Wunjo : The Life That Pulsates There

Wunjo ~ Haindl Rune Oracle + Rune Oracle Book and Cards

The universe drew my rune for me this week. A few days ago I had a powerful and empowering dream and awoke with the rune Wunjo in my awareness. I'm answering that call by taking up Wunjo as my rune of the week. Literal meaning is joy with themes of harmony, hope, wish-fulfillment, community and shared identity running through it. Like many of the other runes it is multi-contextual, its meaning as one weaving in a larger tapestry.

The Runes mostly feel like verbs to me rather than static names or nouns. Ascribing meaning to these sigils is just the beginning, really. The journey is in uncovering layer by layer, context by context, moment by moment, the life that's pulsating there. In this instance the life energy is joyous, is the energy of friendship, of teamwork and the harmony that can come from that. We've seen some of that these past weeks as groups come together united by a common cause, stronger because of each other, hearts glowing with connection in spite of the darker nature of the cause.

Wunjo asks that of us, asks us to look at the strands of joy and pleasure in our lives and be aware of their interconnection. This is a form of wish-fulfillment, acknowledging what's good and wholesome and sustaining. Joy, like generosity, begets itself. In Haindl's depiction of it we see a mandrake root in the form of a weather vane. It turns with the wind both following and displaying nature's laws. It rests at the center of the four winds, indeed one of its names, Wyn, is connected with the word wind. In this way it symbolizes wholeness, a wholeness of elements, of directions and as such, intention. The indirect message here is that only when we come into harmony with the elements surrounding us, our environment, can we experience genuine wonder, delight, bliss.

The joy that Wunjo speaks of is not a solitary joy, it's one of interdependence as Haindl through his depiction is conveying. This feels like a particularly cogent reminder right now as collective joy feels like a distant ship on a far horizon drifting farther and farther away. Jesus, too, spoke to this kind of interdependence with his timeless words, "whatever you did for one of the least of these sisters and brothers of mine, you did for me," and further on in that passage its inverse, "whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."

This is Wunjo for me right now, an awareness that joy is ultimately communal, it is a simultaneity, the ecstatic beating heart that unites us all, regenerating, sending out its flares, its wish-fulfilling gems to become the ineffable fruit of their own congruous return.