When I first saw Gebo, it was hard to recognize it as an ancient rune. It’s just an X: two crossed lines, the simplest possible etch to make (other than Isa). The other runes looked mystical, ancient, some a little eerie and laden with meaning. This symbol was common, I grew up with it everywhere.
- X marked the location of treasure on a map.
- When placed on someone’s eyes, it denoted intoxication or death.
- It was the enemy of circles in Tic-Tac-Toe.
- It signified kisses where O’s were hugs at the bottom of a letter.
- It was a quick way to mar someone’s image in a yearbook.
- Turn it 45 degrees, and it became a religious symbol, useful against vampires.
- In the club or at a bar, a big black X on the back of your hand meant no one should even think of bothering you with offers of alcohol, drugs, or sex.
As symbols go, you couldn’t really claim it as your own. It was ubiquitous, everybody owned it. Two sticks falling on the ground had a good chance of forming it. If I was at a party and someone pulled up their sleeve to point to a tattoo’d X on their arm, telling me in heavy tones that this symbol means something significant to them, it would’ve been up to me to make a break for the bathroom or else get locked into 90 minutes of extremely tedious flashbacks and dime-store revelations.
But it had its place in the runes, which all looked like they could’ve been savagely hacked into a bough with an ax or a knife—sorry, a seax—or ground into stone without the finesse of curves, swoops, or whorls. Thematically it belonged, I wouldn’t speak against it there.
It took me three months to finally complete this process of learning Gebo. “The trick to good procrastination is getting started on it right away.” Actually, I feel like my whole rune-learning exercise is a sham: I just tested myself, and I could only draw five of the first six runes, though I could name them all … I guess that’s not bad. I sure as fuck know Gebo’s the seventh, after all this time.
To remind myself of the rune I’m meditating on, at each turn, I keep one in my pocket. This is from a set of leather runes made by my brother-in-law: he cut the tiles in excitingly irregular shapes, double-layered them so they wouldn’t curl or warp, and I burned the runes into them under the Hunter’s Moon last year with a pyrograph (wood-burning pen). It was all a thrilling, charging process, and I haven’t had that kind of magic in my life since. Gebo’s been with me so long—in my pocket, lost on the floor, handled frequently, through the wash—that if I laid my runes face-down, you could pick it out by being the darkest and a little shinier than the others. I guess that’s okay. I anticipate some runes will get scratched and scuffed, get a little blood on them, before I’ve gone through the whole futhark.
What I've Received
So let’s start talking about exchanges. The leather tiles, and the swank pouch they came in, were a gift from my brother-in-law. He makes bags and accessories out of good, thick leather, with a collection of vintage cast-iron sewing machines that could punch through a bull. He made these for me simply because I asked him to, no payment, nothing. (I fully intend to draw up an online marketing campaign for his cottage business.) That’s how that side of the family is, and that’s another gift. These are wonderful, loving, boisterous people who aren’t afraid of arguments and value big spreads of food. Quite different from my own family, where arguments were the cracks in the ice that led to divorce (or many divorces), where love was tacitly understood, if it was there at all, and you just ate and swallowed a lot of shit for years and years. My poor wife, having to teach me how to express myself, how to give of myself, and how to let love inside me.
That’s a Gebo exchange, a sticky hurdle to surpass, learning to let someone else love you and identify how that feels. Sometimes I don’t feel any different at all, and sometimes I recall these memories with her, and I drop everything and find her wherever she is and grab her, burying my face into her neck, as though the world were about to end. Growing up, I believed I was too broken for anyone to deal with. I never believed I could get married, I’d just get drunk and play World of Warcraft until a collection agency found my moldering remains. Connecting with her wasn’t settling for anything: I was punching way above my weight class. All I had to do was keep my shit together and meet a baseline decency to keep her, and I think I’ve done that. Mostly.
