Mannaz looks similar to an M, but instead of the top lines meeting they cross to the other side.  It stands for mankind, just like Ansuz stands for the gods and divinity.  Although this may imply that it speaks for the universal brotherhood of man, the message of it is more direct and personal.  It appeals to the conscience.  One needs to question their own motives.  How does one’s actions affect others?  As a mortal it is impossible to be perfect.  It is important to remember this.  Be aware of your flaws but don’t let them stop you,

When it comes to the healing interpretation, it relates to innocence.  We start out our lives with trusting hearts, but over the years become guarded and jaded.  We built walls to protect ourselves, but end up keeping out the good as well as the bad.  It is important to regain some degree of innocence and learn how to trust others again.  A compassionate act and simple smile can sometimes do miracles.

There is a character in a movie called The Watchman named Doctor Manhattan.  Through a nuclear accident he becomes so powerful and competent, nearly godlike, that he can’t relate to his girlfriend or the human race anymore, and ends up on a distant planet building magnificent palaces where there is no one to see or appreciate them.  I had not gotten that powerful or perfect, but after ten years in Los Angeles making records that never went anywhere, had grown so hurt and jaded that I ventured off into my own pocket of isolation, removing myself from any place or anyone that had previously mattered.

During that time, I’d eventually grown sick with depression and self-pity, and now I was going to have a hard time integrating back into society again, but it had to be done.  To do so, I would need to accept people as they were, rather than what I wish they were, and if there was a high road to take, I might be the one who needed to take it.  There was no physical distance I could put between myself and my problems anymore.  I needed to start building bridges, instead of building dams.

I was in Mexico City once again, with only three more days before I’d be flying back to Los Angeles.  There were many challenges that waited for me back there, but I was ready to take them on.  Now I wandered down Calzada de Tlalpan, killing time before heading back to my hotel for the night.  There was a restaurant selling broasted chicken.  I ordered a quarter chicken with tortillas and onions.  After eating, I started back in the direction of my hotel.

The next day I wanted to travel to Xochimilco, a neighborhood in the south of Mexico City with canals like Venice, the remnants of a great system of waterways once constructed by the Aztecs.  It looked possible to travel there by the Metro, but not straight forward.  At one point I would need to transfer to the TL, or light rail.  I figured I’d just set off in the morning and work it out then. 

In the meantime, I retired to my room and took a hot shower, one of few on the trip.  Though the room was small, the make of it was modern.  It was more than good enough.

To get to Xochilmilco required taking the blue Metro line south to the Light Rail, but as soon as I got on the Light Rail, I was diverted to a bus due to some work they were doing on the tracks.  The bus dropped us off at the end of the line.  There were murals just outside the station, a skeleton holding an orange marigold in his hand, a couple of skull rockers, dressed in leather.  There was a painting of an old boatman with a pole in his hand, like Charon from Greek mythology, ferrying the souls of the dead over the river Styx.

When I reached the end of the line, all I had were some scribbled directions on a piece of paper to go by.  I wasn’t sure what I was looking for.  There was a sign pointing towards the Zona Turistica Embarcaderos that I followed for about a mile, past a mural of a thundering golden eagle and a few severed pig heads hanging in a butcher shop.  Next, I passed a cemetery for young children. 

When I reached the Embarcadero Belem, it was cluttered and confusing.  A few boatmen scrambled to pitch me a ride.  There were more murals, a dead bride with a golden butterfly settled on her lips, Catrina, her skull face painted up like a bouquet, next to a boat, the San Cristobal.  It didn’t seem like I was at the right place, so I kept walking.  My directions said something about the Embarcadero Nativitas.  There were paintings all along the way, magical salamanders, cranes flying over a lake at sunset, a skeleton rowing a boat, a beautiful woman with flowers in her hair, Jesus hanging from the cross.

Finally, I reached Embarcadero Nativitas, which seemed to be the main place to rent a boat from.  Here were the crowds of tourists I was expecting to see.  The boats were built for large parties, maybe twenty or thirty people, and were painted in festival colors, bright red, yellow, green, blue.  They had the names of women, Margarita, Victoria, Carmelita. 

There was an island I wanted to visit, The Island of Dead Dolls, but one tout I talked to told me it was a five hour round trip journey.  He walked me over to a tree with dolls hanging from the branches, and assured me that where I wanted to go was exactly the same thing, just more of them.  One had a black cross on its forehead and mud pouring out of its mouth.

Because a lot of boats were unoccupied that day, I was able to make a deal, an hour in my own boat for twenty dollars.  It is not the fun way to do Xochimilco, alone, drinking a Pepsi, but it had not been a fun trip.  That doesn’t mean it hadn’t been great.  I had to walk across a dozen moored boats to get to the one I’d rented.  It was pink, yellow, and blue, looking like it had just been painted.  I sat at the yellow table and the old man began navigating his way out onto the busy canal.  His pole was over twenty feet long and the platform he worked from about ten feet across.

