Something to read about our rune work you can find here: Rune Magic in the Yew Forest
Or are you interested in a rune amulet made especially for you? We will be happy to advise you which rune will help you in your specific issue!
A wonderful description, both of the yew tree and the associated rune Eihwaz, can be found at Duke Meyer, Oracle Service Eibensang whose text we gladly share here with his permission.
EIWAZ – Yew.
The hardest European wood, the most flexible – and the one that grows the slowest.
Old, moreover: before Central Europe was predominantly a beech forest with occasional interruptions (also a long time ago), yews dominated the landscape. Today we are most likely to find them in cemeteries and there mainly in shrub form.But there are still yew trees. More than 20 years ago I lived in Berlin next to one that towered over my apartment on the 3rd floor (my yew home, haha) again by lengths: Straight as a candle, the trunk of that lonely yew tree in the narrow backyard stretched towards the light. I owe my oldest yew set (rune set of yew slices, I mean) to a branch she threw off.
Because of the pliability and toughness yew wood was popular for building bows and arrows.
In the summertime, these trees are said to emit an intoxicating gas. I haven’t noticed that yet, but maybe it doesn’t work at all, because I’m already intoxicated by nature anyway – by which I don’t mean “intoxicated by nature all around” (although that does happen), but intoxicated by nature: I don’t need to ingest anything to be a little bit dreamy and crazy (compared to the experienced average even very much).
And of course the rune Eiwaz stands for the world tree: the world yew. The talk of the “world ash tree” becomes neither truer nor better by the eternal thoughtless repetition. It’s a transcription error from a kenning, an old Germanic guessing term (as they were common and popular back then – a bit longer before Netflix & Co. The sport of guessing was going out of fashion).
Eiwaz is the 13th rune: the axis of the Futhark, in a sense: Around it revolves (with the harvest and year rune before, symbolizing and auguring the great cycle) the world.In this the rune strengthens your perseverance. Imagine yourself to be this tree: which carries whole worlds … only you know which ones.
And also your roots lie in the dark, in the distance of the past: Who would be able to look at them? Most people are mistaken about this after all. What really shaped you, molded you, made you who you became? No one can know that either (except you). And is your striving to be seen – the yearning that crowns you? The goal you are aiming for – the star that guides and directs you? It may be doubted: No one sees what crowns us, what light we reach for in each case.
We have only our presence, our respective behavior, from which we can naturally conclude this and that. But I don’t see what’s on you, and you don’t notice what’s on me, where and how, or what I’m wearing. We can tell each other about it or pretend that there is nothing there. Of course, there is always something. And, of course, we don’t trust it to everyone or anyone.
But if I understand something, it is such yew.
Like what is told about Yggdrasil: the “horse of the terrible”. Also such an old kenning: It alludes to the fact that a one-eyed god (that very terrible one) once hanged himself from that tree. Not out of a depressive fit (although it was and became quite painful, apparently), but for self-discovery purposes. What he found then were the runes (another story. But maybe also … always the same. They are connected: the stories, the runes, the worlds … and we? I’ll leave that and go breathe).
Eiwaz is a travel rune, too. Not for cars or trains, but for states: from one to the other – and back, or further and further (just like physical locomotion, too). I let myself drift off to sleep on her and out again.
On every trance journey – besides the obligatory drum beat – the yew rune is my orientation: At its dark trunk, which I feel more than visualize, I slide back up at the end of the journey – back into everyday reality. From the darkness (of the subconsciousness: meant purely factually. The intellect may reach there, but it doesn’t get along. Its logic does not work there. You can only follow your heart. Get involved with feelings. This does not make sense everywhere, but there it is the only right and possible thing) to the light: where you can work on your affairs with the mind again (which is recommended there. Not exclusively, but definitely also).
Eiwaz takes you to even completely different worlds. In any, if you want. Which ones do you know? From your own immersion? I know that doesn’t apply much or at all to many. I was in the ice, I was in the fire. I climbed through the gardens of the gods and, transformed into an element or even a force of nature, was a guest of the hulking giants. Maybe dwarves forged me! I let myself be enchanted by the light albums. Or were they just dragonflies on the stream? Explain the difference to me again in detail. I can’t promise to listen, though. Maybe I understand too early – or nothing at all. Or follow the whisper of the rune. It makes my blood flow slower and turns my bones into cartilage. Both make tough. I don’t move fast, but I don’t break easily. That’s what I do to the tree: the really big one. For every beautiful experience, I grow a small, shiny, red fruit. Do not pick them. They are not for eating.
The rune stands for steadfastness and for intoxication. Take your pick. Or would you like both? Then get a hug.
I wish you a wonderful day!
Duke Meyer, https://www.facebook.com/OrakeldienstEibensang