My wife’s a real gift. She joked/not-joked that Gebo was taking so long because of all the problems in our own relationship, the things we’re still figuring out after 17 years. I understand what she means, but I really don’t believe that’s the case. I don’t think it was bad feng shui that kept this rune from flowing through my hands. It’s my own struggle with follow-through, being intimidated by a large project, feeling no support externally while undertaking it, though of course that’s the wrong reason to do something.
I also write short fiction, and I’ve kinda got one foot in a community for these stories, and a lot of writers feel discouraged because people just consume. There’s maybe a 1:10 ratio of creators to consumers in the community, and those are active accounts. Kick that up to 1:20 or 1:30 if you want to factor the lurkers who are too ashamed of their interests or hate the idea of owing anybody anything. That’s the sickness of Gebo: some people giving because they have to, and an inordinate number of people who take, with an allergy for reciprocity. In a case like this, my advice to writers is to please reject any notion of popularity or acclaim. Write because you love writing, focus on how amazing it feels to see your fantasies on paper, and then send that gift out into the world without expecting anything. Over a long period of time, yes, maybe you’ll start to attract your birds of a feather.
If you give with the intent of receiving something, you only stand to wound yourself when other people don’t live up to this imaginary contract. The creation itself has to be your gift to you, to see it existing and real instead of swirling around in your head. With your body and your imagination, you created something, and your prize is the thing itself (not to mention the new neural pathways you forged to keep doing this). And don’t make the mistake of railing against the cold, unfeeling universe—like I have, repeatedly—that no one appreciates you and your gifts are wasted, because that’s a real injury to the quiet little group of people who’ve been following you all this time, whose words of encouragement you’re not recalling in this moment of existential anguish.
What I've Given
What do I give? I’ve been in a depressive cycle for a couple weeks, so don’t trust this answer, but I give what people need rather than what I wish I could give. People’s eyes glaze over when I talk about my latest passion, currently Old Norse myths and giantess-worship, but before this it was studying North Korea and everything that could be known about it. No one shares my passion with me, certainly no one asks me about it, so my gift is to shut the fuck up about it. Once in a while I’ll toss something out on Bluesky, but it’s not wanted or needed there, though I’m spared the sight of anyone rolling their eyes.
My gifts to my wife are being tall, so I can reach things in the cupboards for her. Being strong, so I can haul the AC up the stairs each summer and back down in autumn. Being loyal, so she knows she can rely on me and I will never abandon her, for any reason. I will never leave her alone, like so many powerful and successful men do to their partners. Scrubbing out the bathroom and scooping out the cat litter, which she dislikes. I'll take a free evening and do all the dishes and scour the kitchen, haul out the trash and recycling and compost, sweep and mop the hallway. Anything to relieve her burden and let her discover and express herself, because I need her to be happy. She wouldn't leave me, either, but I don't want her to feel chained to a big mistake.
My gifts to my mom are tending to her medications, driving her to her checkups, collecting her from the hospital after a spill, performing all the household chores she requires. She’s grateful, and that’s what’s so different from the mom I grew up with. Back then, I would’ve gotten a snippy castigation for doing something the wrong way, not doing it soon enough or often enough. Now, she has real gratitude in her eyes when I change the bulbs, tear up the dead tomato plants, trim the hedge out front, reconnect the wireless printer, or assemble her new walker. Her gratitude even pushes past her sadness at her spreading incapability to do these things. That gratitude’s a gift. We’re both different people than we were growing up, and that’s absolutely for the best. Where we are now is a gift, even if it doesn’t feel like it in an hour-long round-trip into Trump country.
Yeah, gifts, generosity, and relationships. I get it, and I have plenty to say on it. Bring on the next rune.
ᛞᛖᛏᛖ ᛖᚱ ᚹᚨ ᚺᚨᚾ ᚺᛖᚱ ᛊᚲᚱᛖᚹᛖᛏ || ᛊᛖᛚᚹ ᛟᛗ ᚹᛁ ᛃᚲᛖ ᛏᚱᛟᚱ ᛈᛟ ᛞᛖᛏ