Category Archives: Health

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Runes: The ultimate toolbox for self-care

How do you practice self-care?

~ Runes: The ultimate toolbox for self-care ~


Have you ever felt a nagging sense of needing to prioritize your well-being? That inner nudge is your unconscious mind urging you to focus on self-care. True well-being encompasses physical, mental, and spiritual aspects. Self-care is simply the act of creating time for practices that nurture you and promote growth.


For me, the ancient practice of runes has become a powerful tool for self-discovery and actualization. Runes are a set of symbols, each with rich meanings that touch upon various aspects of life. Rune practice offers a unique blend of techniques to create a holistic approach to well-being.
Enhancing physical well-being rune yoga combines postures that mimic the shapes of the runes with focused breathing exercises and concentration. This gentle practice brings the body and breath into harmony, promoting physical well-being.
To sharpen sharpen the Mind and reframing t houghts rune meditation incorporates mantras (chants) and visualization. Focusing on these mantras fosters a positive mindset and helps reframe negative thought patterns.
Spiritually the runes are gateways for exploring our inner world and purpose. The runes hold a symbolic language that delves into life’s deeper questions about purpose, destiny, and the interconnectedness of all things. Contemplating these symbolic meanings can bring a sense of peace and connection to something larger than oneself leading to inner coherency, integrity and  harmful my of being.
Rune practice has become my personal toolbox for self-care. It offers a unique blend of physical postures, breathing exercises, meditation, and exploration of deeper meanings. If you’re looking for a way to nurture your well-being on all levels, consider embarking on your own journey of self-discovery with the runes.

© Jurgens Pieterse. All rights reserved. 2024.

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~ Gratitude for the body~

What an exquisite pleasure to move within my body! My thoughts and feelings swirl, but I take a deep breath and focus on my body. It is my constant companion, my loyal servant, and my trusted guide.

I am grateful for my body’s strength, endurance, and flexibility. It sustains me, even when I am tired. It gives me courage, even when I am afraid. It is carnal and temporary, but it is also an inspiration and miracle. I am amazed by the way my body can transform itself through exercise and diet. It is a testament to the power of the human body.

I often value my thoughts and shelter my emotions, but my body, present in the moment, carries both. It is through my body that I experience the world, with all its beauty and pain. This is a gift, and I must not take it for granted.

My body is here in the present moment, serving me with its own delights. I can feel the sun on my skin, the wind in my hair, and the taste of coffee on my tongue and the smoothing flow of soft music into my ears. I am spoiled by my senses, and I am grateful for each and every one.

My body will communicate its own state of health through pain, tension, and tiredness. I must just take time to listen. I must honor my body’s needs and give it the care it deserves; the nurturing needed to function optimally with elegance and grace.

The body also gives me the pleasure of fitness and mobility; needed to breathe and to navigate this physical world. I breathe deeply and relax in the comfort of my body. I am more grateful than ever for this energy serving me.

Are you listening to your body? Stop criticizing your body with a negative body image. Take the time today to thank your body for it’s service through some love and pampering.

© Jurgens Pieterse, 2023, All rights reserved.

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UR: I am aware of the cause of causes

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UR is the second rune in the Armanen Futhork, associated with the power of healing. I discovered in my own journey that as I gravitated towards a more esoteric approach, I also got more interested in the healing arts. Today I am an internationally qualified TRE (Trauma/Tension Release Exercises) facilitator and Reiki master. I studied healing modalities in mysticism and I am practicing Yoga, Tai Chi, Qi-gong and mindfullness meditation as a healing modalities. I practice the art of vowel sounds and the six healing healing sounds on a regular basis to maintain my health. For healing to work optimally the base must be in place eating, drinking, sleeping, exercise and correct breathing with moderation is essential for maintaining a healthy body and mind. For the mind a philsoophy of Stoic thinking that embrace the idea of focusing on virtues can inherently improve our ability to life more healthy in life.  I can not overemphasize the value I put on moderation as a central focus for health. People do diets and training programs of all sorts and shift from the one to the other. I maintain that without a habit of moderation all these efforts will only lead to temprary results.

