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1 Mannaz/The Self
"The starting point is the self. Its essence is water." - Ralph Blum, The Book of Runes
"The starting point is the self. Its essence is water." - Ralph Blum, The Book of Runes
Drawing a single rune (Odin's Rune, as this casting is named) is the most simple cast yet does not, by any measure, render a singular answer. An Odin's Rune reveals "an overview of the entire situation...the issue, present conditions and resolution" (Blum 46).
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Mannaz is the first rune that was drawn for me and coincidentally, the first rune of the Oracle, Mannaz: The Self. Following the logic of Odin's Rune, I surrendered to the rune which in turn, defined the thematic arc of the work: Self and Water. I have come to realize that having the first rune Mannaz is a great privilege and more to the point, a great responsibility. In working through Mannaz, the reckoning of Self is relational to Others, those close to me as well as those near and far away.
The activity of washing hands lingering in warm water and silky lather allows for a self-indulgence that briefly pauses time in an intimate, intertwining dance of palms, fingers and soap. Within the context of the pandemic, my self-indulgence is a deliberate act of disinfecting for the safety of self and others. A familiar tension of sensuality and sanitization emerges: a simultaneous nod to the simple yet complex balance of Life and Death, a balance that strives to minimize sickness and suffering. The spoken text of the sound score I excerpted from Blum's writing on Mannaz. The durational time values of each of the 15 runes drawn by Paul to structure the rune score was determined by the number of the rune and whether it was upright or reversed when pulled and set on the table. Water sounds within the soundscape were determined by the tone and qualities of the accompanying Blum text of each of my 15 runes. |
