Make Your Own Runes

       

Some people are particular about their runes and do not loan them out
or let anyone touch them.  Runes are traditionally made from wood and
bone. These materials were the easiest to make Rune staves with.

I have a set of runes also made from non-traditional ceramic, glass,
oak, shells, and stone! My favorite set is made of cherry wood. I
scanned my personal cherry set of Runes and use them throughout my
entire site. The set above is oak cut from a 1 1/8" dowel.
The cherry wood set was cut from leftover cherry wood from furniture
building by my husband. They were cut into small rectangular 1" by 3/4"
pieces on which I burned the Rune symbol with an electric wood burning
tool. While burning each Rune, I did a meditation while learning each
one and it turned into a Rune Ritual and a period of self empowerment.

If you want your Runes to be traditional, use wood from trees or bone,
ivory, or deer antlers. Runes can also be made out of sea shells, clay
dried and/or fired, glass, stones collected from sacred places such as
the Mississippi River (like my friend Kris plans on doing), or wood
from any of the sacred trees. I always use discarded branches and deer
naturally molt their antlers every year. Rune sets can also be
purchased from metaphysical stores, festivals and independent vendors.
To give you an idea what kind of wood you would like to use to make
your Runes out of, you can check out the meanings and myths associated
with the different kinds of trees.

Runes should be stored in either handmade or store bought bags with
draw strings. They should be large enough to hold all of the Runes plus
allow a hand to go into the bag to pull a Rune out. The bag used to
store the Runes can be made from natural materials like cotton,
leather,
wool, or silk. You can use manmade materials, too. I have made bags
from blue jean material, velvet, wool, and synthetics. The above bag is
made out of purple velvet.

The easiest way to get started in Rune divining it so ask a "yes" or
"no" question. An upright Rune is "yes" and an reversed Rune is "No."
Mix the Runes up in the Rune Bag and select one with the left hand,
usually referred to as the Pagan hand. One school of thought is that if
you are right-handed, the right hand is active and conscious, while the
left-hand is passive and subconscious. If you are left-handed, then the
left hand represents the active and subconscious, while the right hand
represents the passive and subconscious.

When using the traditional 24 Germanic, Anglo-Saxon or Fresian runes,
there are eight runes that when turned either way always read the same
and cannot be reversed. If you get one of these, place it back in the
bag and draw another. You can repeat the process three times and if you
still don't get a Rune that can be reversed take it as meaning it's not
time to get an answer to that particular question. Do not ask silly
questions or questions concerning death. These are questions of fate
and are not in our realm to know.