Sowleo looks like a lightning bolt.  It is the rune of the sun, that of glory and good fortune.  Like a flash of lightning, in can signal personal enlightenment.  Its month is June and its moon is the Sun Moon.  Drawing this rune means good things are to come.  If the days have been dark, they will soon brighten.  This is a good rune to draw during troubled times.  They will not last forever.  If there has been confusion, it will be swept away.  Sowelo relates to the human heart.  It is a good omen for love and affection.

When it comes to the healing aspect of it, Sowelo relates to compassion.  Compassion is the ability to feel for others and act in an empathetic manner.  Having gone through problems ourselves, we can now understand how it feels to suffer and endure heartache.  Being there for others in their time of need is one of the greatest things someone can do.  The light of the world is felt when there is love and understanding.

During the pandemic I’d reached the low of lows, forced to evacuate from Vietnam, now jobless, broke, scared, hiding out in a rental car during lock down, having first a nervous breakdown, then a seizure, losing my driver’s license, then living in a camper in my mother’s backyard for the next year and a half. 

There’d been a day at the beach where I couldn’t take it anymore, where I inwardly combusted, but then suddenly saw how beautiful everything is, the ocean, the waves, the clouds, and how short life is.  I went from despair to euphoria at the snap of a finger and it had been that way since, going back and forth, up and down.

Now I was out on my own chartered boat, being piloted through the ancient canals of Mexico City.  Everything was light and color, definitely more of it than anything I’d experienced on the trip so far.  Across from me sat seven empty chairs.  To the left and right of me were three empty chairs.  The tin roof reflected both the colors of the boat and the water.  Other boats passed armed with full mariachi bands, everyone drinking and singing.  What a grand way to spend the day, even as an observer.  Vendors were selling flowered wreaths, drinks, and snacks.  After a half hour by boatman pivoted and began back the other way.

Five good minutes can make a day, a week, sometimes even a month.  Life is too often not as exciting and colorful as we wish it to be.  When we find those good moments, we must string them together like beads and hang them around our necks for all the world to see.  Leaving Xochimilco I was floating, high on the excitement of others, knowing that I’d experienced something rare in the last three weeks, a truly exotic experience, far from the beaten track.  Hard reality would soon be crashing down on my head again.  The popup camper was waiting and it was getting cold in California.

Before getting on my flight in only two days now, I still needed to submit a negative COVID test to the airline.  When I got back to the hotel then, I walked over to Walmart and found the testing site buried back in the rear of the parking garage.  You were supposed to have an appointment, but there were only two people ahead of me so they were able to squeeze me in.  How many times had I been tested for COVID now?  Probably a half a dozen.  Upon my return from Vietnam, I’d had to be tested before seeing my mother, and that had taken weeks to schedule and get a result. 

Now the wait time was only fifteen minutes after having them swab the inside of my nostrils.  They sent the negative results to my e-mail and I then forwarded them to the airline and completed the rest of the pre-boarding information.  It was funny how the pandemic had totally flipped my life upside down and yet I’d never tested positive for it.  Funny, like so funny I forgot to laugh funny.  You know what I’m talking about.