Dancing with the Dark Shadow

I had a crappy end to my day.  I had a fight and falling-out with an online friend of many years (over religious and spiritual beliefs), and, well, suffice it to say that when someone says I’m “deluded” for believing in magic, my day ends on a crappy note.

I’ve gotten wonderful support from my friends, and I decided to do some meditation.  The runes have been calling to me lately, so I opened up my rune bag and said, “Wyrd, give me a rune to meditate upon.”

I pulled out Dagaz.  It looks like this:

Per Galina Krasskova’s amazing book _Runes: Theory and Practice_, Dagaz is “first and foremost a rune of transformation” and it “indicate(s) a serious internal, spiritual transition in one’s life” (p 122).  It’s associated with the sun.

I held this rune in my lap and went into my meditative state.

I went to a safe and transformative place for me, some woods that were near my house growing up.  A couple of my spirit guides were there, and someone new.  Some One I had never seen before.  I put the Dagaz rune on a tree and watched its’ light burn into the bark, so bright I could barely look at it.  Then, I saw this new being out of the corner of my eye.

He was a huge hulking man, all in black furs and leathers and cloths all tied together over his large frame.  He wore a hood over his head.  His beard was dark blonde.  His face was scarred and rough, like a man who’d lived a hard life.  I looked at him and he started walking away, and motioned for me to follow him.

With some trepidation, I did.  He led me to a small shack, and he sat down in the dirt in front of it.  He started throwing runes on the ground in front of me.

“Who are you?” I said.

“My name isn’t important right now,” he said.  I secretly named him Dark Shadow in my mind.

“So what do you want to know?” he said.

“I would like to know how to work with runes, ” I said.  ”But I don’t want to offend my lwa.”

He took the Dagaz rune from me, and handed me a piece of clothing.  It was kind of a cloak that wrapped in the front, around my body, and tied in the back.  I put my arms through it and it tied around me…

“Now get on all fours,” he said.

And I was a bear.  I have no idea why I was a bear, but I was.  Baring my teeth, snapping and growling, eating some berries, fumbling around on the forest floor.

I ended up standing up and the skin came off of me, he took it back.

I’m stunned now, and wondering who exactly this guide/spirit/God is.  I remember calling out to Ogou during the meditation and feeling like he was OK with everything.

I may update with further meditations; we’ll see how personal it gets.  Thanks for reading.