The Rune Series: SOWILO (Sun)
The brightest Rune drenched in the darkest history
The Runes of this series belong to the Elder Futhark, one of the oldest alphabets in recorded history. Each Rune has endless interpretations and deep meanings; while their origin and/or intent is lost to history, most interpretations come from the ‘Rune Poems’, possibly written around the 8th century. This series will explore the Runes through a personal journey and intuitive interpretation of them, alongside knowledge collected from written works, such as ‘The Book of Runes’ (R.Blum, 1982), and the intricately crafted website ‘Runesecrets.com’ by Tyrael.
Greetings Dear Reader,
Welcome back to the Rune Series where we explore the ancient Runes through a psychological, practical, spiritual and philosophical lens.
You can check out the rest of this series below:
Wardruna have, of course, a song dedicated to ‘Sowilo/Sowelu’, but musically I find it doesn’t quite fit the mood and so I recommend another one titled ‘Solringen’ (Wardruna, Yggdrasil, 2013). It translates as ‘Sun Ring’ and speaks about a poetic and musical tribute offered to the spirits of the land during Midsummer.
SOWILO
SOWILO, also known as Sowelu, marks the completion of the second aett (row) and the end of another journey. Like WUNJO, it ends on a powerful, uplifting note. This is after all, the Rune of the Sun, the light of the greatest star that gives us life and drives away the darkness.
It indicate success as a result of action. While KAUNAN is more of a firelight hidden in the depths of the earth, SOWILO is the radiance of the pure, unfiltered sky above.
“The face of truth is hidden by your orb of Gold, O Sun. May you remove your orb so that I, who adore the true, may see the glory of truth.
O nourishing sun, solitary traveller, controller, source of life for all creatures, spread your light and subdue your dazzling splendor,
So that I may see your blessed Self. Even that very Self am I!”
(The Isha Upanishad, translated by E.Easwaran, 2007)
The Sun God
Rune Series 16/24
Second Aett: Sowilo
Meaning: Sun
Associated English letter: S
Most mythologies have some sort of sun-related divinity. There is Ra for the Egyptians, Helios for the Greeks, Huitzilopochtli for the Aztec, Sol for the Romans, Surya for the Hindus and many others. The Norse had Sól or Sunna, a personification of the sun and sister to Máni, the moon.
It’s no secret we’ve worshipped the sun since the beginning of time and, frankly, I see no reason not to! The sun keeps us warm, gives us and the world life, and allows us to see and bask in its beauty. The fact that the sun makes us aware of the sun itself, is a sacred eternal dance and a continuous revelation.
Every time we instinctively think of God(s), we look above. We built cathedrals as temples that stretch across the sky in an attempt to reach the divine. Somehow, God is always where the sun is. Without it, we’d be a lifeless, frozen piece of rock drifting into the void.
The eternal archetypal battle between darkness and light echoes the interplay between night and day, sleep and wakefulness, dream and reality. All the dualities in the world of men can be boiled down to this light and dark dichotomy. The words you read now could not exist if the background was as dark as the letters. If this is a fact, then the next logical statement would be that one couldn’t exist without the other.
And if all things in nature are interconnected in this way, would it really be wise to assume that life ends with death? Or is this, like everything in our world, merely a figure of speech? A play of words that points to a space unknowable to the mind. Where does a letter end and another begin? At the points where white meets black? But if white didn’t meet black, a letter would never be born. And without the letter, there would be no word. Reflect on this - death and life are words dancing with each other.
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A Dark History
Despite its uplifting mood, SOWILO became associated to one of the darkest histories in our collective mind. It’s important to understand the controversial transitions this Rune went through, especially in the 19th-20th century.
In 1908, Austrian occultist Guido von List developed and published his own version of the Runic alphabet during a time in which he was apparently blind. He created 18 new Runes inspired by the Futhark alphabet that he called the ‘Armanen Runes’. His work became part of various cultural movements of the time that emphasized a return to a ‘purity’ of past Germanic culture and spirituality. From these arose ‘Ariosophy’, an ideology which sought a form of pagan revival mixed with esoteric practices, Theosophy, romanticism and rebellion to the perceived historical Christian suppression of older forms of spirituality. The Armanen Runes and von List’s work survives today in what is known as ‘The Armanen Order’ since 1976, a neopagan and esoteric society.
Von List’s work on heathen revival is interesting, but his reputation and work were soon mixed up with the rise to power of the Nazi Party, merely a few years after his death. There are some complex connections likely worth investigating between von List’s work, Ariosophy and the roots of Nazi ideology, but it’s important to note that the Nazi regime did not tolerate the public practice of esoteric paganism. Despite this, they did often incorporate occult symbols in their emblems. The swastika is the most (in)famous one of course, but von List’s re-interpretation of Sowilo was the other one.
The S Rune became known as ‘Sig’ (Victory). A double Sig Rune was created as the emblem of the Nazi chief security organisation known as Schutzstaffel. This historically began as Saal-Schutz (Hall Security), abbreviated as ‘SS’. At this point the Rune was twisted into a lightning bolt and was meant to communicate absolute power, strength and dominance as it accompanied the SS in its bloodthirsty manifestations of cruelty that engulfed the past century in darkness.
For a more detailed analysis of this, I recommend you check out the documentary ‘Signs of Evil’ on Youtube.
After the end of the war and still to this day, public displays of symbols such as the Sig Rune and swastika are banned by law. It’s easy to see why and it’s unfortunate that it takes one of the worst tragedies in our history to display the power of symbols over the deepest layers of our minds.
These murky associations between Germanic paganism, Norse myth, the Nazi regime and Aryan racial pseudo-ideologies are, unfortunately, often grouped together and condemned as one thing. Yet esoteric and occult symbols are everywhere and, as I’ve pointed out in my little story about the origins of money, they hold enormous power. Condemning a symbol will not dispel its influence and may just push it far enough into the shadows where it can grow into something hellish.
Conclusion
The shadows under the sun are long and stretch far back. This cosmic fire reveals and provides sustenance and warmth, but may also burn and turn to ash every living thing.
One of, if not the most freeing thing one can do is realise the external programming and wounding that is inherent in us. Similarly, history is marred by such traumas too and their shadows tend to stretch further into the future if not tended to.
I believe SOWILO, if balanced, is just the light we need in the darkest of times. Its pure, unfiltered luminance reveals, just as the sun does, every aspect of the world around us. Under such a powerful light of awareness we must find the courage to look at the colourful flowers in the garden as well as the rotting carcasses of hungry dead worms underneath the earth. Revelations, of course, aren’t enough — other tools must be wisely used alongside profound humility and respect.
Blessings,
