Othala

“We inherit ourselves.”

Othala – “Oh-thall-ah” – Literally: “Homeland” or “Ancestral Lot” – Esoteric: Inheritance, estate, noble

Rune of anscetral spiritual power, divine inheritance and earthly estate.

The Elder Futhark Odal rune (ᛟ), also known as the Othala rune, represents the o sound. Its reconstructed Proto-Germanic name is *ōþalan "heritage; inheritance, inherited estate".

It was in use for epigraphy during the 3rd to the 8th centuries. It is not continued in the Younger Futhark, disappearing from the Scandinavian record around the 6th century, but it survived in the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, and expressed the Old English œ phoneme during the 7th and 8th centuries. Its name is attested as ēðel in the Anglo-Saxon manuscript tradition.

The rune is encoded in Unicode at codepoint U+16DF: ᛟ.

Runic Number: 23

Meaning: Family. Home or Homeland. Heart. Inheritance. Possesions. Estate.

Translation: Possesion. Hereditary land.

Gemstone: Spinel

Color: Deep Yellow

Polarity: Male

Element: Earth

Gods: Odin

Astrology correspondence: Full Moon

Tree: Hawthorn

Plant: Clover

Psi: ancestral spiritual power

Energy: ancestral spiritual power, inheritance, heaven on earth, “The gift of Ing”, paradise, utopia

Mundane: household, estate, inheritance

Divinations: A home or estate, group prosperity, group order, freedom, productive interaction; or lack of customary order, totalitarianism, slavery, poverty, homelessness, xenophobia, racism, genocide.


Governs:

Rightful inheritance from ancestral holdings
Collection of numinous power and knowledge from past generations
Acquisitions of wealth and property
Right understanding of global unity
Security, safety, protection, the walls of Asgard
Ascension to King amongst men
Realization of Paradise


Othala deals with matters of family, estate, inheritance and ancestry. Both Fehu and Othala are runes of wealth and continue the cyclical nature of the runes by their positions as first and last. The difference is that Fehu represents mobile expansive force of money as well as new beginnings and Othala represents the permanent wealth of immobile property accumulated by yourself and your ancestors over generations, which is clearly the continuation of a long line back to the beginning.

You have several ancestral stream to explore before you find the one or two that are dominant in your blood. Identify your natural talents and explore the ancestral stream that would have contributed those talents to you. There is a spirit or breath that has been passed on to you from many sources as well as your genetic makeup.

The weight of virtuous deeds of past generations tends to accumulate within a family tree over the generations, like being stored in an etheric energy ‘battery’. Part of your inheritance, yours for the taking, is to claim some of that energy for use in this lifetime. You must find what provisions you must agree to for its payback into the ancestral stream as you become one of the ‘ancestors’ yourself. Such a contribution will likely be in the form of a virtuous deed on your part during this lifetime.

You may find that there is a deficiency of energy due to non-virtuous deeds of certain ancestors, at which time you should seek the last link at which there were surplus energies. As a major player, you will be aided by honorable ancestors, who would see the breach restored and ‘things set right’.

The ultimate realization of Othala in the rune progression is heaven-on-earth, and the homecoming of the Savior and this is why I favor it as the final rune of the cycle, over any Dagaz-ending theories. The ultimate enlightenment is liberation and transcendence from the Self. Othala means that we take responsibility for our own destinies, that the future is a continual movement toward paradise, an alignment of the inner-compass toward heaven on earth.

My belief is that Othala signals the final and eternal beauty of heaven, and the love for one’s home. It signals a transcendence of geography, both planetary and astronomical. It is the individual and family risen above cultural and spiritual inheritance and the establishment of new fundamentals. Indeed, this rune signifies the inheritance by the whole of humanity of the planet itself, the restoration of the planet to its harmonious and sustainable state, and the inherent responsibilities thereof. It is the shift from basically existential modes of existence to humanistic, even divine modes and that is why I believe it to be in the correct position as the final rune.’