People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones — but people who find themselves facing a cosmic dilemma might want to try it.
Are you torn between two lovers? Trying to decide which job offer to take? Do you wish the ancient gods would whisper words of wisdom in your ear? The answer is simple: Throw some rocks on a table and decide your destiny based on whichever ones land right-side up.
You can trust me. I’m an expert runecaster now.
Runes, for the blissfully uninitiated, are an ancient set of alphabetic symbols once scratched into sticks, stones, and swords by the Norse and Germanic peoples. Originally used for writing, labeling, and occasionally cursing one’s enemies, they have since been repackaged as magical cosmic wisdom dispensers for anyone willing to spend $39.99 on a bag of plastic pebbles and a laminated interpretation guide. In the modern mystical marketplace, they’re less historical artifact and more Magic 8-Ball for adults who think history started with “Vikings” on the History Channel.
The “Ancient Wisdom Rune Workshop” I attended took place in a windowless conference room attached to a Holiday Inn that smelled faintly of mildew and regret.
Plastic folding chairs were arranged in a circle around a central altar featuring a white tablecloth, several votive candles, and a small dish of what looked like miniature bathroom tiles engraved with cryptic symbols.
Our instructor, a woman named Freya (real name probably Sharon), wore a crown of fake ivy and spoke in the breathless tone of someone who genuinely believed the Norse gods had personally blessed the local Marriott conference center.
We were each handed a velvet pouch containing our “personal rune set” — mass-produced acrylic pebbles that clattered like cheap bingo tokens.
Freya explained that the runes were a “sacred language of the soul,” a way for “the universe to reveal its truths through ancient vibrations.” Then she demonstrated the sacred art of “casting the runes” by throwing a handful onto the table, squinting at them thoughtfully, and announcing that her spirit guides were telling her to embrace a new business opportunity.
I tossed my runes onto the table with all the reverence of someone emptying a box of Tic Tacs.
One landed upside down, two bounced onto the carpet, and one promptly slid off the edge and vanished under the vending machine.
Freya bustled over, glanced at the ones that remained, and proclaimed that “an important journey was on my horizon” — which, based on the current arc of my existence, probably referred to the trip to the hotel bar for a double whiskey.
The session continued with deep “interpretations” of our stone scatterings.
Ehwaz meant “movement,” unless it meant “change,” unless it meant “reconsidering your haircut,” depending on the context and whether Mercury was in retrograde.
Tiwaz signified “victory” or possibly “sacrifice” or possibly just an extremely confused reading of the instructor’s cheat sheet.
Ultimately, the one thing I learned is that throwing pebbles across a polyester tablecloth and pretending it reveals the secrets of the universe isn’t divination.
It’s chaos dressed up in linen and herbal tea.