Walking Rune Tree Meditation
If you have trouble just sitting and meditating, and you can get out and walk on the street or a park, or you just find yourself pacing around your home, try this quiet walking meditation, so that you can keep focusing on your spirituality. This ritual is based on the shamanic World Tree rites of western Siberia, with a Northern Tradition twist. In its original form, it was done by climbing an actual tree, with a line for each climbing step. However, it’s easily transferred to a walking meditation that can be done in the yard, or just walking around your cell. If you can’t bring this book with you, and you haven’t memorized the words, you might try memorizing one line each day until you finally get to the top of the Tree. Since this ritual utilizes the 33-Rune Futhorc Runes, that’s more than a month of focusing on this for at least a short period each day. if you can’t remember a line when you go out, try again the next day.
First, visualize that instead of walking on solid horizontal ground, you are actually facing the vertical trunk of a huge tree, bigger than anything you’ve ever seen before. It is so huge that it holds nine worlds, one under its roots, one on top of them, and the rest held in its beautiful branches. You take a step forward, and now you’re walking straight up its trunk. Say the following words (aloud or silently, depending on the situation):
O Yggdrasil, show yourself
In this your child of branch and root!
O Yggdrasil, I would climb your heights
And see from your great vantage point.
O Yggdrasil, bring me closer to sky
And let me see with Hraesvelg’s eye.
Then, as you take each step, you say the next line in this prayer, and call quietly to the spirit of each Rune. (The Rune of that step is listed after each line.)
From the Hel Road I rise. (Raido)
Through the mounds of the Ancestors I rise. (Othila)
Through the tides of Wyrd I rise. (Perth)
Through Hel’s Gate I rise. (Ear)
Through the fields of ice I rise. (Isa)
Through the lakes of mist I rise. (Laguz)
Through the dragon’s chill breath I rise. (Algiz)
Through the hands of craft I rise. (Yr)
Through the treasure-store I rise. (Fehu)
Through the singing leaves I rise. (Os)
Through the need-fire I rise. (Nauthiz)
Through the forge-fire I rise. (Kenaz)
Through the funeral-fire I rise. (Cweorth)
Through the winter storms I rise. (Hagalaz)
Through the wild herds I rise. (Uruz)
Through the oaken wood I rise. (Ac)
Through the serpent’s coils I rise. (Ior)
Through hoofprints in the dust I rise. (Ehwaz)
Through the roads of Man I rise. (Mannaz)
Through the gates of Man I rise. (Eihwaz)
Through the crossroads I rise. (Gebo)
Through the fertile fields I rise. (Jera)
Through the blood on the grain I rise. (Inguz)
Through the birch-grove I rise. (Berkana)
Through the circle of stones I rise. (Stan)
Through the hole in the hedge I rise. (Thorn)
Through the chalice well I rise. (Chalc)
Through the twilight torch I rise. (Wunjo)
Through the arch of spears I rise. (Tyr)
Through the morning’s call I rise. (Dagaz)
Through the lightning’s strike I rise. (Sowelu)
Through the winds of the sky I rise. (Ansuz)
To the crest of Yggdrasil I rise. (Gar)
Once you have reached the top, take nine more steps while quietly saying “I will be a Walker Between Worlds”, and then start down the tree again. Say the lines in reverse order, going “from” the crest of Yggrasil “to” the Hel Road, and replace “I rise” with “I descend”. When you have reached the bottom, touch the ground beneath you as a way to thank the Earth to which you have spiritually returned, and the rite is done.