Raido looks like a capital R.  It is the rune of time, or a ride or journey.  Its month is April and its moon is the Cuckoo Moon.  It may be a rough ride or difficult journey, but will be worth it in the end.  The benefits will be both material and spiritual, and admiration may be earned as well.  If things are not moving as expected, the delay will be slight.  If you draw this rune, you are heading in the right direction.  Patience may be required, but the results will prove the value of the exploration.

When it comes to the healing interpretation, Raido signifies surrender, or letting go and allowing a greater force to take charge.  Go with the flow.  If you can let go of the need to control every aspect of your life, you allow magic to happen.  Pitting one’s will against that of the universe is a sure-fire path to burn-out.  It is important to believe that you are where you need to be at any given time. 

My whole life I’d been trying to get as far away from my life and my problems as possible, but the pandemic had swallowed me up, like Jonah’s whale, and spit me onto the sand of Huntington Beach, where I would be returning in a few days.  I had to start considering that there may be a reason behind this, a greater plan than what I could see.  You need to be totally broken down before you can start building again, and that had been the case.  I’d always wanted to live a spiritual life, but that doesn’t come easy.  I would have to try to trust that whatever happened next would be for the best.

In the meantime, I was at a bullfight that had taken an excruciating turn, as the second matador couldn’t get the job done.  His sword kept deflecting off the back of the bull and flying through the air.  Finally, a group of them had to gang up on it in the corner and almost hack it to death, not something the sparsely crowded arena was happy to get behind.  The ring hung heavy with silence and shame.

I’d seen enough at that point and headed back to the hotel, thinking that was it.  I was flying back to Los Angeles the next day.  My trip was officially over.  When I got off the Metro, however, I walked past a circus that was set to start in a few minutes, not just any circus but the Circo del Horror, or Circus of Horror.  They had appropriated a lot of Hollywood horror movie imagery in their advertising, evil clowns, Freddy Kruger, Chucky, Michael Myers.  There were plenty of seats available.

As I was waiting for the tent to open, I noticed that there were a lot of prostitutes taking their positions on the busy boulevard.  Sex and violence still sell everywhere.  One lined up across the street, dressed all in black, with red lipstick, could’ve been hawking for the show.  The gate opened and the small line I was in moved forward. 

We entered into a waiting room that was lit up by a red light, almost if it was a bardo, or gap, between my travels.  Could this be the realm of the jealous gods, or maybe hell.  No.  Hell was outside the tent.  As I shuffled forward, the clown from the movie IT, who’d been sitting as still as a shadow suddenly leapt to his feet with a knife.  They were doing all that they could to scare you, and it was working.

The performance featured a little girl in a bed, waking from a nightmare to find a demonic ringmaster beside her.  He takes her on a tour of gruesome fantasies.  These were trained performers and acrobats, pulling off amazing stunts while in costume.  The lightshow and soundtrack where blinding and deafening.

The girl paced the stage clutching her Teddy bear.  The ringmaster took her to visit a sorceress with an enchanted box.  An axe-murderer juggled his axes.  A vampire dangled from a rope, twirling his cape.  Werewolves took to trapezes.  A flaming skeleton rode a motorcycle around the walls of a spinning globe.  Two psychotic clowns wandered around making loud jokes.  Meanwhile masked creatures snuck around in the dark, coming up behind unsuspecting audience members and making them jump.

When the show was over the trip was essentially over.  What a way to wrap up a journey that had begun on Halloween and the Day of the Dead.  Those are the kinds of things you can never plan for.  They just happen.   It was raining when I left the circus.  In less than twenty-four hours I’d be back in Los Angeles.  That thought was scarier than anything I’d seen that night.  I’d have to give up and go with the flow.  It was the only way left to survive.