I am not reflecting on this to boost my self worth but rather to demonstrate that my journey is marked by a very definite change in interest in health and the importance of maintaining health as a means to improve our quality of life.  No matter how sick a person is or how bad one’s health is, we can improve our well being by being more aware of natural means available to everybody to improve the level of our health and to live optimally within our restrictions. I do not advocate that anybody must shun modern medicine or avoid their general practitioner. These healing processes is complementary and focused on maintaining a state of health for a longer period.  UR has a very special place for me in the application of the runes and its use since healing eventually becomes more important.

I postulate that the soul is characterised by reason and beauty but I have discovered more and more that “healing” or well being is also an urge of the soul. After all it is our subconsciousmind that relentlessly maintain all the involuntary functions of the body.

UR drills down to the root cause of illness. As a mystic that root cause is not the symptoms doctors use to diagnose an illeness. It is in the psychic body and with that often in the karmic memory that the true cause of an illness begins to manifest. Negative thoughts and emotions has a weakening effect on the psychic body that in turn reduces our ability to resist illness. We can drill to the root cause of an illness by following symptoms but often the true root cause lies on an energetic level of a deeper psychic level. UR is the rune that teaches us to go to these causes that you see when you elevate yourself above the physical plane and look from a metaphysical perspective.

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Healing Intent

I am the healer
I am the artist
The healer and artist are one
Healing is not just for the ill and lame
it is more than removing pain
A call for wholeness and well being
I aspire to virtuous seeing
blending coherency, harmony and balance in essence
Consciousness and conscience in presence
my body heals through movement
my mind through focus and intent
my psychic through appreciation of beauty
my soul in the creative expression of Divine Inspiration
All the parts must working as one
All forms a seamless unity
the healer heals the self to bring healing for all
the artist raises consciousness as part of its call
then the healer operates and penetrates beyond the veil
The healer-artist balances intent’s scale.

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Trauma Release Exercises

I attended an introductory talk about TRE (Trauma release Exercise) with the aim of being trained as a TRE practitioner and ultimately a TRE trainer. Part of the recommendation of the process is to maintain a diary so I decided to keep track of this journey earlier rather than trying to do it later.
We were a massive group of fifteen anxious people gathering to hear what TRE is and how it will benefit us. In essence TRE is a process of addressing stress related conditions. The theory is that the body maintains a memory of each time it experienced stress and that TRE allows a natural manner for the body to detox it from stress memories. A specific muscle is designed for the purpose of shaking off the stress. TRE follows a process of six exercises designed to fatigue some muscles starting with the legs, working up to the core muscles in the back and the waste. Once the six exercises are done a particular body position is assumed that allows for the body to start to shake naturally.
I was particularly interested in the fact that it works on the leg muscles and the back in a similar fashion as Tai Chi. The facilitator confirmed that some of the exercises was borrowed from Tai Chi and later I discovered that all the exercises are done with the legs bent. The position that starts the shaking of the body is similar to a position I have done in Yoga as the yoga bridge pose. As with most other disciplines much is made of deep breathing.
We started the exercises by putting our left hand on our heart and breathing …through the hand. This was followed by standing on one leg and moving onto your toes, a position crunching down on one leg at a time, three positions of bending forward with the legs spread wide, a sitting against a wall exercise, a bending backwards exercise and finally doing the yoga bridge pose but with the souls of the feet touching. After this the buttocks are lowered to the ground but the soles are still touching. The knees are slowly raised to find the sweet spot where the body naturally begins to tremor.
The tremor I felt was slight but definite and I soon discovered that I cannot make the tremors happen but must relax and allow it to happen all by itself. The whole process was actually comforting and it was interesting to observe the involuntary processes taking over. After a while I was told to put my feet flat on the ground and experience the tremors from that position. We lied like that for ten minutes before being told to put our legs down and push our knees down into the ground like shut down process. Then we lied in any position to allow the body and mind some time to integrate the experience.
An interesting aspect of this process is that you do not need to face or know the cause of the stress but just follow the process. I felt aware and present during the debriefing process where people discussed how they experienced the process. Apparently it is a process of self discovery and some premium is placed on self awareness. This is why journalling is an integral part of the process.