Runes

One day, I went to see a Mũndũ Mũgo (a Gĩkũyũ medicine man) that I had heard about through the grapevine because I always have my ear on the ground for such things. My intention was to understand my purpose more deeply and how to embody it as a healer with the proper guidance of my ancestors because at that point in my life, it felt as if I had hit the ceiling and I couldn’t go any further. When he threw his mbũgũ (bones/divination tools) he was able to clearly see my gifts some of which I was yet to come into and that I was indeed at a crossroads. My people spoke through him affirming my chosen path with guidance on the next steps to take in order to overcome the block I was experiencing. However, the sacrifice he was asking of me not only felt out of alignment with who I am as a person but it also left a really bad taste in my being. The choices set before me were either to undergo FGM or to abandon my path and for the first time since I started this healing work, quitting felt really easy. So I went home and that was that. I was simply done. 

In the following weeks, I was really mad at my people because why would they ask me to do this horrible thing to my own body knowing very well I could never? Because I am someone who’s worked really hard to attain sovereignty and agency over my own Self, I went MIA on them, not a libation, not a mention, dead quiet. That’s when they started sending the people they know I trust to come talk to me. Three different people who’ve never met came to me recommending the same diviner, a Sangoma from Namibia and even though I was still angry, I listened and booked a consultation. Everything that could go wrong with this consultation did, it was always one thing after another. We postponed so much that at some point I almost concluded I had been conned but just when I was about to give up, it happened and it felt like divine timing. This was one of the most beautiful divinations I have ever experienced in my life, and I have been quite around because I’m the type of person to try something at least once just to see. Once again, my people confirmed that yes indeed I was at a crossroads but this time round, the wording was different. They said I needed to undergo an initiation process to unlock the next part of my journey and this is when it suddenly made sense that the previous medicine man had received the same message, but to him looking through the lens of his culture, an initiation could only be a circumcision!

My initiation felt really interesting when the Sangoma handed me the instructions from my people, it was a rigorous yet enjoyable process that had me going out of town to spend a weekend at a specific river connected to the origins of my tribe and working with the keepers of the crossroads to grant me passage through the liminal spaces. During our consultation, the Sangoma mentioned that I would be tested to make sure that I could carry the gifts of my lineage, little did I know that my entire life would fall apart. Very deep traumas that shattered my foundation came to the surface to be addressed and shadow work was forced upon me in what felt like a very rapid unfolding that I did not see coming. The period of time following my initiation process felt like the darkest night of the soul where I had no choice but to sit still and confront the demons in my own subconscious. It is in this expanse of darkness that seemed to go on forever that I met the magick of the runes. 

During our consultation, the Sangoma had perceived that my spiritual journey had started in the East, which made sense because since I was a child, I had always felt the pull of the East especially the practices coming out of India like yoga. My first encounter with foreign practices came through a book when I was only nine years, a book about Crystal Magick in relation to the chakras and that was it, I was hooked. I later left Christianity in my late teens, I became a Muslim in my early twenties, then I left Islam for Buddhism in my late twenties after which I spent many years living in China where I did some of my deepest inner work. He perceived that my journey would then take me South, which is why I refer to myself as a Gobela because I was initiated by the altars of the South, and that then I would go North before finally heading West. The runes were my journey to the North into the ancient magick of the Scandinavian people. The runes are a Germanic alphabet with each letter embodying certain magical qualities related to the cycles of nature, the human body and our connection to divinity. They are used for divination purposes to gain insight into situations and also for self reflection. 

In the dark night of the soul that followed my initiation as a Gobela, which is a term used to refer to a teacher or a guide for those who carry the gifts of their lineage, I learnt the entire Elder Futhark which is the oldest surviving runic alphabet. The process was similar to when I became a Muslim and had to learn the Arabic alphabet in a very short period of time to be able to read the Quran as it was originally received. It took me around a month to learn the Elder Futhark which consists of twenty four letters. As I learnt the Elder Futhark, I developed a strong urge to inscribe each letter of this runic alphabet on a small gourd I had, only to find out later that my people of the Gĩkũyũ Nation used to do the same with an alphabet developed by Aini a Gĩcandĩ, traveling minstrels who would traverse the land from village to village telling stories through song. They would carve symbols on their long gourds so as not to forget their complex stories sang in the fashion of a poem and these symbols later became our alphabet. How surprising that I had to travel North in order to awaken my ancestral memory thus finding myself home. Immediately I was done with the last letter in the alphabet, my bag of runes with each letter carved in amethyst found me in Nairobi of all places. 

Most recently in a reading with a geomancer, my people indicated that my path as a cartomancer lies wide open before me. It was the most surprising thing to hear because even though I own three decks of cards, one of which I created, I only use them for my own self reflection or to anchor my energy when I lead my guided meditations, I have never ever imagined myself conducting readings for others at all! When I do my own readings, I use all my three decks together and each of them adds a layer or a dimension to the reading. Lately I’ve started using my runes to add a fourth dimension to my readings because one day while passing by my altar the bag of runes caught and held my attention and I realized I had neglected them for almost a year. Strange then, that just when the runes have come back into my life to open a new dimension, my people have reached out to say, you’re ready for the next step. 

Hello, my name is Nyambura, a girl from a small village in Gĩkũyũ land and I read runes…