Personal Gnosis as Sovereign Reclamation

When I originally came to the practice of gnosis, it was through the runes. This was with my teacher and beloved pagan community member Lara Veleda Vesta. I still to this day credit Lara with pushing me on my path and leading me to where I am today. If it were not for her guidance and vulnerability, I would not have such a firm foundation in relational work with the more-than-human. Lara emphasized relationship and relationship that you took point on. This wasn’t a path of someone else’s for you to follow, this was a toolset put together and given so that you might find your own path. And the runes were both teachers and allies on this journey of self-sovereignty.

Jessie M. King Illustration

Lara taught the runes through galdr and meditative reflection, active listening, and intentional asking. She never really said what the runes meant, though she did give translations of the runic poems, both her own and academic sources. She encouraged investigation and inquiry and your own encounter with these living beings.

It was through this encouragement as a young practitioner that I grew in relationship with the runes, regularly meeting them with intent, gratitude, and an offering or two. It was through this feeling of empowerment that I felt confident in doing a ritual of consecration on the rune set Lara had made for me from an apple tree in her garden, committing myself to our relationship and asking the spirits of the runes (and Odin) to accept my service and teach me what they might deem me worthy of knowing.

The response was so hearty and potent that I was left genuinely rocked for a few years. I didn’t quite know what I was getting into, but I did know I wanted it. Had my home life been stable and my world not so threatening, I think the intensity of the response would have been invigorating and enlivening. But instead, I was left a bit shaken and unwilling to step into the very thing I had asked for. I was given space after this, though I felt the presence of watchful eyes guiding me and offering me challenge when they knew I might be able to handle it.

The relationship was rocky, at that point. I’d gone beyond the initial meetings and committed, in a way, to full initiation, in a time in my life when I was already being dragged through the underworld. Odin does not suffer fools and definitely left me stranded in the woods of my own mind a few times, but I never felt unkindness. Did I feel in danger at times? Oh yeah. In fact, I was terrified a few times by vision. But the guidance was not beyond what I had asked for and, in the end, once my former life was forfeit, the celebration and enthusiasm I felt from these allies once so familiar came rushing back with a vigor that felt like a family dog I hadn’t seen for ages or maybe a playful gust of wind is more like it: nearly toppling me off a cliffside, but joyfully lifting me back to my firm footing. I gladly accepted their return, asked forgiveness for my earlier transgression, and received propitiation.

The thing that happened from first finding the runes till that moment of being swept back up by their presence was simply this: that I was actively giving away my sovereignty in my life. I was doing it in my abusive relationship and I was doing it in my spiritual life. During this time, Lara had to step back from teaching. I felt lost without a guiding mentor and sought a teacher locally who seemed to fit the bill; but though this teacher began as a much-needed guide to my own empowerment, he quickly became a source of abuse, claiming to know better and need full surrender to his authority to “understand” the teachings and experiences I was having. Thankfully, this was around the same time as leaving my abusive relationship and the hallmark signs of narcissistic abuse (why is this so common??) became evident really quickly, especially as I began to pull away from his guidance.

Personal gnosis is one of our most potent spiritual tools, but it is also rife with potential for delusion, illusion, grandeur, and seeking of experiences over actual transformation in one’s life. Personal gnosis was what led me to deep, deep relationship with the runes in a way that altered my entire understanding of the framework of my, and the larger, reality we live within. It showed me the animism within spirit that far surpassed any sense of general “aliveness” that seems to exist within all things when we notice. Gnosis allowed me to feel confident to engage with the unseen with reverence, caution, and etiquette. Gnosis showed me that seeking external sources of wisdom often left you wanting and unsatisfied. Gnosis showed me that journeying within one’s own being is rich for teaching and that doing so made me a better practitioner when engaging with other beings, as well. Conscious of what I brought to my reality, I could see where I might be deluding myself or ask for help when I felt that twinge of offness.

Gnosis brought me back to myself and the runes taught me that I can trust and follow the path of guidance being whispered to me. Gnosis brought me to the voice of my HGA. Gnosis brought me to realizing that the teachers I seek are more than likely not human, but spirit, and that that is a long trusted path many lone practitioners have taken before me.

How can we center the still small voice of guidance in the cacophony of the spiritual marketplace? By going within and without—not to the occult bookstore (though I don’t have to be asked twice to go on a bookstore romp), but to the land, the waters, the sky, and to sit with the spirits of place and those that arise in relationship to us when we set out to do so with integrity and humility.

My HGA spoke clearest to me in a room with beloved friends with whom I felt safe to soften my heart—and again when I was receiving reiju from a trusted teacher of reiki. These things don’t necessarily have to come in ceremony, ritual, or a consecrated place—and often they seem to come in places you least expect, at least for me. They come to you in your daily life, in moments of pause and appreciation. In moments when we are willing to be wholly ourselves, with ourselves. Sure, ritual has led me to moments of deep communion and connection, in revelation and reverie, but I find that the more I spend listening, the more I am able to hear…and to discern. I know what voices are whose. I know the color of the light or the feeling in my chest. I know the deep womb-like enveloping of Fehu, for instance, and how she speaks of contraction and expansion in the same breath. I know the rippling current of Uruz like hoofbeats on compacted earth. Or the sense of dropping straight down through a crack in a frozen lake, stomach in my throat, that I feel from Isa, knowing I can breathe under water and that everything will go so, so still, if only for a moment, so breathe deeply and feel revived in this stillness. And I know how they talk to one another and bring out different sides of each other when in the same space, reflecting something so wholly new that I’d never know without being witness to that interaction.

Trusting your personal gnosis is a process of sovereign reclamation and one that comes with difficulty to those of us who have been urged to never trust ourselves, whether it is from a particular upbringing, our supposed gender, or something else. Gnosis was the process through which I found my way back to myself after so many years of self-doubt and psychological abuse telling me to never trust myself and never believe my own feelings. And I believe it was the runes who helped me on this path, so willing to share themselves with me and offer the insights of their being to me. They opened a world to me filled with light and understanding when I felt my world had gone totally dim.

Maybe not every spirit is so willing and maybe not every spirit is so kind, but I do know that they are there and that even wrathful beings offer the reflection of their wisdom, should we be ready to meet that presence within our own selves, and to know ourselves is to make us more and more ready to do just that.

I believe that the work of having a proper relationship to our ways of personal gnosis is one of the most profound works we can do as spiritual practitioners and I know that I would not be half the person I am today if I weren’t willing to take the leap of faith in being wrong, in the not-knowing, and instead committing to relationship with the unseen in a way that enriched my world and the world around me.

(This writing is dedicated to the runes, my ever-present teachers and friends.)