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  era
(pronounced YEH-rah) originally represented
the sound of English y (or German j)
in
runic writing. The name means "year", and carries a
connotation of harvest and the completion of a
cycle of seasons. In the Nordic languages,
its name was ár, translated as
"plenty":
Plenty
boon to men
and good summer
and thriving crops.
(Icelandic
Rune Poem)
Plenty
is a boon to men;
I say that Frothi was generous.
(Norwegian
Rune Poem)
The
later, Christianized Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem carries
on this theme with the expected substitution of
deities:
Summer
is a joy to men, when God, the holy King of
Heaven,
suffers the earth to bring forth shining fruits
for rich and poor alike.
The
shape of the rune itself even suggests the cycle of
seasons. In the agrarian economies of early
northern Europe, everything depended on the
harvest. It was a time when the struggles and
labors of winter, planting, and summer were finally
rewarded with a harvest of grain and vegetables
that would provide the staple foods for the rest of
the year.
Not
surprisingly, we find a strong sense of gratitude
associated with this rune. Despite all the effort
that is put into the raising of crops, many things
can go wrong, and the final harvest (when it was
bountiful) must often have seemed like a divine
gift rather than an inevitable product of human
labor.
It's
hard not to think of the verses from Ecclesiastes
(or their rendition into the popular 60's folk
song):
To
every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which
is planted;
We
have, unfortunately, somewhat lost touch with this
understanding of the cyclic nature of life, having
replaced it with a linear, "bigger and better
forever" notion of progress. The autumn harvest
depends on winter fallow, the spring planting, and
the summer tending - each phase of the cycle makes
its contribution to the whole. During some phases
of time, we are giving, putting our energy and
effort into a project, a relationship, or an
education. At other time, we receive the rewards of
these efforts, and need to remember to approach the
season of reward with a sense of gratitude and an
understanding of its place in the cycle.
When
this rune appears in your divination work, ask
yourself the following questions:
- Am
I planting, tending, harvesting, or
resting?
- How
do I show gratitude for what I am
receiving?
- What
is coming to fruition?
- Do
I welcome the cycles of change, or resist
them?
- How
do I share the blessings I
receive?
In
spiritual work, jera can lend itself to a
contemplation of the cycles of time, much like the
Wheel of Fortune card in the tarot. It can help us
appreciate the unity behind change, the deep
patterns of growth and decay that play out over and
over again with the passage of time. You can also
use this rune to explore your personal relationship
with abundance and gratitude.
The
rune jera can be used magically to bring a cycle to
a fruitful closure, to bring about abundance,
bounty, and the gifts of nature and spirit.
Remember that the harvest is also a time of ending,
when the life force in the grain is released, to be
returned to the Earth after winter has passed. Jera
creates reward, but it also creates
change.
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