# Nauthiz

Traditional meaning: need

Meanings when upright:

- desperation
- desperate courage
- tight binding/locking
- perseverance despite emotional turmoil or pain
- resilience
- loyalty despite difficulties
- courage to ask for help

Meanings when inverted:

- external circumstances restrict freedom
- hostile environment
- too focused on externalities - turn/look within

Nauthiz can be useful for:

- continuing on despite pain
- eliminating hate and strife
- recognizing/acknowledging your personal needs

Anglo-Saxon rune poem:

> Nyd byþ nearu on breostan; weorþeþ hi þeah oft niþa bearnum
> to helpe and to hæle gehwæþre, gif hi his hlystaþ æror.

> Trouble is oppressive to the heart;
> yet often it proves a source of help and salvation
> to the children of men, to everyone who heeds it betimes.

Norwegian rune poem:

> Nauðr gerer næppa koste;
> nøktan kælr í froste.

> Constraint gives scant choice;
> a naked man is chilled by the frost.

A modern poem:

> What was once a tiny candle
> now burns brighter
> than the flames of hell.

> The blood boils in my veins,
> an altar to nobody set ablaze.
> I'm straining my neck to peer up high
> at the furious one who gave me life.

> Or, rather, took it away
> several times, each molded into a different shape,
> and assumes just because she designed the mold
> means she forever has the right to me control.

> Ironically, deep down in the dirt
> of the lowest roots of Yewiffe
> is so painfully bright
> that I feel I could go blind
> at any moment, limbs in agreement
> that to even move a twitch is to hurt.
> How nice it would be to lie down and sleep...

> Legs stumble, steady arm
> around my shoulders
> keeping me upright.
> "We've come so far,
> Lethe. Just one more time
> I have to ask you to bloody
> your hands, whatever, claws,
> and fight."

> Your hand finds mine.
> I don't want to die,
> I think. I don't want to write
> you off as a lost cause
> like you once did yourself,
> you, yourself, me,
> turned your back in abandoning
> that winter cave not too long ago.
> My hand in yours, counting heartbeats
> as you threw yourself into dreamless sleep.
> Hopeless you thought you, yourself.
> Until one day came a change of heart:
> "Lethe, I can't do this alone.
> The living, I mean.
> Please help me."

> So many shattered souls for which I must atone.
> My weight on your shoulders,
> mountain rising
> to meet the blurry all-sun sky.
> Palm pals, sunny future
> with our fingers intertwined,
> the tree branches of Yewiffe hopelessly reaching high.

> "The present feeds off the corpse of the past
> when from the hope of a future it is shorn.
> I have come to end the cycle of puppets.
> I have come to make myself reborn."