Berkanan has surprised me. It probably shouldn’t have, if I had paid attention, but it did.
The rune Berkanan (meaning Birch tree) in the modern age is associated with trees, healing, birth and rebirth. In my personal relationship with the rune it often came to me as a sign for healing magic, plant magic, and nurturing energy. However recently it has come to me with its elements of renewal and reincarnation. It is one thing to understand these as associations with the rune, it is another to be shown through your own experience with it.
Originally coming to me through a poem about a student grieving the death of their spiritual teacher, the lesson also started to feel like someone looking to their past life. Realizing they are now the elder responsible for taking up the job that was left behind, there will be a shift in their role and perspective. While in the past they could always seek higher council and advice, a time comes when they must stand on their own and serve the next generation. This dynamic is present in past lives /current life relationships as well.
When looking to past lives, they are often viewed as this exciting thing to explore with so much potential. Were you royalty? A romantic with an exciting story? It takes many people a long time to start to see them as lessons for growth and change, with the emphasis often on how it can serve the self. This perspective keeps us forever in one stage of our development, struggling to get us to the part where we pass on the torch.
Looking at it this way, our past lives are very much some distant parents that raised our soul through time. We may never meet them, but their traits and stories live through us. The unfortunate reality is that like many family dynamics, this comes with trauma and unresolved issues just as much as it can come with gifts and perspective. Our jobs are to integrate these experiences and become a better influence in the world, and that is where a lot of past life work as it is discussed today gets left behind.
To some, reincarnation is actually being reborn as another person in the future. To others, it is the recycling of energy into the universe which may not go out into an individual, but into the world. Another beautiful way to see it is that stories of reincarnation are metaphors for the influence our actions leave behind. The small seeds of our actions take root in those we impacted, and it can go forward into people we never even met.
All of this is to say that when it comes to past lives, they deserve some respect and observance but remember that it is you who is currently holding the torch and you will one day pass it on (either through another life or through the world you leave behind). We are actively raising versions of ourselves and others that we will never meet, just as we were once raised by the past.
“On this bark I do rest
the smell of birch burning
a year I have waited
a long year of yearning.
My hand placed where yours laid
the prints mark the soft ash
carried visions through time
haunted hearts of the past.
Perhaps it’s the moment
you always envisioned
for me to surpass you
the fates unpetitioned.
It feels cruel of the Norns
between us fate crafters
that it’s you who goes first
for me to live after.
And when I forgive them
the pain but an old scar
I’ll laugh with my student
and you’ll hear from the stars.”
