Ansuz – Mouth – Ansuz hasn’t been The Weekly Rune since July of 2012, which is to say that reversed, it has never visited us until now. Note that the image shows Ansuz brightstave.

Ascribed the traditional meaning of “mouth,” the power of this Rune lies more in speech, or communication. The fourth Rune of the first aett, it describes the point of our journey that we begin to realize we have some personal power. We begin to realize that through the power of naming things, we can begin shaping our personal experience. Ultimately it never really is the experience, itself, that creates us, but our interpretation of it.

Called Odin’s Rune for its connection to inspiration, this stave is associated with his significant creations–the first humans–Askr (ash tree) and Embla (elm, possibly water) in the Old Icelandic cosmology. Contrary to more widely known creation stories, Ask and Embla were fashioned from trees, and created all of humanity. Part of their task was coming into relationship with everything in the physical (and nonphysical) world. They had to name everything they encountered, and in naming them, they changed their perception of them. There’s a reason the thought persists in esoteric communities that when we began speaking, we began lying–however unintentionally. Metaphor and the thing it described may not have been the same thing for Askr and Embla. It’s probably not the same, now.

Hence, when Ansuz visits reversed, communications are likely a little bent. Things aren’t as clear as they could be. They play out, yet they don’t make sense. Our vision of reality is distorted, and that is the key of coping with Ansuz disjointed.

What is created is never separate from its creator, ever. When things start to seem a little off key, and the perception of a dynamic just doesn’t match the way things are, step back. Change your perspective, detach, and let the air clear. You don’t have to recreate this, just give yourself the chance to see it differently, which may just be closer to how it really is.

After all, is a spade really a spade?