It is hard to describe what Pertho looks like, perhaps a binder for a folder.  I would have to draw it for you.  It represents chance or luck so is the rune of gamblers.  The name itself means pawn as it was once a gambling piece.  Its month is May and its moon is the Merry Moon.  When this rune is drawn it is likely a bet will pay off in a big way.  It may mean that one is about to go on a winning streak or that they are playing the game of life extremely well.  This doesn’t mean one should show off or flaunt their cards.  Instead, keep them close to your chest.  You dreams may predict future events.

As far as the healing interpretation, Pertho represents love.  There is nothing luckier than to find true love.  When one is in love, the world is a magical place.  Love heals those who are able to give and receive it.  Drawing this rune may mean one is about to find love, either by meeting another, or through the divine love of God.  Either way, the experience can only be positive.

If I’ve had any luck in my life it had only been that worse things hadn’t happened to me.  Outside of that, I never won any prize, received a grant or inheritance, or got any breaks that made any difference.  When it came to love, I sought it out and then shrank from the constant attention it required to keep it.  I’d made my own way for years now, assuming I’d never get lucky, perhaps a safe way to live, and a lonely one. 

At the root of it there was an assumption, perhaps, that I didn’t deserve good things, that I wasn’t good enough to get to make demands.  So, I’d largely learned to live without love, and when given an opportunity to fill my tank, bled it dry.  Look at what that gets you, a place on a park bench.  Years of voluntary exile had given way to years of involuntary exile.  It often seemed like there was no way to get back home, no way to catch up with my peers.  I was stuck out on a limb with my bag of tricks.  No one wanted to climb out there.  They didn’t need another story from the road.

Oaxaca is full of world class street art.  Walking around the neighborhood in the late afternoon, the charm of the city kicked in, despite the lockdown that was happening in the Zocalo.  I passed a mural of a woman with a death head, kneeling on an agave plant with bats at both sides of her.  There was a dog with a halo of barbed wire.  Now a good one, Emiliano Zapato, with a rifle and a shoulder bullet belt, riding a bike.  Now an even better one, Batman and Robin with sombreros.  Satan with a shot-glass.  A political rally happening soon.  The grim reaper dragging off a COVID victim.  Skull and bones on a rock and roll record shop.

I walked to the Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Soledad.  Love was in the air.  A couple was being serenaded by a group of mariachis in white jackets and pants.  There was the big guitarron, the guitar-like vihuela, three violins, two trumpets.  A crowd had gathered around in a circle to watch the couple dance. 

I should be so lucky one of these days, maybe when I’ve shed all the bad karma I’ve accrued.  Maybe then I’ll walk up to the woman with the death head and ask her to dance.  She’ll remove her mask and I’ll know then that what I was seeing all the while was a projection of my own fear.  We’ll go waltzing towards the blinking lights and find ourselves lost in the stars.  We should all be so lucky to fall in love someday.