Gifu: Some Personal Musings
Posted: Tue Jan 14, 2014 5:18 pm
I wanted to dedicate this post to a rune that has really changed my life, and some personal observations I've made about it.
A gift returns to adorn the givers
with greatness and honor; it helps
and heartens those with nothing
- Old English rune poem
Gifu :giftrune: is the rune of the gift (easy to remember because it sounds like its name). When you come across really short summaries of the Elder Futhark runes, they usually say things about how Gifu means something really happy and positive is coming your way - you are about to get a gift! Who doesn't like a gift?
If you dig a little deeper, though, Gifu is also the rune of the sacrifice. Now it doesn't sound as wholly positive. Sacrifice often sounds kind of scary, like you're giving up things, or you have to suffer in order to make a sacrifice. Does it mean you get a gift, or give a gift? What's the point in a gift that comes with strings attached? Isn't that usually a bad thing?
I was lucky enough to attend a workshop on the Elder Futhark where the presenter explained that in ancient times, everything was about mutual obligation. You get a gift, but with the gift comes attached the unspoken responsibility to later give a gift of equal value. This could be, for example, the expectation you have between you and your king, where you pay tribute and he provides protection. One of the biggest faux pas, or ways to coerce people into doing what you wanted them to do, is to give other people too big a gift, one that they do not have the means to repay.
This also applied to one's relationship to the gods. You sacrifice to receive, and you receive so that you may sacrifice. In this way, the giving of gifts by both parties is what binds you two together. You can see that in the very shape of the rune itself - two straight lines of equal length crossing. The equal lengths symbolizes that both parties have equal obligations to each other; fairness and parity are important in healthy relationships.* And if the other party is not giving back to you, then perhaps it's time to cut your ties.
I thought that this was an interesting historical viewpoint, but I also believe this applies very well to our modern day relationships too. I just graduated college not too long ago, and I'm discovering that when I'm staying in touch with my friends, we both need to put in the time to keep our friendship going. And isn't time a gift? This may sound crazy obvious, but it was kind of a revelation to me. When I was growing up, my parents always told me to keep my head down, be polite but you shouldn't put time and energy into relationships, even to people who seem to like you. So it's probably not a huge surprise that I wound up not having very many close friends in high school, and even fewer whom I still communicate with. But after college, I knew I had to put in a real effort to stay in contact with my friends whom I no longer saw every day. It's something I have to schedule, even, but it's been worth it. It's these ties that bind us together.
I also think that Gifu has some applications to other situatoins as well. For example, it's basically thrown the notion of "selfless giving" or "altruism" out the window for me. I don't mean to say that people are innately selfish or evil who only give to others to serve their own purposes. Quite the contrary, I believe that people have unlimited capacities to be kind and compassionate (which they may or may not choose to utilize). But, for example, when you give to a charity (an action usually considered "altruistic" or "selfless"), it comes with strings attached. These strings are not necessarily that the charity will give you back the money, but rather the expectation that the charity will spend it wisely and judiciously for the purposes that they say they will and help others. That's a good expectation to have, and that's a pretty good reason to think of gifts as mutual obligations, not as "selfless". I no longer think that "no strings attached" gifts are possible or desirable. You can see the Nordic values of honor, fairness, and justice coming through. It's all of these gifts that bind all of us in relationship with one another.
So when I see Gifu turning up in my readings, Gifu is not just "Oh hey! You're getting a gift! You're so lucky!" It means a whole host of other things in my life, including honesty, fairness, honor, and it is a symbol of relationship (be it relationship with my loved ones, my country, or even the planet). It's changed the way I approached my friends, and to a large extent clarified my understanding of politics too. It's a rune that comes with strings attached, but I'm okay with that.
That's the rant that's been bubbling up inside of me for a long time about Gifu! I'm glad to get it all out there; I hope it was coherent in some way or another.
* You can see, in contrast, Nauthiz, the rune of Need :needrune:, which also has two lines crossing, but one is significantly shorter than the other. That is an imbalance in the giving/receiving relationship, where one party needs much more giving at the moment. Ideally this is a temporary situation!
