My First Runes Reading

I have a sense of timing. I have it in jokes. I have it in my sets. I have it in my career. I knew when to move to LA. I knew when I was ready for The Tonight Show. I knew when I was ready to do something bigger like the sitcom. I just knew. And I knew that was our moment.

—Jerry Seinfeld on The Howard Stern Show on ending Seinfeld

Lately, I’ve been thinking about why things don’t happen when I want them to, so I scheduled my first runes reading in the same center where I got My First Tarot Reading. I had wanted to try a coffee reading for the first time, but that service wasn’t available. Before I booked the appointment, I had to ask the woman scheduling my session what a runes reading was. She provided me with the definition, and I was intrigued enough to make an appointment immediately:

The word ‘rune’ simply means mystery, whisper, or secret, and it’s a form of divination or oracle reading system that’s used to help gain insight into situations or questions. Runes can be made of various materials but are most commonly made of stone and feature a symbol from the runic alphabet on them.

I met up with a different practitioner from my tarot reading. She was incredibly warm and knowledgeable about runes and their history. As she talked about it, I remember thinking how much I wish we were still connected to those old ways of consulting the runes. Who isn’t seeking insight into a situation or question? I feel we could all benefit from this kind of guidance. I was nervous, though, leading up to the reading because I don’t like being vulnerable and opening up to strangers about my inner thoughts. I like to keep my anxious questions to myself. Most of all, I was praying for a positive experience.

As the practitioner burned palo santo, she explained that she used the traditional way of reading the runes, not just showing the person what is, what could be, and what will be. She read all the runes—twenty-four small earth-toned colored stones with symbols for the runic alphabet etched on them—like a travesty of a person’s life as each person you encounter creates a thread in your life. Your family, your ancestors, they’re all threads in your life. She kept the runes in a bowl of pink salt until we were ready to use them and then placed them in my hands so that I could put my intention over them. With my question about a successful creative writing career in mind, I was then instructed to let the runes drop onto her cloth on the table. I silently and fervently asked my question and watched as the stones fell, holding my breath for her interpretation.

She chuckled as she studied my runes, pointing out a perfectly lined row of seven runes that looked like the seven chakras. (Chakra refers to the seven major energy centers in the body.) In her twenty-some years of practicing, she’d never seen that. It made me proud because it immediately confirmed what I’d felt about finally being perfectly aligned with my purpose. Sitting at the crown chakra, she explained, was “Mannaz,” meaning realized potential and enlightened self. That made me beam. She told me I had amazing potential and didn’t see money being an obstacle, only that I saw it as one. That was true. I’d been overthinking a lot lately about my job and current finances in this wave of economic precarity. I wanted to know if I’d see any monetary success with my writing, but the runes reading reminded me not to focus on that. Studying the cluster of runes to the right of the “chakra line,” she asked if I had any children because she saw someone struggling socially. Since my question for the runes was completely focused on career and money, having my son unexpectedly brought up made me cry. The runes showed her that my son’s issues were a thorn for me. Not in a bad way. I told her about Sebastian, his autism diagnosis, and how protective of him I was because he’s nonverbal. She told me I needed to let go of that a little. He was fine and needed room to be. I definitely understood that and was open to receiving that message.

I left the reading feeling more confident that I was doing a good job paving the way for the career path I wanted. I was reminded to focus only on creativity. She could see that I came from a great supportive family and had a solid foundation. “From the moment I saw you,” she told me, “I could imagine you dancing with your mom.” I laughed and told her my mom was definitely a dancing queen. Seeing the runes laid out perfectly explained how everything in my life aligned with my purpose, as everyone’s life and journey are aligned with theirs. It’s easy to fixate on what you don’t have, but it’s uplifting to know you’re going the right way. The rune reading made me think about how everything in my life has happened organically and exactly when it was supposed to happen. There were things I tried to make happen before I was ready—like writing a novel—that I could only accomplish when the timing was right. My relationship with my husband started as a friendship that naturally evolved into something more. Having my first child happened at the perfect time, which subsequently led to me creating this blog. That couldn’t have occurred before my experience giving birth. I talk about that a little more in my blog post, 30 Something. I knew when I was ready for those next steps that would change my life. Listening to my gut has ensured the right timing of events. 

