up with string? Now we have purple and gold foil paper printed with images of other packages tied up with shimmering rafia! Very fancy, and yet it still winds up in the same place - a large (often black) garbage bag. I much prefer home made gifts to store bought ones... Something about the gift of the givers time, energy, creativity and love seems much more fulfilling. And this season, in particular, is one where I'm finding it to be more financially prudent to create gifts rather than purchase them! I'm sure my four neices and two nephews will enjoy reading stories retold by their very own Auntie Maren, perhaps even as much as the new video game or fashion doll they receive from someone else.

I wonder how the "Fair folk under the Mountainside" would have dealt with Holiday marketing... Perhaps that is another reason we see them so rarely these days... Maybe I'll have further insights next time. For now...

~Maren

Heads in the Ice

The seeds of creation are in the ice, the more we are water, the more we are everything. Huldre genetic code is readable through intermingling with Neandrathol...Ah...Lilith's daughters are everywhere. The Plieades...seven sisters, Mave the one we all call Mama, Ma Mer, Ma, Ave and M-ave...

Look for her in the ice.

Beaver Moon - November's Winter Moon

Rune pulls. Having just written the muses of the muse blog, I got out my little travel set and two runes came out.

Daeg was facing me and one was facing my hand. The day...a good rune for a very cold November day. Lap up the sun because as sure as it will return, it will be gone. Seek the day light hours. Work hard...a day's work. The rest that follows real work is complete.

Its an x with a line on each end forming a bow tie shape. X is called gifu, the gift. It is a true gift to be able to greet another day. Many creatures die in the cold we are having today and I have sun coming strong and low through my south window, barely able to skirt my neighbor's roof. I have a wood fire to heat my cider on and a lap top to warm my legs here and there. What is in a day?

What is in a day's work? For this day here it is:

7am get fire going again. Make oatmeal and coffee. Feed the cat. Katie the chicken is up early. Go feed her and bring freeable water to her and the other creatures in our gardens.

8:30 walk child to school and pick up gear for editing video on the way

9:30 Realize I don't have the right chords to edit the video so move to other work

10:30 Sit down to update blogs

Flip over other rune in my hand

Fehu - the cow, the rune looks like an F but with the lower line longer than the top line and both lines facin up to the sky like expectant baby birds reaching for the nourishment they just know will be coming.

Faith in that our needs are met, domesticated in this way we are all cows. We are all herders too. We are the careful husbands of our flocks, herds, resources...

What is in a day? A good day's work and the rewards of faith in the work we do to nourish and flourish our lives and our children's lives.

Faith in the day!

Kari pa haugen

words of a crone

I was describing my feelings evoked by my learning curve technologically as well as my aparent lack of the cooperating resources to one of my favorite wise women. I see my feelings mirrored in my son's behavior at his feelings about learning curve and apparent lack of resources to solve math word problems.

I feel stupid, like I want to give up or be rescued. I get annoyed at a process that seems a Catch-22. I an asssent to what "seems" with the intelectually miffed Kari and I give whiney Kari a little cuddle then press on. My son, well, he gets to approach it again when he is ready as well.

"The key is not to let it defeat you. Sometimes it's easier to give up than to press ahead," she said.

Thank you for those words. That really is the ticket. It may seem like a small defeat to give into a whiney or pissy attitude here or there. And it may well be...but take a year or more of giving up because you can't be bothered and your life is forfeit...you may as well give up the ghost (as they say).

It's a big deal. Encouraging one another to embrace the feelings that learning requires: failure, stupidity, fear, risk taking anxiety...what is on the other side is called owning knowledge and the feelings here range from victorious to enlightened!

Thanks to my supporters!

Kari

Huldre in the woods

When at the Turf club, herding at David de Young's birthday party, someone asked "Do you really live in the woods?"

"Yes," I said. Actually I do.

Yep, right here in the Middle of Minneapolis.

As a wizard woman of the North, I am compelled to walk and work in nature. So far, Minneapolis has been a city that understands this. May gentrification of our parks and riverways cease...

Why do Huldre and all folk of the faerie need the woods?

Fairview Riverside Chemical Dependency Clinic has a hand out that explains.
There are only two ways for the human body to create the necessary chemicals that relieve depression - crying and communing with nature. That's it!

Do Huldre get depressed?

Extra-sensory folk are ones who feel the great joys of the world and share this with others. They feel the great burdens and griefs as well. This can create a tendency towards depression and bi-polarism in an unbalanced brain.

