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Runes – An Ancient Oracle Tool: It’s All Been Rune’d

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Once again, Keri Kruspe has written a fantastic post for my blog. I was over the moon reading this post because it spoke to me. Many times I’ve tried to use runes and Keri, through this post, has shown me why I want to continue and has provided the perfect book to achieve rune usage.

Runes – An Ancient Oracle Tool

by Keri Kruspe

Keri Kruspe - Runes 1

IT’S ALL BEEN RUNE’D

Recently I’ve taken the plunge and jumped into the Instagram pool.

Hey, that’s no small feat for me.

As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, social media and I have a tentative relationship. I resisted adding yet another quiver in my communication arsenal, but at the urging of many of my (younger) friends, I decided to look into the matter.

Keri Kruspe - Runes 2 phone appsEarlier in the year, I paid for a training program that included how to set up Instagram for authors and what was best to post (and when to post). So, I took an afternoon off and immersed myself into the hows and whys of this social beast.

One of the main suggestions the training gave was to have specific tropes to share – things that might be of interest to others instead of advertising my books all the time (boring!). Instantly I thought of sharing one of my favorite meditative techniques – consulting an ancient tool handed down to me by my favorite aunt about twenty years ago. In order to explain why the runes mean so much to me, I’d like to share a little bit about the woman who taught them to me.

My Aunt Jeanette was a formidable woman

Keri Kruspe - Runes 3 her auntMy Aunt Jeanette was a formidable woman, someone who was way ahead of her time. She was my father’s older sister by eighteen months and ended up taking care of him when their mother deserted the family when he was a young preteen. Then, at the ripe old age of fifteen, she entered into her first marriage. I say first because the woman was married eleven times. The funny thing was she only had one child…out of wedlock…by a married man…in the 1940s.

Even though she was married often, I barely remember her with any partner. She was one of those women from the sixties who was dressed to the teeth…bouffant hairdo, nails polished and manicured, her make-up model perfect. Living in Nevada, my family worked in the casino business, and she proudly told me that she was one of the first female pit bosses in Las Vegas – probably around the 1960s.

Then, around when she turned forty-nine, she took a 180-degree turn in her life. She quit her job, her house, her perfect image, and left Nevada and her family to live in Hawaii. There she lived for the next twenty-five years. To make a living, she took various jobs – from being a greeter at the airport (complete with leis) to a metaphysical minister.

As a Metaphysical minister, she began to read tarot cards and would draw a rune at the end of her card reading. The purpose, she informed me, was to aid the Spiritual Warrior…the one whose goal was self-change.

The Runes

The runes are a tool to keep one on course, on track for strengthening your intuition.

You see, the runes are used as an instrument for getting in touch with a part of yourself that knows everything. It’s a method of guidance and self-counseling used to assist us in navigating the unfamiliar waters we find ourselves in.

Using the runes is like consulting an Oracle.

An Oracle does not give you instruction as what to do next, nor does it predict the future. It points your attention to those hidden fears and motivations that shape where you are headed in your life.

Once you acknowledge what those might be, it directs your attention to inner choices that may be the most important elements in deciding what you choose your future to be.

When she taught me how to use these aids, I really needed the help.

I was going through a rough divorce and found myself a single parent with a toddler, a tweenie and a fourteen-year-old. Being able to get in touch with that part of myself that had been buried for years was a godsend. I firmly believe my ability to go into silence and contemplate the suggestions the readings gave helped to ground me and keep me sane.

A brief history lesson on the runes…

Keri Kruspe - Runes 4 vikingLegend has it the runes are a gift from Odin, the principal divinity in the pantheon of the Norse Gods.

Believed to be even older than the New Testament, they are akin to the Tarot and the Chinese Book of Changes. The runes were commonly used in Iceland during the late Middle Ages.

Unfortunately, the wisdom of those rune masters died, never having written their divinations down nor did they pass their experiences orally. Little is left of the original Viking practice except for stones, sagas, and far-flung runic lore. What we do know is to those who created the runes, the earth and all created things were alive.

To celebrate that fact, runes were carved into pieces of hardwood, incised on metal or cut into leather stained with pigment. There are twenty-four runes, plus one later innovation – the blank rune – the Unknowable. It is the rune of total trust and can be interpreted as exciting evidence of life’s progression.

