Kaunaz is two angled lines that open like a crocodile’s mouth or the beam from a flashlight.  It is meant to represent enlightenment and insight.  Knowledge will be passed and received.  Like a flash of lightning on a wall, this will lead to an immediate change of perception.  Afterwards, one will have a better understanding of the way forward.  It can also mean passion, or the beginning of a great love affair.  As far as business, everything is progressing as it should.  Destiny has taken the reigns.

When it comes to the healing interpretation, Kaunaz signifies acceptance.  Acceptance is the key to serenity.  When you accept things as they really are, you can begin to live with them.  Always fighting reality is a good way to waste precious energy and burn one’s self out.  You may not be able to change a situation, but you can control how you respond to it.  That is the only way forward.

Since the pandemic, I’d been struggling to make sense of what had happened and where I was now.  It had taken a long time to accept that any good had come from being back in Huntington Beach with my mother.  Because there was no way to fight or change it, eventually I’d been forced to accept the situation.  I’d met some new people, begun surfing, now had some sense of place in the States after years of being adrift.  I didn’t know what to do next, but had to trust it would come at the right time.  In the meantime, I still had four days of exploration ahead of me and there were still five rune stones left.

After leaving the Jardin Borda, I went to find the bus station to buy a ticket to Mexico City the next day.  There was a bus to the Taxquena Station that was leaving at noon.  That would give me the chance to sleep in and get full use out of my room before hitting the road again.  From the station I walked down to the Cortes Palace, but it was closed for repairs. 

There was an open-air market that I strolled through before wandering down some graffiti side streets.  On one wall were Batman villains, the Joker, the Penguin, and the Scarecrow.  There was a rapper smoking a blunt and a female one in an LA hat, standing beside a pit bull. 

I walked past the Palace of Justice, and then returned to the Cathedral of Cuernavaca, which had been closed earlier.  There were some murals I hoped to see of Philip of Jesus, the first Mexican Saint, who’d ended up shipwrecked and crucified in Japan.  Either I was in the wrong place or they were locked up at the moment.  I did see a strange portrayal of the Trinity, three Jesuses sitting side by side, one with a lamb on his chest, one with the sun, and one with a dove.

Out in the courtyard, a group of women were dancing in a circle.  They were having fun and laughing and I didn’t want to get too close and make them feel self-conscious.  I wandered over to a shrine, the Virgen of Guadalupe, and remembered how she had appeared to Juan Diego in 1531, as a dark-skinned Indian.  When the bishop demanded proof, he returned with her image emblazoned on his cloak.  It was this vision that opened up Christianity to the natives of Mesoamerica, the mother of God as one of them. 

There were six candles burning on the altar in front of her.  The light from them spread across the floor of the cathedral and made the shadows dance.