In the Elder Futhark, the rune Gebo (Gyfu in the Younger Futhark) is often described as "gift", but also characterised as signifying partnerships and sacrifice. In part, this is because when one gives a gift, it is an exchange that often comes with an obligation.
If I was to pinch an example from some material I am writing on runes at the moment, I could say that the Universe (or Deity, if you prefer) has gifted to us the planet Earth to enable us to have life. In turn, we are obligated to keep the planet in a habitable condition (and not doing too well at that, at the moment).
Ideally, gifts are supposed to be given freely, out of love, and with no expectation of return. However, try not giving presents in most families at Christmas time, and see what happens - or, a perhaps better analogy might be, try giving something of significantly lesser value than you receive and see what the reaction (possibly in terms of future failure to help ...) is.
Gifts in the not-ideal world are too often not given in a pure, ideal sense: there will, at some level, often be an expectation of return.
If I go back to the old northern European cultures, leaders such as kings were expected to be generous - for instance, to give valuable, ornate rings to those who swore oaths of loyalty. In return, those who had received the gift were expected to deliver on their promise of loyalty.
If I may borrow a term, pragmatically speaking, gifts are often viewed as a form of social capital - that is, they help to build social networks (the idea being, if someone gives you a gift, you will think favourably of them).
Most of the time, that is OK. Some times, it is not - and hence the recent developments, for example, in training on business ethics to overcome (or at least minimise) problems such as bribery and corruption.
And that leads me to the main point I wish to cover in this post: the energy that is potentially attached to gifts.
If the gift has been given in true generosity, and was manufactured, handled and transported by a pack of advanced souls who were all in good moods and knew enough to keep it protected from nearby, less salubrious energy [2] , then the gift will have nothing "bad" energetically attached to it ... but it still may have energy that is not harmonious with yours.
One of the major points people forget about when talking about protection is that it is not just against "evil" (oooh, shiver! shake!), it is also against energies that are quite fine, but simply clash with your energy, in much the same way that two colours/sounds/scents may clash.
If the gift has been given with an ulterior motive (and wanting to force another person to like you is an ulterior motive called "control" [1] ), that energy will saturate the gift.
In all cases of gifts from anyone other than close family (and, in same cases, sadly, even them, given the abuse that happens in too many families), I would recommend you give serious consideration to the implications that go with accepting a gift. If you are satisfied that this is not a bribe or similar, and hence you will not be ethically compromised by accepting it, you then need to consider what to do about the energy of that gift - keeping in mind the energy may not be "bad" but it may still be incompatible with your energy.
I would recommend that you seriously consider cleansing the gift. Try looking up some of the techniques I talk about for cleansing crystals (see here for my workshop notes) and choose one or more that will not harm the gift.
The idea is to keep going, possibly over a period of time, until they are cleared.
Then ... check that the gift has been adequately cleared. Ideally, you would use your psychic impressions to do so, or perhaps a pendulum [3] , muscle testing or simply by noting carefully how you feel. Be prepared to review whether you need to clear this again at a future date, whether because it has been recontaminated or wasn't fully cleared or you have become more sensitive.
Be safe :)
Love, light, hugs and blessings
Gnwmythr
This post's photo is the face of a rune set of cards I made (I also used this for the relevant shrine over at nshrine).
Notes:
- See here and here.
- But see my post here ...
- hmmm ... might need to do a post on that one day ... but in the meantime, see here, or read Lobsang Rampa's book "Candlelight" (pages 12 - 29 inclusive, so the section is reasonably comprehensive)
Tags: control, protection, society, personal responsibility, runes, Lobsang Rampa, pendulum,
First published: Sunnudagr, 2nd January, 2011
Last edited: Sunday, 2nd January, 2011