I recently watched a clip of comedian Jerry Seinfeld on The Howard Stern Show from 2013, where he shares an anecdote that is such a great example of timing. Howard asks how he knew to end Seinfeld because Jerry was offered $110 million to do a tenth season. Was it integrity? Seinfeld answers with honesty: he wanted to end the show on a high note. “The love affair between the people that were making the show and the audience was so intense, it was so white hot,” Seinfeld explains. “I had to respect that, and I could not go to that point where it starts to age and wither, and it doesn’t take long. For example, you go see a comedian. At an hour and ten minutes, you love the guy. At an hour and thirty, it’s like, ‘ehhh, I thought he was never going to finish.’ You walk out of it with a whole different feeling. A small amount of too much…it changes the whole feeling. So we had this wonderful intense love affair, and I wanted it to end with like a fireworks burst of ‘it never was bad.’” Howard presses him further, asking if the other castmates were upset. They weren’t because they all discussed it, and ultimately, Jerry says, he has a sense of timing. That sense of timing is something we all need to pay attention to. If you’re in tune with your mind and body, you can hear your gut. I’ve learned that self-awareness is the greatest gift. Knowing you’re ready for the next step, no matter how long it takes to achieve it, is infinitely better than living in a bubble sleepwalking through life. The idea is to be active and never stop working towards your vision. Listen to your gut. If you know who you are and where you want to be, your journey will always feel meaningful.

In June, the rapper Killer Mike, one-half of the hip-hop duo Run The Jewels, released a solo album Michael, his first solo record in a decade. The cover of the self-titled autobiographical album is of the artist as a nine-year-old boy, the age he knew he wanted to be a rapper. I watched his interview on The Breakfast Club, where he described the album as an origin story to a superhero—“Killer Mike” is a superhero he made up in his head as a kid. Charlamagne tha God asks him if he could’ve done this album without taking a ten-year break as a solo artist. Killer Mike’s swift response is no. “I don’t think I could’ve done this [album] without the last decade of discipline,” he explains, “of understanding what the hard work takes.” Immediately after finishing the interview, I listened to the album. I had to grin when I pressed play because the album opens with a wise message:

“I just think timin’ is everything

Like n****, this it, this, this one right here

That ain't easy

Stay motivated, stay inspired

I owe it to myself, stay down on it

And it ain't been hard throughout the journey

It's been a journey”

I love the idea of having an origin story. As Killer Mike says on The Breakfast Club, before there was Wolverine, there was Logan. There’s a journey toward becoming who you want to be and who you’re meant to be. It doesn’t happen overnight.

I sometimes doubted my ability to be an author because writing stories didn’t come naturally to me. That was another reason I sought out the runes reading. I wasn’t sure I could be successful in creative writing when I had to teach myself how to do it and work hard at it. I had to read books on story structure and outlining before getting started. Writing a novella and novel has only taught me how to do it better the next time. I know now how silly it was for me to think if you’re not born with this talent, you’re a failure. It takes years cultivating your craft. I recently saw an old interview with singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran on The Breakfast Club, where he talks about that. He warns against artists quitting or thinking they’re trash when the first thing they put out isn’t great and reminds everyone that his first song wasn’t “Thinking Out Loud.” “People always say that I was born with natural talent, and I was like, no, I wasn’t,” he shares. “I was so bad. I couldn’t play guitar. I couldn’t sing. I couldn’t write songs. You learn to do these things. You put in your hours, and you learn to do it.” Until you become your self-actualized person, your journey is your origin story. The moment you’ve been dreaming about and working so hard towards will come. It’s all about timing.