Ansuz

The picture

The old word points at a god, and I am going to leave it there, because the picture that comes with it is better than the name.
The picture is a mouth, open, with breath coming out of it shaped into words.
Before writing, everything a people knew lived in that breath.
The law, the family lines, the right way to plant and the right way to bury, all of it carried from one mouth to the next ear, generation after generation.
Lose the speaker and you lost the knowledge.
So the mouth was holy, and the elder who held the stories was the library.

I read Ansuz as the rune of the spoken word and everything that rides on it.
Advice, when it is good.
A message that arrives at the right time.
The sentence somebody said to you years ago that you still hear in your head.
The breath itself, the thing that keeps you here and that every meditation teacher on earth asks you to notice first.
And inspiration, which comes from the Latin for breathing in.
An idea arrives, you breathe it in, and then you have to open your mouth and let it out again or it goes stale.

In Perth terms it is the phone call from the one person whose opinion you actually trust.
It is the older bloke at the hardware shop who tells you how to do it properly.
It is the moment in a conversation when you hear yourself say something true that you did not know you knew.

When it comes up

When Ansuz comes up I take it as a message about messages.
Listen.
Something is being said to you, or is about to be, and the rune wants you to catch it.
It may be advice from someone older or wiser, and the rune says take it seriously even if you do not take it whole.
It may be a sign, a repeated phrase, the same idea arriving from three directions in a week.
When that happens I act on it.
Three sources is my rule, and Ansuz is often the rune that tells me the third is on its way.

It may also be about your own mouth.
You have something to say and you have been sitting on it.
Ansuz says speak.
Say it plainly, say it kindly, say it once.
The breath that goes into words is the breath you were given for the purpose, and a thing said well is a thing the world now has that it did not have before.

Stand in it by paying attention to language.
Yours and other people's.
Notice who gives you advice and whether their life backs it up.
Notice the words you use about yourself when nobody is listening.
Those are messages too, and you are both the speaker and the elder in that conversation.
If the question was about a decision, Ansuz says ask someone who has been there, then listen to the whole answer before you decide.

Reversed

Ansuz reversed, the branches pointing up to the left, reads as the word gone wrong.
Lies, gossip, bad advice, a message that does not arrive or arrives twisted.
It can show someone talking you into something, or you talking yourself out of something true.
It can also show a plain failure to listen, the elder in the room saying the thing that would have saved you and nobody looking up from their phone.
When it lands this way up I ask whose voice is loudest in your head right now and whether it has earned the volume.
Then I suggest a day of saying less.
It is remarkable what you hear.

Across the traditions

I put Ansuz beside The Hierophant in the tarot, the teacher with the raised hand passing down what was passed to him, and some days beside The Magician, who speaks the thing into being.
Both are my own association and nothing stronger.
The Number 4 page in the Numerology section reads the same count in a different voice, and How to Read a Card in the Tarot section is a good place to see how a message is drawn out of a single picture.

Whose words are you still carrying, and have you ever said thank you for them?

If you would like this read against your own chart, my readings are here.