The Cyclic Nature of Motion
The harvest brings profit to people, a bountiful summer, and fields heavy with grain.
The turning inward at the level of Isa was only the prelude to a new return, a new cycle. And just as spring inevitably follows winter, after pregnancy and inward turning comes birth, a new manifestation. The twelfth Rune of the Elder Futhark – Jera (year, harvest) – is the Rune of organic development, which is cyclical.
Mythologically, Jera corresponds to the goddess Idunn – Keeper of the Aesir’s eternal youth, made possible by her magical apples.
Other mythological meanings of this Rune also include the Light Elves and their realm – Ljosalfheim, which likewise ensures eternal return, orbital motion as the primordial form of movement.
The symbolic field of Jera also encompasses the notion of cause and effect and the harvest as the consequence of sowing, “you reap what you sow.”
The very force of the World Wheel’s rotation generates the inevitability of consequences following their causes. This movement is the guarantee of justice, which is why Jera is one of the Runes of Law, the inevitability of reckoning (and reward).
At the same time, Jera indicates that the next step can only be taken after the previous one; therefore, Jera is also the Rune of proper completion.
The magical application of this Rune is precisely concerned with ensuring proper completion, the successful realization of an intent, and with opening new possibilities, new paths of realization. In this sense Jera helps to “bring to fruition” the magician’s will, to ripen the “harvest” of their intention.
Sigrdrífa (or Mímir’s head) says that Jera adorned the wine, i.e., the fruit of the harvest, underlining this Rune’s relation to the cycles of the earth. Moreover, Jera can be assigned to the midwifery Runes, since it aids the birth of a new event, the fruit of pregnancy.
Graphically Jera is related to Kenaz and Eihwaz; the first gives it activity, the second gives it movement.
At the same time, clumsy use of this Rune can lead to dramatic changes, a redistribution of values to the practitioner’s detriment.
In this aspect Jera corresponds to Loki, who has his own conception of justice, which usually does not coincide with the commonly accepted one, and does not conceal it (for example, in the “Quarrel of Loki”).
What is the “Loki’s Reprimand”?
One of the songs from the “Elder Edda”
Tell me, does Yera depicted ‘upside down’ have any significant differences from the classical Yera?
The question is about the direction of rotation. The clockwise rotation is evolutionary, counterclockwise is involutionary.
About the yera, I wanted to say a bit about how I saw it and what was generally learned during the study of this rune.
1. All logical chains of this blog regarding the vessel and its readiness became clearer. At the first passage through the circle of runes, I mainly managed to just grab symbols and pile them up. I couldn’t fit recognize the understandings that contradicted the structures already in my head; I couldn’t fit understandings for which I hadn’t taken steps or simply couldn’t withstand such a level of recognition of the world as a whole.
To the symbols associated with yera, I had the sign of the Fern Flower, a Slavic ritual with the cuckoo’s funeral, and the holiday of the Summer Solstice.
As for Slavic mythology, my format of study is built on a dialogue with the world, and studying a certain strength, I see the energies that are closest in embodiment and symbols that are understandable to me. If I were Chinese, I would probably see something Chinese.)
2. On the second run with the rune, I was already able to realize one important moment about the world, contained in the symbol of the Fern Flower and absorbed new symbols.
I’ve already written somewhere that I study runes by entering the flow. Some perform rituals for this; for me, it’s enough just to set the intention, that here I am, and I wish to receive all the lessons and insights from the rune that are accessible to me at this moment and start looking at it a bit.
3. New symbols started with a serial falling of beetles and spiders on my head; such a large number hadn’t occurred over several years; and an undeniable interest in poppies—I wanted to sit with it, look at it, and learn. It is clear that the energy described in the Slavic myth as Mokosh came into the field of the rune.
4. At the end, there was nowhere else to escape from the tripod and huts. I understood in advance that I wasn’t yet ready to contain a complete understanding of this symbol ‘vessel’—that is felt right away, but I tried to dig in the format accessible to me. Trikvetra, three faces of the Great Mother, past-present-future—I also place this here. And the symbol of Vesica Piscis (arises when two circles intersect. This Pythagorean ‘fish bubble’ is a mystical symbol of the intersection of the world of spirit and the world of matter as well as the beginning of creation.)
It helps me that I didn’t know anything like this before, and the interpretation comes in the form of a series of incidents and images that are clearly similar—I pay attention to them, start to see what energy is behind them, and unravel the riddle bundle as much as I can.
The data received seems not to contradict what the author of the blog writes. Perhaps someone may find the method interesting.
All insights gained during the study are quite applicable and have integrated into life.
In this same rune, I saw very clearly how one significant insight influences the entire system. Absolutely clearly, not reading but knowing it myself, that everything in the world is energy, I began to behave amusingly.
Regarding magic—understanding and the ability to assemble a ritual simply came; and also, for example, it became important for me to stir food clockwise while preparing it and many similar little things. It is not a superstition; it’s just that I suddenly began to know why this needs to be done.