Sowilo

The picture

The sun needs no explaining to anyone who lives in Perth.
It is up early, it is up late, it bleaches the fence, it fills the house with light before you have found your glasses.
It is the one thing in the sky we can always count on.
The old carvers lived a long way north, where the sun was a rarer and more precious thing, and the rune carries their gratitude for it.

Sowilo is success, and I would rather say it is the light by which success becomes visible.
Things go well in the sun. Crops ripen, washing dries, people come out of their houses and talk to each other.
The rune says the good weather has arrived, make the most of it.

The shape is a bolt, which I find interesting.
Light arrives all at once.
Sowilo is the moment the clouds part, the moment the answer is suddenly obvious, the moment the long grey patch simply ends.
After Hagalaz, Nauthiz and Isa at the start of this row, the hail and the need and the ice, the sun at the end of it feels earned.
I think that is deliberate.
The second aett is the hard row of the alphabet, and it finishes with the sun coming out.

When it comes up

When Sowilo comes out of the bag I take it as a yes.
Things are working, or they are about to, and the path ahead is lit well enough to walk it.
It is the rune I am happiest to see for someone who has been in the dark for a while.

The first piece of guidance is to move while the light is good.
Sowilo is a poor time to hesitate.
Whatever you have been waiting for the right conditions to do, the conditions are here.
Start the thing. Have the conversation. Put the plan into the world.
The sun does not stay at noon.

The second piece is about wholeness.
Sowilo is a single light, and under it everything is seen at once, the good and the shabby.
I read it as a call to bring the whole of yourself out into the open, including the parts you have kept in the shade.
Success that only works for the presentable half of you is a thin kind of success.
The sun does not pick and choose what it shines on, and neither should you.

The third piece is a word of care, because every rune has one.
The sun burns.
Too much Sowilo is the person running on confidence and no sleep, the win that goes to the head, the light so bright that nothing else can be seen by it.
Wear the hat. Drink the water. Remember that the people around you are standing in the same sun and may be finding it a bit much.

Step into the light. Do the thing. Keep a bit of shade for later.

Reversed

Sowilo looks the same either way up, so it has no reversed position.
Its hard side shows in the runes around it.
Beside Hagalaz or Thurisaz the light is harsh and something is going to get scorched.
Beside Isa the sun is out but the thaw has not reached you yet; be patient.
Beside Wunjo or Gebo it is simply a very good day, and I would take that at face value, because they do not come round as often as we would like.

Across the traditions

In the tarot I set Sowilo beside The Sun, the card of the child on the horse under a sky with nothing in it but light, which is about as plain an association as the runes and the cards allow.
It is still my own association and nothing stronger.
The Sun has its own page in The 78 Cards.
The Week Ahead, every Monday, carries the live sky for all twelve signs, and when the real Sun changes sign I write about it there.

What have you been waiting for better light to do, and what if the light is already good enough?

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