The rune of the day was Sowelo, or that of the sun.  I’d gotten lazy and taken its picture back at the hotel before leaving.  Although I still had a few adventures ahead of me, my trip was running out of steam. 

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.

The history of men testing their courage against bulls goes back to the beginning of time, when the first hunters challenged wild animals with stones and sharp sticks.  The sport of bullfighting originated in Spain and was introduced to Mexico five hundred years ago.  The Plaza Mexico bullfighting ring is the largest in the world.  I had been there on my first trip to Mexico City, thirty-five years earlier, and remembered with some fondness peeling myself off a bathroom floor, with a world-record hangover, to get there.  All in all, it had ended up being a wild and merry afternoon.

It seemed lucky beyond belief that there was a fight scheduled right before I needed to return to Los Angeles, especially since the season begins around the last weekend of October and only lasts twelve weeks.  I looked and it seemed like it wouldn’t be that difficult to get there, a ride on the red Metro line and then a short walk from there.

By now I was down to three runes and I still hadn’t drawn the blank one, Wyrd, or the rune of destiny yet.  The suspense was killing me.  I’d already decided if I drew Wyrd, I would return it to the sack, like being dealt a Joker.  In the middle of the night, I’d wanted to wake up and grab a rune, just to get it over with, but I’d waited until the morning and drew the rune Raido, signifying time or a journey.  Now it was down to just two.

I started for the bull ring in the late afternoon.  After getting off the Metro, I followed my written directions and got lost, needing to ask directions and turn around before I could follow the flow of foot traffic and make my way to the ring.  What a grand ritual, the dance of death, on its way to being outlawed the next year.  There were more protestors out front protesting the brutality of the fight then there were spectators to watch it.  That was a first.

I had no idea if any tickets would be available, so scalped one for about ten dollars.  As it turned out, the ring was almost empty.  I never even looked at my ticket.  I just wandered around, making my way closer and closer to the center, and then retreating again to the top to sit beneath the band, in full appreciation of the tuba player, who flapped his arms with great gusto to propel his Oom-pah-pahs.

A bullfight is a performance in three acts.  First there is a grand procession where the matadors, dressed in gold, along with their teams, the picadors, banderilleros, and mozo de espadas, or sword bearers, enter the ring together.  There are typically three fights in an afternoon.  During the first act of the fight, the Tercio de Varas, the bull is released into the ring and is approached by the matador with a gold cape, who tests his manner and quirks.  A picador then comes out on horseback and stabs the bull between the shoulders with a lance to lower its head and focus its attention.

During the second act, the Tercio de Banderillas, three assistants, or banderilleros, come out and try to place two banderillas, or sharp sticks in the shoulders of the bull.  These attacks agitate it and get it in fighting form. 

In the third act, the Tercio de Muerte, it is just the matador, with a red cape, and the bull.  This is a dance to the death.  The matador runs the bull through a series of passes, or faena, that are designed to be graceful and wear the bull down.  The matador has two swords, one for show and one for the kill.  At the end of the third act, he calls for the steel sword, and aims to drive it into the heart of the bull, simultaneously placing himself in danger by putting himself right in front of its horns.

A quick kill is met with acclaim.  A botched one can receive much derision.  Only the bravest of bulls ever receive a pardon.  Most die with their blood spilling out on the dirt floor.  Sometimes the matadors die too.  Over five hundred matadors have been killed in the ring.  Many more have been gored and injured.

Seeing that I was in Mexico for the Dead of the Dead, this visit to the bull ring seemed to be an appropriate third act.  I sat and watched the first two fights, the first up close, the second from a distance.  The second matador was having problems finishing his bull.  It got to the point where it was embarrassing to watch.  I was hoping he’d just pull out a pistol and get it over with.  Instead, the misery dragged on.

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.

By now it was down to just two rune stones.  It seemed impossible that I had drawn every rune on this trip except Wyrd and one other.  Wyrd, the blank stone, is the stone I’d drawn the year earlier when Ruth had offered to do a reading for me.  It is the twenty-fifth stone, a modern addition to the set, and meant to signify the hand of God or destiny.  What did it mean if it was the last stone I picked on this trip, that I’d been destined to learn about the runes? 

Apparently, because before the sun had even risen, I snatched up the nearly empty bag and drew a stone, unable to bear the suspense any longer.  It was Ehwaz, the rune of ideas.  That meant that Wyrd was the last rune in the bag, the only rune left the day I got back to California.  That must’ve meant something.  Of course, it meant something.

That morning I called a taxi around eleven.  It only took twenty minutes to get to the airport.  Although I’d sent in my negative COVID test and checked in the day before, it still took about a half hour waiting in line to get my boarding pass.  The woman who assigned me my seat loved that I loved Mexico.  It was a hassle to be so early.  I had nearly three hours to kill.  I got a newspaper, Metro, the news of the day, and read up on the latest fatalities.

