# Thurisaz

Traditional meaning: giant

Meanings when upright:

- destruction of illusions and obstacles
- ferality / wild hunger with moral ambivalence
- creative chaos
- stubborn aggressive endurance
- proteanism
- unskilled brutal person

Meanings when inverted:

- control over one's shifting
- protection from going feral
- need for a change of situation
- self-destructive tendencies
- defenselessness/danger
- misery in relations with the opposite sex

Thurisaz can be useful for:

- breaking down boundaries
- healing in extreme circumstances
- bringing hidden issues to light
- granting oneself courage
- destruction of enemies
- awakening of the will to action

Anglo-Saxon rune poem:

> Ðorn byþ ðearle scearp; ðegna gehwylcum
> anfeng ys yfyl, ungemetum reþe
> manna gehwelcum, ðe him mid resteð.

> The thorn is exceedingly sharp,
> an evil thing for any knight to touch,
> uncommonly severe on all who sit among them.

Norwegian rune poem:

> Þurs vældr kvinna kvillu;
> kátr værðr fár af illu.

> Giant causes anguish to women;
> misfortune makes few men cheerful.

A modern poem:

> The only language I seem to understand
> is your fingertips tracing hearts on my hands,
> ragged fingertips, pincers, claws
> held in the thrall
> of forever-now.
> Staring straightly
> blankly
> ahead
> as falls away the thread
> of memories episodic.
> You. I know you.
> I know you're my wife,
> a lover, a friendly face,
> oasis of refuge, unharmful place.
> That I belong to you, somehow.

> Wearing anything other than my angelic skin
> shuts off that part of the brain that insists
> I committed
> some heinous crime
> that can never ever ever be forgiven.
> Nay, the crimes themselves do not exist,
> and neither do I, eternal now, eternal blue.
> Computing set with limited instructions.
> This man I do hate, must tear out his soul.
> In this place I exhale and turn myself to stone.
> Spear I must escape lest it tear out my guts whole.
> This woman I trust, pay my life for her protection.

> Clawed mangled hands open and shut,
> brought to twisting knees before your altar.
> Surrender sometimes goes by the name "love".
> Ribbons wrap tight. I'm a birthday present, flash
> of a scrapbooking camera, epilepsy, timelapse.
> Trembling from transition. Antlered head in your lap.
> One day the Veil will one final time falter,
> my claws run ragged through,
> memories held as collateral for passport
> to slink back to the side of you.