Interview with the Rune Master

interview with Freya Aswynn

On Beltane we recorded our No BS Pagan podcast’s latest episode which came online the day after.

During which we had a chat, an interview if you will with author Freya Aswynn, who was one of the first people to start writing books on runes.

To say that this has left an impression on me would be an understatement. Because there are certain parallels between how her and I experienced a first impression of runes. I will only speak on my behalf since her story can be listened to on the podcast, which I will link here.

My first reaction to runes was one of what can almost be described indifference. I was aware they existed and I was aware of how they were used, magick and divination. And I must have been around the age of 16 at the time.

For whatever reason I just could not connect with them, which was partially due to my personal interest in what I considered to be the more “hardcore” occultism. Which in turn had to do with personal things I experienced regarding entities and even demons. That story is not really important here so I will leave it at that,

It was only many years later, when I was in my early to mid twenties that I suddenly rediscovered them. The runes had been laying dorment alongside some of my other forgotten belongings. I wish I could say that when I picked them up I had an immediate sensation but that was not the case, in fact, I was wondering whether I would keep them or not. But before I could bring myself to a definite conclusion I sat there looking at them for a while. And so I decided to try out a reading for myself.

And that turned out to be pretty awful.

So I tried again, and again and again. Always the same result: things are not good. To say this was discouraging would be an understatement. But it did not discourage me enough to throw them out. I wanted to know why I always got the same result. The answer to that would only come to me many years later. The short version of it being that things were indeed not good, that I was on a path that was detrimental to my health, my emotional and psychological wellbeing, together with my spiritual development. The latter seemed to have stopped for me. I lived life in a cloud of self induced numbness.

So I kept those runes and started reading books about them, most of them were pretty awful and gave me no real insights. My first real insights in runes came through a completely different method. Safe to say I developed a bit of an obsession with them. I kept them under my pillow at night. I kept different runes in my pockets and my wallet to see if that would garner any results. Some of these practices I still carry on until this day. Like baking bread, for instance, and carving runes on the dough before it goes into the oven. In some cases I even sat staring at the dough rising in the oven, watching it becoming harder and brown. And before I knew what was happening, I had vivid dreams, recurring nightmares stopped, I made major life decisions that turned out to be in my benefit for a change.

All of those experiences I wrote down in journals, even the ones I did on impulse, like drawing certain runes in the dirt, in the ash of a fire place or the snow, the sand of a beach. Only to read my writings further down the line and realize something had happened or some things had taken a certain turn, that fell in line perfectly with the essence of those runes.

The more I experimented and the more I started to do more purposeful operations, the more I felt a pull towards these runes and I just knew that I had found something real. I could not explain how or why, nor was I even sure if I was not just having confirmation bias. And perhaps there is a case to be made for that. But one thing was beyond a shadow of a doubt, the more I used these things in my daily life to better myself and my immediate surroundings, the more my immediate surroundings, including myself, got better. Which in my opinion, can only be the only quantifier of whether magick is working or not: Does it get better or worse?

That is not to say that I did not encounter hardship or problems, I certainly did. But I myself had learned how to deal with it better, thanks to insights have gotten in myself through working with runes. Readings I did for myself throughout this period became less severe and much less dire. Before I really knew I was so thoroughly immersed in runes and their magick that it had become a part of my life in such a way that I can not even imagine my life without them anymore.

They had given me so much. Insight in myself, a handle on myself, a road map to archetypical forces which I could recognize in myself and the world around me, making the world make more sense to me. I have had real spiritual experiences and even encounters with beings I never thought I would see with my own very eyes. They had given me the tools to remodel myself into a person that learned to laugh again, find beauty and love, a person that values human relationships and accomplishments. A far cry from the emotionally stunted person I had allowed myself to become prior.

During the interview with Freya she touched upon having a genetic connection to certain practices. And there was one thing in particular she said in the interview: That she baked cakes with runes on them which she only did because something in her told her to do it. This was a fascinating thing to hear, because the very same thing had happened to me. Above everything else, this confirmed to me that all these small impulsive acts, these things I did because I just “knew” this was the way to do it, was not something I just fantasized up out of thin air. Knowing that is just one of those truly magical things, one of those fleeting moments in time that reverberate much deeper and much more profoundly than I could ever express.

It has left a lasting impression on me.