Put The Runes Back In The Web

Gar
gift of Ing
you are the one
who brought them forth
tore a hole
in Ginnungagap
runes
rushed in and out
with piercing wail
the high one
sacrificed himself
ending the beginning
The Gar poem is one of the 33 original rune poems created by Ingrid Kincaid, the Rune Woman.  These poems were first published in her limited edition, completely hand made book (un) familiar.



 

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Variations of Gar

(un) familiar Rune cards

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The runes don’t belong to Odin.  They’re not his, nor are they his to give.  They existed shimmering and vibrating in the great universal matrix, the mother womb, long before he grabbed a handful of them from the web. 
It’s time to take back, from Odin, that handful of runes and return them to the whole. Rather than looking at Odin’s actions as something favorable, why not shift perspective?  What if his actions were about entitlement? 
‘I’m going to do this great sacrificial thing and then I have the right to take some of the runes and claim them for myself. ‘
Rather than believing Odin did us a favor, why not consider the possibility that the scream came because he tore a hole in the gap when he wrenched the runes from the web?  
If rune wisdom is universal wisdom that has existed from the beginning isn’t it available to all of us?  Why would we need a god to make a sacrifice?  Isn’t this just another ‘we should be so grateful-we need to be saved’ story? 
Always working with the runes in reference to Odin dishonors them and in fact limits our ability to form and develop relationship with them ourselves. 
The commonly accepted belief is that the Gar rune represents Odin’s spear, the one he used in his sacrificial ordeal.  What was the wisdom of Gar before Odin?
One of the ways I see Gar is as the beautiful pattern that’s formed when the two runes Gebo and Ingwaz are bound together.  I call it the gift of Ing.  It’s very sexual in nature, the shape of the Ingwaz rune being the vaginal portal or opening with the Gebo rune laid on top.  The slightest pressure on the center causes the four lines of Gebo to fold up toward each other making it possible to pass through to the other side.  The offering, the gift, the sacrifice passed through the opening of fertility. 
Gar is one of the most complex of rune shapes.  For some it’s the ending rune, for others the beginning.  For the runes, it’s both.

All the runes are tattooed on my arms with the exception of Gar.  It’s tattooed on the back of my left hand right next to the dragon.  Gar asked me one night to be silent and still so it could show me something.  What I saw was how the god Ingvi Freyr was brought, long ago, to the British Isles by the Germanic tribes and how they worshiped and honored him each year by pulling him in a wagon around the countryside in a circuit that was formed by the shape of Gar.  The rune pattern was superimposed over the entire island in such a way that it mirrored a star pattern that was present in the night sky at a certain time of year. As the wagon and the people followed the circuit they’d stop and perform a ritual at each point where the lines of the Gar rune intersected.  These intersections were marked by standing stones that could be likened to needles inserted into acupuncture points.  The rituals activated and insured the fertility of the land. 
What can you see in the silence when the handful of runes are returned to the whole and the tear is mended?