Jera looks like two arrows back-to-back, the right one slightly higher than the left.  It is the rune of celebration and relates to the harvest which comes after much work and tribulation.  The month for it is August and its moon is the Harvest Moon.  It is the time of the year when the crops are gathered.  Drawing this rune signifies a major turning point.  Misfortunes will fade, projects will be completed, new dreams will come to life.  This may mean a new job or a new home.  It is time to reap the rewards of all the efforts of the past.

When it comes to healing, Jera represents patience, and the need for it.  It is time to appreciate all the work that has been done.  If the results have not surfaced yet, know that they soon will.  Patience is aligned with courage, as sometimes it takes courage to wait and not despair.  If times are difficult, know that they will pass.  Put in the work and the results will follow.

When I was very young and just got interested in writing songs, I found heroes in folk music, older people who’d relied on music to survive life and celebrate it.  For most of them it never even occurred that they might be recognized for it.  It was just something that they did.  I looked at all these great songwriters and travelers who I admired, and realized that I had years ahead of me before I might even begin to have something to offer.  Looking at it that way, made it easier to endure years of obscurity and hardship. 

In time I realized that you can do great things and create great works and derive your satisfaction from doing so.  If someone else cared or was paying attention that was only secondary.  By now I was getting pretty old by society’s standards, but I realized that following my vision all these years had prolonged my life and given it meaning.  If there was any reward beyond the songs and memories I’d acquired, that was fine, but it more important to focus on what came next then what had already been done.

While I waited for my bus to Cancun, I wandered around and took pictures of street art in Tulum.  There was a mural of a god with many faces conjuring a serpent from the top of a pyramid.  Another showed a river goddess nourishing a tree.  There was a corn god, a green dragon, two stone figures squatting on the ground.  In a plaza there stood a Mayan Calendar.  There were murals of Jaguars, a statue of a priest lifting a severed head, aliens, and a large hand holding the world between its fingers like a marble.  I got a guava ice cream and somehow it wasn’t until the very last bite that a seed got lodged in my teeth.

On the bus back to Cancun I sat in front of a couple tourists who believed that the bus was taking them to the airport.  I knew for a fact that they would have to transfer at the bus station and that they might not have time.  At one point I turned and let them know they should probably get a taxi right when we got to town.  If they wanted to consider me an eavesdropper, that was up to them.

When we got back to Cancun, I bought a ticket to Merida that was leaving at eleven the next morning.  The logistics of my trip had been a little whack.  I should’ve gone to Tulum first and then stayed one night close to Chichen Itza, which would’ve eliminated all the back and forth that I was doing.  Still, I was accomplishing what I set out to do.  Nine runes down and sixteen to go.