Mobile wealth | Property | New Beginnings | Sustenance | Growth
Old English Rune Poem
Weath be by all very much welcomed.
Each man shall deal it out freely,
If he will from the Lord get approval.
Old Norse Rune Poem
Wealth causes strife among kinsmen,
The wolf is raised in the forest.
Old Icelandic Rune Poem
Wealth is trouble among relatives
and fire of the sea
and path of the serpent.
As a murk-stave (when Fehu is inverted or upside-down), resources are being hoarded. There is a reluctance to part with one’s wealth and to hoard it instead. Wealth does not have to mean money. Although this word eventually evolved into the English word “fee”, it used to refer to cattle or herds. What makes one wealthy might not be dollar bills, although this is certainly the most practical interpretation. While the rune poems may seem to take a negative slant, our ancestors were not hateful towards having money. They understood that it was entirely OK to build wealth, have wealth, and guard it – but not to hoard it for the sake of having it. This is where the “strife among kinsmen” comes in.
It was OK to do well in life, but pulling your resources back and removing them from the community was not OK. Being greedy or miserly was not OK. Everyone depended on everyone else and if the flow was broken, it was felt by all. This is still true today, particularly in smaller communities that may have one or two staple employers. Pull a factory out of a town and it will surely be felt by all, even if they don’t work there.
As I said above, this doesn’t have to be money. You can be rich in other things. A reversed Fehu can point to burnout: the energetic slump, the creative/artistic/writer’s block, or just a plain old lack of drive. Faced with this situation, many of us pull back and go within ourselves. We isolate away from everyone. Fehu reminds us that hoarding ourselves is not the answer. The next time you feel blocked don’t hide in your living room, trying to meditate it away. Leave the house! Touch some grass! Seek out the company of others and if there are no others, go someplace where people are and make some new friends or people watch. Recharge your batteries by returning to the flow, not backing away. You may find that you bounce back faster and better than ever.