So to keep balanced, you will find wizard women of the north crying in the rain, or while sitting in a tree, tears shed for others pain and grounded into the earth by the knowlege that the deeper the well of grief, the more resounding the echos of joyus laughter.

You will find Huldre in the woods, by the rivers, on the hills, dancing through the fields, in their gardens, feeding their in-town chickens, cats, dogs, birds, squirrels, racoons and even a few deer. They are the ones who grow a forest around them no matter where they are in the world. Laughing and crying and feeling the totality of nature and all their relations.

Again Today

When I found my travel set I pulled Jera...it's shape is that of greater than and less than signs eating one another...it's name is said to mean Harvest.

So, ice...go slow and be careful

of the seeds you plant out there.

Jera you reap what you sew.

Next I found my hearth bag of maple. Sitting before the banked birch embers with the winter sun full in my face I closed my eyes/
I was so warm.
A rune slipped up and out of the bag as I began to open it. It pirched lightly on my arm.

Sun full in my face I smiled and thought, how fortunate am I. I ground and center with no legs. I am still whole within myself and connected to the sun.

"All the saints and angels!" I smiled and saw, printed on the back of my eyelids, a map of Casseopia!!

I got a great idea about communicating with the hard of sight and tactile crowd.

Then I looked at the rune in my hand.

It was Thurisaz - Thorn - it's shape is that of Oddins legs as he hung upside down from Yggdrasil the World Tree. A line like isa and second leg like a stork creating the right angle.

I just learned a pose like this at the Women's Retreat in Villa Maria last weekend. Gina, a yoga goddess, shared the poses and sanskrit names with us. This one was called the tree pose and was done standing...but I'll bet they do it on their heads too.

Anyhoo...
It's a rune that supports my going really slowly and carefully just now. Concentrate on the seed in your hand. Until it has been let go of, nothing new should come in just now. Create a boundary with your thorns, your hammer of Thor, your balance.

This is my reading for today! (so far anyway)

Karitauring.com

Runepull for Today

Well, I was going to do one then couldn't locate a set so I went outside and fed Katie the Chicken Lady and the crows and gave water to White Ears and Ratatosk's nephew. I thought I would clean the porch up a bit...see if anyone is unwisely harboring a lair of Halloween candy. Nothing.
Not even a mistreated wrapper.

Anyhoo so I was putting Oskar's golf clubs away when I spied some stavs that didn't sell in the last year. They are all going to be firewood if they don't sell. I have told them this. They don't seem to mind either way, being comfortable in their beings.

So that brought me back to my runepull for today.

I will just say, most stavs are isa shaped...ice...one long straight line going from earth to heaven.

There are bowed stavs in nature but forever there is a perpendicular line.

There may be juttings out of the top or bottom...forming such runes as fehu, eohl, laguz etc.

But like the cosmos itself, things start with a point in space, wanting to know itself, the point reaches out to another point. This relationship is called a line.

Add a third point and boom...you have a plane!

Anyhoo...ice tells us to be careful. Go slowly and listen carefully. You may not be able to trust your eyes.

How many of you readers have crossed a lake of ice?

It's pretty cool!

Isa
Kari

Hey Black Tom

In reference to September 22

"I was just thinking about my colon and how cold it is and why I crave meat in the fall. Our colons are designed like the rocky mountains. They are pockets of land fill.

In my base brain I know that there is an ice age coming. I remember it in the lower quelle of my reptilian brain. This sends a signal to my taste buds and they remember to crave the taste of fat. The nose kicks in when lots of wood smoke is present. For me (Kari), I also crave the liquids of my ancestors. Clean water and certain brews.

So, but I've got to be careful to remember with my upper brains what it is I love to taste in this season of darkness and changes.

So that is why I now think on you, Black Tom. Your menue is my greatest wish. If I filled my rocky mountain colon up with food you have chosen to feed your loved ones with, this is how my mountain range looks.

It is a rich loam that holds my colon together. It is green and colorful with beets and squash and little red peppers here and there. There are clouds of gas floating above the gentle peaks. There is a very tall peak that seems happy way up there. It's like it got some exotic treat...coconut or ginger? There is a lake of cool meadey cidery brew..."a lake of beer for the king of kings" as St. Bridgt prayed. Ahhh...my colon is the garden of Eden...and gods live in there.

Thank you, T.J.Grant for your diety of dining, Black Tom!"

HuldreBlog

So many questions about the Huldre. So many perceptions and family histories of stories. Were they scary to you? Do you look like one too?

So I thought, good then. We will start a posting site for this. Maren or Kari or Ken or Matt may be making entries. These are the Huldre (the out ones) in Minneapolis.