A man and his dog had been run over in a car accident.  A picture showed both of them lying in the middle of the road.  A woman was killed in a motorcycle accident and the picture showed her in a black dress, all wrapped up in her own intestines.  Up in Wisconsin, a driver in a van intentionally ran over twenty people at a Christmas parade.  A man was killed outside of a cathedral.  Another was shot trying to steal a cell phone.  The Circus of Horror had nothing on real life. 

Even when the plane finally boarded, we sat on the runway for a half hour.  It was too hot.  There was no air circulating.  There would not be much time to transit when we got to Houston.  I’d have to pick up my bag, go through immigration again, walk to the other gate.  There hadn’t been much time to begin with and now we were running late. 

When we landed in Houston, it was a long walk to get to immigration and only five out of thirty gates were open.  Then when I finally passed through and went to pick up my bag it was the last one onto the carousel.  By then it seemed evident that I was going to miss my connecting flight.  I dropped my bag off on a conveyor belt and found I still needed to pass through an additional security check.  This one was barely moving and the guard was showing no sympathy.  He ordered me into one line that wasn’t moving at all and I just stood there and seethed.

They made me take everything out of my backpack to get to my laptop.  Then it was almost impossible to fit all of the clutter back in.  My feet were nearly bursting out of my shoes as I half-heartedly hurried to my distant gate.  The plane had already been boarding for forty minutes.  There was no way I was going to make it.

When I got to the gate the door was closed and a woman was standing in front of it.  She said she’d have to check and see if the door of the plane was still open.  By some miracle, it was.  I limped down the bridge, dripping with sweat, and had to put up with the other passengers giving me the stink-eye, like I’d been responsible for the hold up. 

Fifteen minutes later, there came an announcement.  The plane had been damaged by one of the luggage trucks.  We’d all have to exit and wait for a replacement plane to arrive.  I had found my way back to society.  That was for sure.

Ehwaz looks like the letter M.  It represents big ideas, but can also be related to partnership as the M might be seen to resemble two horses facing each other.  This is the rune of new ideas and adventures.  A big trip may be underway or a move away from home.  In terms of partnership, it might mean meeting an equal.  Two horses working as one have much greater potential than one.  Things may speed up during this time.  Situations and circumstances might be expected to change dramatically.

As far as healing goes, Ehwaz represents forgiveness.  It is important to make peace with the past and forgive one’s self as well as others before progress can be made.  Trust needs to be regained.  It may be important to do an inventory at this point, to see where one has been wronged and done wrong.  Making amends will bring healing.  This is important to consider before entering into a partnership.  You want to go into any new enterprise with a clean slate.

I’d been out there running like a lone wolf for many years, and it was always my inclination to stick to my solitary ways.  The pandemic had forced me back to Southern California and I had been living with my mother during that time.  We’d basically been helping each other get through it, and now that it was letting up, I didn’t really know what to do anymore. 

If I could find a way to stay in California I would.  If I could go back to making music that would be a dream.  But I couldn’t do it on my own.  Unless I did a better job of reaching out to others, I risked being shipwrecked on the island of lost dreams forever.  It wouldn’t be easy, however.  A few hours back in the States and I was already feeling the strain.  I picked up the Tibetan Book of the Dead and started leafing through it again.

A soul that is traveling through the wasteland of the bardo, in between incarnations, is frightened and confused.  It wants to take refuge in a womb.  It rushes towards one of the realms, not knowing where to go.  The realm of hell is characterized by a dark land with red and black houses, black pits, and black roads.  There is unbelievable suffering, extreme heat and cold.  Do not go there.

The realm of the hungry ghosts is marked by black tree stumps and shallow caves.  There are black patches everywhere.  Do not go there or you will suffer from endless hunger and thirst.  In the realm of the animals, you see everything through a mist.  There are rock caves and holes in the ground.  The houses are made of straw.  Avoid going there.  That of the jealous god is one of beautiful graves and revolving wheels of fire.  Do not enter there.  Instead, think of resistance.  The realm of gods has many temples and is full of jewels.  Enter if you must.

We all know what the human realm is like.  Do not return unless you plan to save those who suffer.  No.  Do not enter into any of the realms of existence if you have a choice.  Instead, pray to be liberated from the cycle of birth and death.  Pray for nirvana, where there is no self, no suffering, no karma, only transcendence.  Pray to the Buddha and the multiple bodhisattvas for release.

This flight would not be the opportunity for such an escape.  Instead, there was a medical emergency halfway to Los Angeles.  My only prayer was that they wouldn’t bring the flight down.  When we arrived at LAX there were fire engines and ambulances waiting for us on the runway.  We were going to have to wait to exit the plane. 

Some emergency personnel came aboard and helped a man to his feet.  He had a shaved head and many tattoos.  I could almost guess the nature of his ailment.  He didn’t want to go with them.  He was saying he was fine.  At this point that wasn’t an option.  He was going to go for a ride in an ambulance, and then maybe a police car after that.