JERA

Galdr-sound: yyyyyy (as in year)
Letter: J, Y

"Harvest is the hope of men, / when god lets, / holy king of heaven, / the earth gives / her bright fruits / to the nobe ones and to the needy"
(Anglo-saxon Rune Poem)

"I know a tenth, if I see ghost riders / sporting the sky, I can work it / that the wild ones fare away, / so their spirits fare home"
(Havamal 155)

The shape of the rune jera shows the way in which the Germanic peoples thought of the seasons and their interactions, particularly concerning the ways of farming. The Teutonic year is not divided into four seasons, but two, summer and winter, which work upon each other continuously. The harvest of summer is food for the winter. At the beginning of the winter, you plant the seeds which must lie under the earth for a season in order to sprout as summer comes near. The rune-name, literally, year, speaks of not only the course of a year, but of a good year with a rich harvest - a year in which all planting, tending, reaping and so on has been done as was fitting within the outer timetable of the year and its changeable weather and the inner timetable of the plants themselves. The relationship between raidho and the fulfillment of jera should be plain. Like raidho also, jera is a rune of the sun´s cycle, being the cycle of the year as raidho is the cycle of the day.
The alternate stave-shape of jera is the same as the alternate form of ingwaz: the glyph indicating the complete male genitalia (as set against the Elder Futhark´s ingwaz, which shows the castrated male). This shows one of the workings of the god Freyir in the process of brining-into-being: Freyir as Lord of the World. Although the pattern of cyclical growth is feminine, as set against the masculine straight line, it needs the masculine force of Freyir to bring it into full being. The alternate stave-shape shows the straight line passing into the circle, bringing out this rune´s interaction-of-opposites in yet another way.

Jera must be looked at as, in a sense, a Teutonic yin-yang, showing the interlocking of fire (summer) and ice (winter) - not as warring opposites but as interacting complements. Only the raw weal-working interaction within the ring of Midgardhr, calmed by their manifestation through the secondary elements of water, air and earth. Jera differs from the eastern yin-yeang in that it shows the unity not as a circle, but as a spiral in which each turn brings the whole to further growth. This is related to the thought of every action or happening being layered on the last and shaped by it; you cannot return to the beginning, as in a circle. Jera shows a process of endless cyclical growth of the "seed" planted in humankind by the gods to reach the wisdom and power of our godly kindred.
Jera shows the natural development of spiritual understanding, which cannot be hurried or forced. It is a rune of patience and of awareness, of moving in harmony with both your inner changes (the "seed") and the changes of the world around you (the seasons and weather). Jera is not a rune of immediate gratification, but a rune of long-term planning and the day-by-day process of bringing your plans to fruit.

Magically, Jera is used to bring your will into effect slowly and naturally, a process which is almost always more effective and desirable than forcing change on na unready world. Like nauthiz, jera is associated with the original meaning of Wyrd, to turn. However, nauthiz is the power of turning around, or counter-turning Wyrd, while jera is the power of turning with the flow of Wyrd, making slow and subtle changes in it which can only be seen as they come into being.

In the personal sphere, jera is used to aid in the growth of our own understanding and to guide you in finding the correct times for rituals, especially initiation. Jera helps to determine the time for increases in the difficulty or powe rof your magickal workings, according to what you are truly ready for. It can also be used to develop potentials which lie like seeds within everyone and which require long care and daily tending to bring them into fruition. It is used to ensure the success of plans.
In workings of woe, jera can be used to bring the worst possible layers of someone´s weird to fruition or to develop the seeds of self-de

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