A gift returns to adorn the givers
with greatness and honor; it helps
and heartens those with nothing
- Old English rune poem
Gifu :giftrune: is the rune of the gift (easy to remember because it sounds like its name). When you come across really short summaries of the Elder Futhark runes, they usually say things about how Gifu means something really happy and positive is coming your way - you are about to get a gift! Who doesn't like a gift?
If you dig a little deeper, though, Gifu is also the rune of the sacrifice. Now it doesn't sound as wholly positive. Sacrifice often sounds kind of scary, like you're giving up things, or you have to suffer in order to make a sacrifice. Does it mean you get a gift, or give a gift? What's the point in a gift that comes with strings attached? Isn't that usually a bad thing?
I was lucky enough to attend a workshop on the Elder Futhark where the presenter explained that in ancient times, everything was about mutual obligation. You get a gift, but with the gift comes attached the unspoken responsibility to later give a gift of equal value. This could be, for example, the expectation you have between you and your king, where you pay tribute and he provides protection. One of the biggest faux pas, or ways to coerce people into doing what you wanted them to do, is to give other people too big a gift, one that they do not have the means to repay.
This also applied to one's relationship to the gods. You sacrifice to receive, and you receive so that you may sacrifice. In this way, the giving of gifts by both parties is what binds you two together. You can see that in the very shape of the rune itself - two straight lines of equal length crossing. The equal lengths symbolizes that both parties have equal obligations to each other; fairness and parity are important in healthy relationships.* And if the other party is not giving back to you, then perhaps it's time to cut your ties.
I thought that this was an interesting historical viewpoint, but I also believe this applies very well to our modern day relationships too. I just graduated college not too long ago, and I'm discovering that when I'm staying in touch with my friends, we both need to put in the time to keep our friendship going. And isn't time a gift? This may sound crazy obvious, but it was kind of a revelation to me. When I was growing up, my parents always told me to keep my head down, be polite but you shouldn't put time and energy into relationships, even to people who seem to like you. So it's probably not a huge surprise that I wound up not having very many close friends in high school, and even fewer whom I still communicate with. But after college, I knew I had to put in a real effort to stay in contact with my friends whom I no longer saw every day. It's something I have to schedule, even, but it's been worth it. It's these ties that bind us together.
I also think that Gifu has some applications to other situatoins as well. For example, it's basically thrown the notion of "selfless giving" or "altruism" out the window for me. I don't mean to say that people are innately selfish or evil who only give to others to serve their own purposes. Quite the contrary, I believe that people have unlimited capacities to be kind and compassionate (which they may or may not choose to utilize). But, for example, when you give to a charity (an action usually considered "altruistic" or "selfless"), it comes with strings attached. These strings are not necessarily that the charity will give you back the money, but rather the expectation that the charity will spend it wisely and judiciously for the purposes that they say they will and help others. That's a good expectation to have, and that's a pretty good reason to think of gifts as mutual obligations, not as "selfless". I no longer think that "no strings attached" gifts are possible or desirable. You can see the Nordic values of honor, fairness, and justice coming through. It's all of these gifts that bind all of us in relationship with one another.
So when I see Gifu turning up in my readings, Gifu is not just "Oh hey! You're getting a gift! You're so lucky!" It means a whole host of other things in my life, including honesty, fairness, honor, and it is a symbol of relationship (be it relationship with my loved ones, my country, or even the planet). It's changed the way I approached my friends, and to a large extent clarified my understanding of politics too. It's a rune that comes with strings attached, but I'm okay with that.
That's the rant that's been bubbling up inside of me for a long time about Gifu! I'm glad to get it all out there; I hope it was coherent in some way or another.
* You can see, in contrast, Nauthiz, the rune of Need :needrune:, which also has two lines crossing, but one is significantly shorter than the other. That is an imbalance in the giving/receiving relationship, where one party needs much more giving at the moment. Ideally this is a temporary situation!