THE WOMANRUNES DECK
You can create a set of Womanrunes yourself, by either forming them out of clay, wood-burning them on wooden discs, or by painting or engraving them on stones. Indeed, Mountainwater encouraged they be created in this format. But for convenience’s sake, I have re-created them in card-deck form here. Also, there was a beautiful antique graphic I wanted to use on a project sometime, and this deck seemed like the perfect opportunity.
I have tried to respect Shekinah Mountainwater’s original design of these runes, but sometimes I have favored Molly Remer’s design. You’ll note that I’ve positioned a card-back design page after each page of eight cards, so those with a double-sided printer can do a straight run-through of the first twelve pages of the PDF. For those with a single-sided printer, you’re going to have to print a page of cards, then manually flip the page over and print the next page. The last page of cards has four blanks in case you ever need to replace a card. The thirteenth page in this PDF is the box I designed to hold the cards.
A good way of getting to know any new oracle deck you acquire is by drawing a daily omen from said-deck, which I’ve been doing. Remer says her students who’ve worked with the Womanrunes report it, “has a distinct sense of humor. They like to play little jokes and they’re cheeky.” Another phenomenon Remer and other users report is a ‘cosmic wink’ card will crop up for them when using this deck. A cosmic wink card is one particular card which turns up whenever you need a nudge, a reminder, a boost of encouragement, or an affirmation that you’re on the right track. Think of it as an ‘in-joke’ between Goddess and you.
From the brief experience I’ve had drawing a daily omen from this deck, every day’s omen-card has been on-target for me. Sometimes I need to reflect more on the omen card, but its meaning inevitably becomes clear. The word ‘rune’ originally meant ‘secret’, but it has also come to mean ‘a poem, a charm or a spell.’ Runes, by their very nature, have multiple layers of meaning, so meditating on them is encouraged and necessary, in order to extract their full meaning. Each card will have a sets of words under the rune, but you may find yourself having to free-associate and expand on their original meanings.
For example, the meanings associated with The Cauldron are Alchemy, Temperance, Centeredness, Discipline, Art, and Containment. But given that a variety of disparate ingredients are brought together in it to create something greater than the sum of its parts, it can be taken to represent a convention, a group effort, a compromise or ‘hashing things out.’ Containment can also mean self-control, regardless of what is brewing within, so it can be referring to a person who is calm on the outside, while a great deal of activity is going on within. The Moonboat is ordinarily the rune of Journeys, but since it depicts one person in a boat, it can indicate a person who feels isolated. Your interpretation will depend on your perception of the situation you’re reading about.