Jeff Russell

This offering is now closed for new questions, but if you have something pressing before I offer another, reach out by DM here on dreamwidth or through my email (linked at my webstead: https://jpowellrussell.com). Those of you who have already asked and not yet gotten an answer, I'm on it and will have those shared in the next couple of days. Otherwise, see you next time!

It's been a while since I've done this, so I figured I'd offer to do a divination reading on whatever questions you think I might be able to help with from now (Sunday, December 22nd) through the end of the year. Just post your question here or send me a dreamwidth message or an email if it's private. Just one question per person, please, but follow-ups should be fine, unless I get way more folks asking than I expect.

A few things on how I tend to approach this, though we can make adjustments on a case-by-case basis, if needed:

1) The two divination systems I'm comfortable with are the Runes and the Ogham. If you have a preference, let me know, but generally speaking, I prefer the Ogham for more magical/spiritual/psychological questions (unless they're specifically Heathen), and the Runes for most practical stuff or anything directly involving the Germanic Gods and Their worship. Not that they can't both answer a full range of questions, I just tend to find them easier to interpret that way in those situations.

2) For most questions, I find some variation of a three card/stave spread in the shape of (roughly) "Past/Present/Future" or "Situation/Action/Outcome" to be most helpful. Sometimes specific questions might call for something a bit different, but when in doubt, that's what I'll go with.

3) As a slight addition to the above, when cards or Runestaves draw attention to themselves in ways I didn't intend (popping out of the deck while shuffling, two cards drawn when I meant to get one, one of the lots bouncing out of the tray I drop them in, that kind of thing), I tend to interpret that as "you need this extra information, pay attention."

4) I'll do my best to convey both the specific cards/staves I got in what positions, and what their "generic" meanings are (at least to me), but then also to synthesize everything into a whole picture. This last bit is largely intuitive, and often is more precise at the risk of being less accurate (example of what I mean: "it will rain tomorrow" is less precise than "it will rain between noon and 1:00 pm tomorrow," but if it rains at 5:00 pm, the former was more accurate because it was less precise), which is why I give the choppier/less synthesized pieces as well as how I think they fit together.

5) I'll be doing family stuff for the holidays, including a bit of travel, so please allow at least 24 hours for me to respond with an estimate on when I'll answer your question. I anticipate being able to do the reading for most within 24-48 hours of posting, but again, if way more folks take me up on this than I expect, that might change.

At any rate, ask away, and a blessed (late) Solstice, merry (early) Christmas, and happy (early) New Year!

Jeff

UPDATE 4/22/22: See bottom of entry for some further thoughts

Well, I suppose this is my first actual post to my own journal here. I mostly maintain it to participate in other communities and comment on others' posts, but I'm noodling over something and thought I might see if anyone has thoughts. I very well might post this to the next Magic Monday, but I thought I'd solicit thoughts ahead of time.

My wife and I are expecting our second daughter in October (hooray!), and because of that, I'm going to need to put any progression in ceremonial magic on hold. I was considering the Dolmen Arch as an alternative to the Druid Magic Handbook I've been working my way through, as it sounded like a good way to build on the lore and symbolism I've already learned and maintain a rigorous practice without (much) ceremonial magic.

So, I did an Ogham spread for the question "Should I take up the Dolmen Arch course while I put the DMH on pause?" and got the following:

• Situation: Quert
• Work: Ailm (Reversed)
• Outcome: Tinne (Reversed)

Whatever else this is, it seems like a pretty clear "no". I read it as "I've got what I need, but I'm missing it and need to pay more attention and work out a better way forward with what I've got to hand, very possibly because I'm misunderstanding what my true goal is/ought to be."

As such, I'm thinking I might be better off meditating my way through all of the Ogham correspondences, pathworking the wheel of the year, and otherwise exploring the non-ceremonial parts of the DMH, while keeping up with the Earth and Sun path stuff in the Druidry Handbook.

Obviously, I'll have to work this one out for myself with thinking, meditation, and divination, but if anything from the above jumps out at you as an especially good or bad idea, or if I've gotten the reading entirely wrong, I'd appreciate hearing so.

Any and all thoughts decidedly welcome!

Update 4/22/22

Thanks to sdi and aelric for your comments, and if anyone has further thoughts, those would still be helpful. I ended up casting more readings throughout the week, each building on the previous results:

Question 1 (4/20/22): "Should I set aside the DMH and its work while my kids are too young for advanced magic?"
- Setting: Ur
- Work: Huath (Reversed)
- Outcome: Saille

My Take: I've got a strong spiritual base, and moving forward I'll need flexibility, but it would be rash to set aside the DMH entirely.

Question 2 (4/21/22): "Should I keep up with the safe work from the DMH while my kids are too young for advanced magic?"
- Setting: Nuin
- Work: Ur
- Outcome: Coll (Reversed)

My Take: There is a wider world of context and connection around me I need to be paying attention to, and doing the work of the DMH will provide plenty of spiritual richness (note the repetition of Ur, here), but if this is all that I do, I'll run into creative blockages, perhaps holding myself back through fear of failure.


Question 3 (4/22/22): "Should I combine the Dolmen Arch with my DMH study while my kids are too young to safely do ceremonial magic?"
- Setting: Koad
- Work: Duir
- Outcome: Tinne

My Take: There is great possibility and capacity for freedom around me, and I have the strength needed to follow this path. Doing so might result in some challenges/conflicts, but if I am decisive and bold, those can go my way.

Commentary on the process: This might look like nitpicking or asking the same question in slightly different ways, but for me, at least, I've found the Ogham to be pretty well suited to these kinds of narrowing-down/circling around the main point kind of questions. It does seem to be important to take each answer seriously, and for any subsequent questions to build on previous ones, but or lack of a better way to put it, the Ogham seems to "like" exploring the same general idea from different angles, especially if it's a question of spiritual relevance.

In this case, I began with an overloaded question: "Should I take up the Dolmen Arch course while I put the DMH on pause?" This 1) assumed I should put the DMH on pause and replace it with something else, and 2) assumed that replacement ought to be the Dolmen Arch. Realizing it was overloaded (with some help from commenters!) led me to test those assumptions. First, "should I put the DMH on pause?" and then when I got a seeming "no" to that question, just to be extra clear "so, I should keep up with the DMH, then?" which got me a "yes, but. . ." And then, based on Aelric's comment, I got back to specifics and asked "Okay, so is the thing I should combine with it the DA?" and got what looks like almost as close to an unqualified "yes" as I know to look for from a 3-card spread in Ogham.

Anyhow, again, if anyone sees any glaring errors in the above, I'd love to hear about them, and even if not, I hope that explaining my process gives some helpful insight to someone.