March 10, 2010 - Ear

Ear

Ear is the sound “ea”

Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem (from ragweedforge.com)

The grave is horrible to every knight,
when the corpse quickly begins to cooland is laid in the bosom of the dark earth.Prosperity declines, happiness passes awayand covenants are broken.

Ear is often translated as grave or tomb. The stanza describes the image often associated with the early medieval mindset about death.

Esoterically, Ear is also about death. It is the slow decay and death of things both physical and immaterial, and of course how all things end. In a reading that is what Ear reveals, that something is ending, or that what is said is the final say in the question at hand.

Like Symbols of Death in various divinatory systems, it doesn’t necessarily mean immediate or personal death of the querent. Death happens in life all the time, Plants die and retreat during the autumn and winter, or are harvest and die to make grain and other food stuffs. Animals are slaughtered for food. Habits die, relationships die, periods and phases of life come to an end. Just realizing the part that will die that needs to die is tricky sometimes.

As a runeworker and a sorcerer, to me Death is my ally. In order to work change on the physical level, things need to be able to change. That means bringing an end to things, which is part of the cycle of change. Creation, Preservation, Destruction. But before Creation can occur, what was present before needs to be destroyed, it needs to die.