Guest blogger: David Shane Shelton

Website: Thorsdaeink

Royal reader since: 2012

I am a princess when I listen to others, and when I am present to other’s suffering.

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Welcome back to the Pagan Princesses’ guest blog! Today, I am going to demonstrate one of the runes and break it down into its 3 uses, as mentioned in my post on Tuesday. These 3 basic aspects are as follows:  as a phonetic place-holder, as a direct reference to an object in nature (the trigger object), and, thirdly (the reason behind the book) is a quantum aspect. This link should provide a reasonable definition, but I will elaborate to clarify my perspective. For my purposes, the quantum aspect of the runes in the book to come, are realized by using Max Planck’s concept of “energy elements” to relay conceptual information from the super-conscious level state of spirit into a fully materialized thought or idea in the mind.FehuLet us examine a rune to expound on the idea of spirit based quantum connection as opposed to a sensory based (e.g., visual, tactile, emotive) connection. Fehu (pictured above) is the first “letter” of the rune-hoard, the alphabet of these particular ancient tribes. It contains, conceptually, the phonetic value of “f” in standard written inscriptions; the word translates to “cattle” and became connected with the rune (once the alphabet was established) to symbolize a form of mobile wealth (the cow, then is the trigger object found in nature). The original triggers, found mostly in nature, are objects which form a bridge from the materialized idea, a cow, for instance, back to the quantum aspect, the mobile wealth (certainly one aspect of it).

Through the lens of contemporary intuition, I follow the lead of a trigger object, the cow in this case, to rediscover a spirit-based, quantum potential as may have been originally intended by the ancient Pagan priests (later to form an actualized thought in the mind). The cow symbolized money and was or could be used for trade. Interactions such as trading in the community were a means to establish trust. This particular rune-symbol could even be placed somewhere visible to indicate to others that our family is someone of trustworthiness. The Pagan Princesses have blogged of community, relationships and trust in their posts about frith.

Let’s say that we have traded our cow. When we only recognize the affect of fehu with our senses we only experience our cow being traded away. We might ask ourselves: Did the person or family we traded with provide us a quality trade? Is this item we traded for of a better quality than the other’s? If the answers were yes, then we have established a line of trust. They are asking themselves the same of our cow. Have we given them a decent cow? Hence, we are encouraged to honestly trade, for if we are discovered to have dishonestly traded, a shame may fall upon our family, and of wyrd, from our profane treatment of our trading partner.

Now we are exposing the quantum undercurrents of wyrd, fehu in this example, and its ever entangling webs. We “pluck” these spider-web strands to effect the world around us through our choices in either sacred (honest and “holy”) or profane (dishonest and “unholy”) ways. If our cow is sickly and we are not up-front and honest it is very likely those with whom we have traded will tell others of our deceit, regardless of our intentions. On the other hand, we may be the ones shorted or deceived. Either way, a choice is made and consequences will ensue. Ultimately our deeds weave the quantum thread of the wyrd through fehu.

When we give mindfully, we treat others with a sacred quality and we weave “golden threads” all around us. And, when we do not, we blacken the web, ending up in isolation, cut off from communities support and the greater joys of life. It is not easy to make up for damage done to wyrd. Yes, it can be done, but it is no simple feat.

There are 33 such runes which I have put through this contemporary lens and have made a book of it, titled Quantum Runes.  In it, the runes express their individuality and a story which could not be told properly if any of them were missing. I hope you will look for it; it should be out in 2014. And I want to thank the Pagan Princesses for this guest appearance, it has been fun.


+ Featured image, one of the oldest runestones from Skandinavia standing at its original place, the “Einangsteinen” in Norway.