# Isa

Traditional meaning: ice

Meanings when upright:

- stillness and quiet
- silent contemplation
- the world that sleeps within
- boundaries of the soul
- individuation
- abeyance / temporary respite

Meanings when inverted:

- reclusion
- emotional coldness
- a situation with no change in sight
- stagnation
- a weakened will
- inability to concentrate

Isa can be useful for:

- finding a quiet place to concentrate
- casting a personal shield
- guarding against soul loss

Anglo-Saxon rune poem:

> Is byþ ofereald, ungemetum slidor,
> glisnaþ glæshluttur gimmum gelicust,
> flor forste geworuht, fæger ansyne.

> Ice is very cold and immeasurably slippery;
> it glistens as clear as glass and most like to gems;
> it is a floor wrought by the frost, fair to look upon.

Norwegian rune poem:

> Ís ko,llum brú bræiða;
> blindan þarf at læiða.

> Ice we call the broad bridge;
> the blind man must be led.

A modern poem:

> Metaclysma,
> inter-world void.
> No touch, no voice,
> silhouette of black,
> all other senses in lack.
> Just eternal light.

> I come to with limbs bound tight
> in open silk-lined coffin.
> Space between flight
> from Eris's explosion
> into metaclysma and now
> left unwritten, just as blank.
> Lights made dim as to not stain
> my vision with a single face
> of clergy self-proclaimed
> caretakers, unworthy to be named.
> To them, I think, I am a saint,
> a goddess who made sacrifice
> to give them this world that once was spring
> but now sleeps under blanket of ice.

> Tomorrow steeps my Holiday
> where come commoners to pray
> to the casket where I've lain
> these five years, apparently,
> for grace
> or their fates to change.
> Body strewn over a bed
> in a darkened room, rubbing
> my limbs to regain
> five years of feeling,
> halfway sedate
> to keep aches from constructing
> a tower in my head.
> Maybe they wanted to reach the empty heavens
> too, drop a rock to bust open the frozen canyons.

> Jett,
> I had not the strength
> to your gentle hand hold on.
> I suppose
> I can only hope
> you're haunting somewhere in these halls,
> found a way these five years to cope
> with this world I made for you but did not survive
> to share. I think, unless I am deceived, I am alive
> now, again, yours forever.
> If you'll still have me as your wife.
> If you'll still live with me on that mountainside.