The rune carvers thought in pairs. They had a whole pronoun classification for the two that are also one, so it is no surprise to find pairs in the Rune Poem, matched thematically: the end to the beginning, then the next two, reflecting each other in pairs to the middle. With an odd number of runes the middle one stands alone. This is Eolhx, the fifteenth of twenty nine runes in the poem, the only one without an opposing pair, though there may be a pair built into it, more than one. To see it, you must do two things:
1. Center yourself in a landscape or on water with a nice view of the horizon, east and west.
2. Count the days and choose the beginning or end of the middle one as your moment. Choose both. The start or end of a day is up for debate in any case, the rune carvers started a new day at sunset though you might have other ideas.
The middle of the month, that’s the middle day you want. The middle of the lunar month specifically, the center moment of the moon’s cycle of twenty nine days, one for each rune. In twenty nine appearances of the moon from new to full and back again, the central day is day fifteen. There you are, at sunrise and moonset, and again at sunset and moonrise in a landscape or perhaps on a boat where you can see both horizons and look! There they are, the great celestial pair, appearing equal in size to your eye, don’t look at the sun, illuminating the edges of the visible world, staring right through you at each other, the sun and the full moon, on opposite horizons. The rising moon chases the setting sun now wait for morning, look, the rising sun chases the setting moon: it’s a switching of positions, a reversal of the order. A twist. You live in the house of two mothers immersed: one births the other and the other births the first.
Don’t look at the sun. You don’t need to, to see another pair. Begin at its darkest and watch the moon show up as a sliver and strengthen each night until it reaches the fullness of its power on the fifteenth day of its cycle, then as it recedes back into absence, exiled in wretchedness, it takes the opposite appearance of its approach. Look at the moon on matching days on either side of the middle. Start with night 14 and night 16 if you like, but it doesn’t matter which pair you see, it can be nights 10 and 20, 6 and 24, 3 and 27, or 1 and 29 to match the number of the runes: it’s all matched pairs of moons in the mirror, mirrored again in the rune poem, both alphabet and lunar calendar. The full moon and the new moon birth each other as twins, different and the same, approaching and twisting back from the odd one out standing alone and containing many: the source of all pairs.