How I Use the Runes

The rune cards I use on Instagram belonged to my aunt. She preferred the cards those while I have always felt a kinship to the actual stones. I keep the stones loose in a pouch and every morning, I let my mind go blank to open myself to receive what I should meditate on for the day.

I reach into the pouch, and a stone will let itself be known – hard to explain…it gets warm and my fingers automatically reach for it. I will then consult the book, The Book of Runes by Ralph H. Blum. The interpretations in his book are laid out clearly and in a loving manner. Easy enough to use and understand.

My aunt has been gone for several years now. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss telling her what was going on in my life.

I know she’d be thrilled I’ve finally realized my dream of becoming a published author…something she encouraged me to do since I was twelve. To celebrate her life as well as the teachings she gave, I proudly include her cards with my stones.Keri Kruspe - Runes 5 Keri with her aunt

See…I did listen. Thanks, Auntie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

About Keri – Author of otherworldly romantic adventures” Stories of heroines who aren’t afraid to take a chance on life…or love.

Keri Kruspe PicAward-winning author, Keri Kruspe, writes otherworldly romantic adventures for readers who want to fall in love among the stars. Her lifelong fascination with the unexplained phenomena started at a young age when she discovered Sci-fi/paranormal stories. Then in her late teens, she stumbled on historical romances and fell in love with them too. When the two genres merged on the page, she finally found her passion.

A native Nevadan, Keri resides with her family in the wilds of Northwest Michigan where she enjoys the stark change in seasons and the pleasures each one brings. An avid reader, Keri loves an enjoyable bottle of red wine, a variety of delicious foods and watching action/adventure movies…usually at the same time. You can find her most days immersed in her fantasy world on her latest novel while foot tappin’ to classic rock. When not absorbed in her writing, Keri works alongside her husband in building their dream home or discovering intelligent life in America in their travels. Visit her website for all the fun news, updates, and a FREE novella!

A New Year Means New Opportunities: But Wait It’s February Already!

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Okay, I admit it, I’m a bit behind. But since there’s a meme on Facebook that says January was a practice month, that 2019 started with February, I’m on time!

Because it is the new year, it’s time to talk about goals. Or rather about goal-making.

Not successful at achieving your goals? Maybe I can help.

The SMART goal approach is becoming a hot item among writers; well, at least with two, Maris Soule and Diane Burton I know through my writer’s group, Mid-Michigan Romance Writers of America (MMRWA). In fact, both recently blogged about making 2019 goals using the SMART method.

I learned about SMART goals when I taught English classes at Davenport University, a business college. Our students saw the SMART goals methodology used in most of their classes. All the committees I worked on used them, too. In those committees, spreadsheets were used to identify and then track our goals.

Is it any wonder I learned to love spreadsheets? Well, actually, no. I was already in love with spreadsheets before my academic employment. My love for spreadsheets occurred when I was working at W.K. Kellogg Institute for food & nutrition research, where I was a liaison between the cooks there and the procurement department at Kellogg headquarters. I had a wonderful supervisor who taught me how to create cell formulas and create pages that talked to each other. Some of those skills I was able to teach to my academic peers, and now I continue teaching those skills to my writer friends.

I’m big on goals. So are Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer, and Norman Vincent Peale. These three men, through their books which I read in my 20s, showed me the value of having SMART goals, even though they weren’t called SMART back then. Well, at least, not in their books.

I’m a fan of making to-do lists, too. Daily ones. So, naturally, my goals end up on my daily to-do lists. I have a master lifetime list of goals, a yearly list, which then gets broken down into monthly, weekly, and daily goals.

Do I achieve all these goals? Heavens no. But, here’s the secret. Because of these lists, I achieve way more than I if I didn’t have goals or the lists.

Only when I start getting specific with the weekly and daily tasks is when I start crossing off items. The more items I cross off the list, the more I want to do. It’s truly addictive. And, there’s something magical about writing the goals down. If you’re already a list maker, you already know the best part of any list is crossing it off the items. It’s a rare day, though, when I cross off all tasks.

