Eihwaz

The picture

The yew is a strange tree and the old people knew it.
It grows slowly, it lives for a thousand years and more, it is poisonous in nearly every part, and it was planted in graveyards across the north long before anyone wrote down why.
It is the tree of the dead that refuses to die.
The wood is hard and springy, and the longbows that decided battles were cut from it.

So Eihwaz carries three things at once.
Endurance, because nothing outlasts a yew.
A strong spine, because the wood bends under enormous load and comes back.
And transition, because the tree stands at the gate between the living and the dead and seems comfortable on both sides.

The letter itself is a spine with a hook at each end, one reaching up and one reaching down.
I read it as the trunk that joins the root to the branch.
Whatever is going on above ground, the yew is still holding onto something below it.
That is the picture I carry into ordinary life: the person who is going through it and is still standing, because they are rooted in something the trouble cannot reach.

When it comes up

When Eihwaz comes out of the bag I read it as a test of endurance that you are built to pass.
Something is asking you to hold on, bend without breaking, and keep your footing while the ground shifts.
It is one of the steadier runes in the second row and I am always a little relieved to see it.

The first piece of guidance is about the spine.
Eihwaz says stand up straight and stay where you are.
This is a time to be the tree, to let the wind do what wind does and to trust that your roots go deeper than the gust.
It is a poor time to uproot yourself to escape a storm that will pass, and a good time to find out exactly what you are rooted in.
Family, a practice, a belief, a daily routine that holds you when nothing else does.
Know what it is and lean on it.

The second piece is about the gate.
The yew stands between one state and another, and Eihwaz often comes when something is ending and something else has not quite started.
The job is finished, the next one is not signed. The old self is gone, the new one is still finding its feet.
That in between place is uncomfortable, and the rune says it is also where the yew grows best.
I think people come through an Eihwaz passage with a steadiness they did not have going in, and they cannot tell you exactly where they got it.

The third piece is a warning that comes with the tree.
The yew is poisonous.
Endurance can tip into stubbornness, and the person who refuses to bend eventually refuses to move at all.
Hold on, but check now and then that what you are holding is still worth it.

Stand. Bend. Keep your roots.

Reversed

Eihwaz looks the same either way up, so it has no reversed position.
Its hard side shows in the runes around it.
Beside Isa or Nauthiz the passage is a long one and the holding on is the whole of the work.
Beside Thurisaz the stubborn side of the yew is in play and someone is about to get hurt by it.
Beside Dagaz or Sowilo the gate is nearly behind you and the light is on the other side.

Across the traditions

In the tarot I set Eihwaz beside Death, the card of the passage that ends one thing so another can begin, which frightens people far more than it should.
That is my own association and nothing stronger.
Death has its own page in The 78 Cards.
The yew is also a letter in the Ogham, the tree alphabet of the Celtic world, and The Ogham and the Tree Calendar page covers that alphabet.

What are you rooted in that the current trouble cannot reach, and when did you last check it was still holding?

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