I had difficulty "feeling" Ansuz, when it came time to focus. The fourth letter in the Elder Futhark, I kept forgetting about it. Its rune kinda looks like a drooping pine. All I knew about it was that it represented "sacred speech," and right off the bat, my wife got into a shouting match about I-don't-remember-what, but I took that to be an inauspicious start.
Oh, I remember. She was feeling down about herself, and I still had Uruz tromping around inside me and decided I'd speak up against her self-slander. She wasn't in the mood to hear that, though, but I didn't back down. That's a form of "sacred speech," naming things truly. I reminded her who she is, I questioned the environment she found herself in, and I enforced how I see her. I may have said some of this in a less-than-graceful way, which may have come off like criticism, which would be counter-productive.
Unholy Speech
That's what I bring to Ansuz. A friend of mine once said that I "don't just stir the pot, he kicks it over." When I was clubbing, I wouldn't let gossip float around. I'd confront the person who spread it, and I'd talk to the person it was about, because that was the simplest way for me to learn what was what. That didn't make me very popular, and gods know I loved sharing in gossip as well, I was no noble figure in the goth/industrial scene. I was described as a force of nature, and as we know in Scandi myth, that can be good or bad, and even when it's bad it's still necessary or else inevitable.
Everyone tells themselves that they're the truth-bringer, they spill the tea. I saw someone online explaining "spill the tea" to their mother, who (allegedly) responded, "Well, just remember that tea stains, so be careful where you spill it." People love to cast themselves as the only truth-teller, the agent provocateur when everyone else is being false or holding up pretenses. It's also a truism that if you step back and watch them for a day, they're at least as guilty as everyone else of the behavior they condemn. All you can do, then, is watch yourself diligently. Catch yourself when you're about to spread a rumor, nail yourself to the wall when you're about to swallow something that needs to be said. Of course, in this highly charged political environment, many people have very strong ideas about what "needs" to be said, especially when they haven't thought about their message very hard.
Important Speech
Ansuz represents the mouth of Óðinn, the wisdom and poetry that flows from it. It represents the brackish inlet of water that feeds several rivers, where you load up your boat and adventure begins. It represents the deity, God, the All-Father, Jupiter ("Io Pater," God the Father), all that good stuff. Holding onto Ansuz means knowing what you're talking about before you speak (loading your ships), pausing to use the most apt and powerful words to make people hear your message, and calling upon your higher self to speak wisely and with compassion.
This doesn't mean your shots will land, but that's not what this practice is about. You shouldn't wait to speak up only when you're assured of success; you say what needs to be said, whether you need to get it out of you or someone else needs to hear it. Even if they're not ready to hear it. All the time, we see these sunny, flowery little memes going around about "my best friend died and I never got to tell them I loved them, so make sure your friends know you love them." You know what happens when I try to tell someone what they mean to me? They back the fuck away. That's not how people talk, day to day. You can't jump into that kind of relationship just because you've been made aware of your own mortality.
On the other hand, it's never wrong to tell someone you love them, to tell them what they mean to you. Even if they act like you're a freak and cut you off for a few months (or forever). It's never wrong to share love, real love, to let someone know that they're important to you, that they've had a positive influence on your life, and you'd miss them if they were gone. If they can't handle that, that's on them. Ansuz says that if the public square doesn't want to hear you, you build your own temple instead—or at least write it to yourself in a journal or notebook. It has to be said, even if no one actually hears it. Ansuz is the living voice that pierces the silence, the sound that so many deities uttered to compel themselves into being and start the ball rolling on creating reality.
What Ansuz taught me: Don't let fear keep you silent. You are physical motion as much as you are the swinging vibrations through the air when you speak. Life is motion and noise and heat; death is stillness and quiet and cold. Find your voice and use it, even if your little online community holds it against you, even if people you liked and respected start viewing you askance. You've got to be you, loudly you, purely you.