The Northern Traditions are filled with tales of brave adventurers sailing forth for raid and trade, while the stalwart homesteaders courageously defend the land for the return of the adventurers. Everyone is stout, hearty, bold, and brave!

Um, yeah.

It does take a particular strength of character to say “sure, I’m going to leave everyone and everything I know, and get into this boat, and sail across the sea, let’s see what happens!”

It also takes a particular strength of character to defend your home and loved ones from attack—whether it’s a storm that shakes the house, or invaders coming to plunder and kidnap.

If you are reading this post, you probably don’t face these exact challenges on a day-to-day basis.

But you do face situations that require personal strength and some amount of courage to deal with. Sometimes it’s a major event, and sometimes it’s the daily grind of keeping yourself and your loved ones sheltered, fed, and in one piece.

When I was young (and by that I mean, like, until I was about 35 years old), I was more or less fearless. I didn’t worry that things would go wrong, or what I would do if something didn’t work out. I had complete confidence in my ability to land on my feet, no matter what happened.

Being fearless made it easy to live life as an adventure, making changes at will (not just little things, like hair color, but quitting my job without any savings, and without another job lined up, and going traveling with no obvious means of support and no real plan for what I would do when I returned), and not worrying about what would happen, because I knew it would all work out.

Then I had a some real-life problems that didn’t work out quite so easily, and I learned to worry. I began creating scenarios of “what would I do if X happened?”, where X was something negative and beyond my control (losing my job, losing my home, losing my significant other).

I learned to be brave. To muster the courage to look at the thing I feared, and then do what I needed to do in spite of the fear. To say, “well, X might happen, and if it does, I will do Z”. To feel the fear and do it anyway.

That the advice to “feel the fear and do it anyway” is almost a cliche makes it no less useful. We do things because of, or in spite of, our reasons. I do it because I want to, and I do it in spite of my fear.

I miss being fearless. I miss stepping off the cliff with total faith that I would fly, that feeling of the right things happening at the right time being all positive things.

But I have learned the depths of my own courage, and that brings great satisfaction as well.

Originally posted on One Sentence Poems:

Adult Yiddish
~ Maia Evrona

Language I taught myself with a textbook
that my ancestors learned in the womb.

Thanks to random internet searching, I found a site called “One Sentence Poems” run by Dale Wisely and Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco.

They also take submissions, so send them your poems!

I am slowly working my way through the collection. Bookmark it, subscribe to it, enjoy it as it’s updated each week!

Fire Us with Ice, Burn Us with Snow
~ Mary Monck

As Corydon went shiv’ring by,

Sylvia a Ball of Snow let fly,

Which straight a Globe of Fire became,

And put the Shepherd in a Flame;

Cupid now break thy Darts and Bow,

Sylvia can all thy Feats out-do,

Fire us with Ice, burn us with Snow.

If you are new to working with bindrunes, I suggest you read the introductory bindrune post here, then return to this post to read about this specific bindrune. Remember that working with bindrunes, as with working with any kind of magic, does not carry guaranteed results, and may produce results quite different from what you expect.

Journeying in any form—whether spirit journeys through the ether, or physical travel in the material world—carries risks and can lead to unexpected hazards. I designed this bindrune with spirit journeying in mind, but there’s no reason you couldn’t use it for travel by plane, car, ferry, etc. I did create a bindrune specifically for travel or moving house, which you can read about in this post, that you may find more suitable for your earthly travels.

Bindrune for Successful and Safe Journey – Eihwaz, Ehwaz, Raido

Eihwaz (left tile, purple in bindrune): Eihwaz serves two purposes. First, it is the yew tree, which is one of the representations of Yggdrasil. In this wise, it symbolizes journeying between the worlds, as you climb the branches of the World Tree. Yggdrasil is also “Odin’s Horse”, so you get two travel references in one word! Eihwaz as yew also represents the protective powers of the yew tree, guarding you as you move through the worlds.

Ehwaz (center tile, brown in bindrune): Ehwaz is the rune of the horse and the rider. The horse can take you where you want to go, but you as the rider must give the horse direction and control its movement. This rune also brings in elements of trust: you trust yourself to be prepared for this journey, and you trust your Gods, Guides, etc. to lead you true.

Raido (right tile, red in bindrune): Raido is the rune of journeying and movement. It is both the motion and the road. Raido involves doing the right thing at the right time to achieve the right result. Raido will keep you on your path, removing distractions and unhelpful detours, so you go where you need to go to learn what you need to know.

The bindrune on the left was done in colored pencil. The one on the right was done with fine point calligraphy markers. They are shown in two different media to give an idea of how the same bindrune looks different depending on how it is created.

You could put a drop of sage oil for clarity of purpose, or lavender for calm and courage. You could also use your favorite oil on it to reinforce the energy with your personal scent. You can also use a magical oil, such as a hoodoo oil or other type of specially prepared oil.

Safe and successful journeying to you in all the Realms!

Use this bindrune—and all bindrunes—entirely at your own risk.