Ok then. Here goes.

There is a CD which I think I must begin with. The Wizard Women of the North. Well it was released by Northside in Minneapolis in 1999, the year I began the Discovering Origins/Building Traditions shows.

Seven years later I am also doing this music and have finally gotten a chance to buy the cd. Here is the definition of Huldre on the CD Jacket:

"The Wizard woman of the North can be found at a cafe, but pay attention to her shoes, they are usually the type that she can easily kick off. Because the wizard woman of the North has to have air between her toes so she can feel the earth she walks on and belongs to. These feet with the well ventilated toes are used for dancing or for marking the rythm when she plays or sings. ..."
Perneille Anker

Let me just stop there and say. This I find to be true.

Kari

Here's an emotional response question:

What is the first emotional response that comes up when one discovers that another artist one loves to work with is applying for the same grant at the same time?

For me it was about 1.3 seconds of fear.

I discovered rivalry at the root of it in about .4 seconds. I don't do rivalries so the next feeling was excitement and pride, a sense of sharing and community. That's my process for this instance of emotional responding.

Then I moved on to what work could I do with the artists in the room right now that will linger in the universe.

Why my emotional path took this route - a brief summary:
Love and pride in work are what guides me as an artist. I identify the "would be rival" as having a quality in her work that equals my own, or "I believe she would be a brilliant fellow." A fear of lack often accompanies this feeling. In an undeveloped psyche, my reptilian brain response may be "take out the rival" as though we were fighting for food.

But since love and excellence guide my thoughts, I identified this lower thought form quickly and, giving it a moment to love itself fully, moved on to a more universal understanding of the emotional triggers.

Being in the company, as I was, with artists who create from and support one another in their abundance and personal majesty, the universal emotional triggers of love and support were immediately supported.

The amygdala can only function if the body is allowed to respond with dialated pupils, sweaty palms...basically a rush of addrenelyn (sp? or Addrienne and Lynn?). Fight or flight can not engage if one is relaxed, happy, feels well nurtured, is well exercised/exersized...has been dancing...

So my lasting and lingering emotion is pride. If we all dance on the same hoop then your success is my success, if this this artist gets it, I get it too! This artist's work is doing the same creating that I am! So, my way will be made easier by the advancement of this artist through the fellowship.

I call this a "proud of my sister" moment. It lingers. I am used to having this feeling because I grew up in a household of six women who loved one another, took pride in one another, supported each other...this is the behavior I have come to expect and cherish in the sisters on my hoop.

Applying for funding of who you are is, to me, an interesting emotional experience.

Kari
Buen Dio de los Muertos.
Adios Lucy and Lissetta, wyrd sisters on the wheel. Katie is fine. She acts like a puppy. Mamma Chick chik

Adios Padre Mio, tu erres muy hamable. Gracias para todo los jakettas y el pescadore gear. Thanks also for your grandsons to inherit your best lessons. Husker Du! Kari

Dia de los Muertos Rune Pull

In this time of ancestor passings I like to pull a rune for general lessons I may be needing to learn before the ghosts are gone.

I sat down at the wood stove and shook my bag of maple runes. I noticed a lot of dust come from it. I kept patting and shaking it and the dust billowed into the rays of mid morning sun. I snorted out my nose and mouth to clear a place for me to breathe. Wow. I wonder when the last time I used this set was!?

When I opened the bag, the first rune I saw was Othel, the last rune of the 24 letter FUTHARK alphabet. It means roots, homeland, family and tribal karma, returning your bones to the land of your birth.

But the rune that came out in my hand was Beorc, Birch.

Birch is the bond that binds me to this place in Minnesota. It is the bark that binds me to my ancestors in Norway. The Lur calls to me, the oil ignites with the slightest spark.
It is the birth of me and the death of me. As birch is used to carry coals in the wintertime, so is it used to pre-sage the spring. The sugar maples and the birch and the oak and the willow are such a part of my heritage in this life and through my ancestory.

Perhaps I will be buried afloat a flaming canoe of birch...my goddess rocks surrounding me...in a summer mini skirt like the Iron Age Danes who were my ancestors when they lived in the Baltic Region.

My eldest son knows how to bury me. He discussed it with me after saying bed time prayers one night. He guessed at what I would want. And he was right! Boy I raised a good son.

Anyhow. That's my personal rune pull for this, the Day of the Dead!

Tak fer alt,
RunaKari

PS If you want me to pull a rune for you for this day, email me at karitauring@yahoo.com
or go to my website karitauring.com and get my phone number and office hours.