So, what is the SMART goal?  It’s an acronym for:

Specific

Measurable

Action Oriented

Realistic

Time Bound

SMART goals are why I love our writing group spreadsheet so much, because it’s a way to Measure the Specific, Time-Bound, Action-Oriented, Realistic, monthly, writing goals we individually set up. I use present tense verbs, or as infinitives (To + Verb) when writing the goals:

  • To finish editing [book title]
  • To clean out files
  • Research [book title]
  • Write one chapter of [book title]

I then take those goals and break them down into daily, sizeable chunks, doable in 10-15 minutes, others in an hour or so and place them in planner’s calendar. In the years I’ve been doing this, there’s only one month where I completed all the goals. Most of the time, I feel good to accomplished half of them.

Without the spreadsheet, without the SMART goals, I wouldn’t be doing much. Yup, I’m that lazy. That forgetful. Get that sidetracked. I refer to my list multiple times throughout the day.

Bottom line, it really doesn’t take a new year to create new opportunities. Each day is a new opportunity to start a SMART goal, even at 11:55 p.m.  After all, a lot can be done in five minutes. Such as creating a goals list for the year.

So, what are my goals for this year?

  • To republish two of my first three books published. The first one, Determined Hearts, is already published.
  • To plot out the four remaining novellas in my Laurel Ridge novella series. The first one, Shattered Dreams, is published. #2 & #3 have the first drafts written. Ideally, I’d like to write the first drafts for the remaining four, then start publishing them at the end of this year and next.
  • To edit 2-3 screenplays and publish them. My first screenplay, David & Goliath is already published.
  • To sort materials for writing how-to series
  • To plot out a historical (can’t decide if as a novel or a screenplay)
  • To write quarterly blogs (A huge improvement over last year’s few postings)
  • To schedule on calendar promotional days throughout the year. DONE!!! (On these days, I’ll spend creating Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest promotional posts and/or ads. During 2018, I recognized I was doing promotions 80% of the time, writing only 20%. I want to flip those percentages.)

Actually, I do have a few more goals, but you get the idea. And you can see how I cross them off and write DONE at the end of the line. It’s both thrilling and fulfilling to write DONE.

And, that’s what this blog is: DONE! One-quarter of the way done for this quarter’s blogs.

So, how about you? Do you use SMART goals? Does this blog make you want to try using them?

As a Writer Should I Blog? What Should I Write?

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Often, when a new writer finds out that I blog, I’m asked one or more of the following questions:

Should I blog?

Blogging has different definitions depending on whom you ask. I liken blogging to the old newspaper and magazine columns that we used to read: humor essays, advice columns, recipes, parental or marriage advice, and so forth. For me, blogs should entertain or provide information.

It’s one thing to have a blog that only promotes your work, and it’s another to have a website that features your books, your presentations, your book signings, and where you have a blog, too.

What should I blog about?

1) Your blog should be entertaining or provide information. Entertain by telling a story or provide helpful information about what you do. Share what you know or how you do it. Share stories that involve other writers or your travels. Read other blogs to see what they do. Which ones hold your interest and why?

2) Write each blog so that includes a beginning, a middle, and an end, whether in telling a story or providing information.

3) If your goal is to have readers return to your blog, do you have a place where they can subscribe?

Can I talk about my book at all?

 Most certainly! But in a blog, do it in a way that entertains or provides information about its creation. Anecdotes help sell books but only if you can make that information entertaining. Readers and writers are interested in how you spend your time, what you do every day.

Do I have to blog?

Blogging isn’t for everyone, and not all writers blog. In fact, have you noticed that big-name writers have promotional websites but no blogs. How come? They’re busy writing!!!

I used to write a weekly newspaper column and I remember the time it took to produce those columns. I swore when I began blogging that I would not become a slave to the blog, but guess what? I’ve done just that.

My goal at the beginning of the year was to post in each blog each month. Well, duh! In doing the math, I’m writing a blog a week!  And it’s starting to take away from my story-writing time! So, I’m changing my schedule. I’m going to return to writing the blogs as a fun downtime activity when I need to get away from a story. When I still want to be writing and sharing but when I don’t want to be working on a piece of fiction.

While I admire those writers who can write and blog every week, I’m not one of those people.

My advice that comes from my own lesson learned here is that writing time for my books shouldn’t be sacrificed to the blogs. For me, blogging will be a reward for meeting my writing goals.

What do you think? Do you have a blog schedule you struggle to maintain? Are you a long-time blogger with tricks you’d like to share? Are you a beginning blogger who’s still trying to find a good fit?