 Hey there saplings! Welcome back to Esoteric Moment. My name is Dani and I have a pagan book review for you again this week. This book, Rune Reading Your Life by Delania Davis, is an interesting one in that it's a book, a 30-day journal, and a set of Rune cards all packaged in one set. This summer I've been exploring different types of divination. There are some that I have really fallen in love with like Oam and even Tarot that have been a part of my practice for a while. But I wanted to stretch myself a little bit and try something new. So when the opportunity came to review this book I was very intrigued because I've never worked with ruins before. So I'm definitely looking at this book as a beginner. I'm also looking at this book not as a Norse practitioner and obviously ruins are traditionally associated with a Norse practice although lots of people in different practices will choose to work with ruins as well. The first part of the book really dives into how the author discovered ruins, what their practice is like, stories about finding it in the larger world, and how you might add elements of ruins into your practice whether you're a pagan or just exploring something new. I'll be honest while it's really easy to read it's very approachable. The author's perspective was sometimes a little hard to feel relatable to. The overall first part of the book really felt like they were talking to an audience of either like a really young teenager or maybe like the parents of a teenager interested in ruins. There were some assumptions about kind of class and what life looks like that made me a little uncomfortable and I just didn't feel like I was the right audience for this book. If you are a beginner then this is definitely for you. If you are really into nuanced research and like historical reconstructionism this is not the book for you. I think it's so kind of generic to today's modern interpretation of ruins that it's going to turn off a fair amount of pagans who are looking for something a little bit more richer or really rooted in history and myth. That doesn't mean that this is a bad book it's just that the first part is so targeted to a very like specific younger audience like I said that it makes it harder to recommend it for lots of people. The information seems solid and there are parts that were funny and enjoyable but such a casual tone and some people are really going to love that but it just wasn't quite right for me. The second part of the book is a day by day 30 day journal and it has questions and activities kind of segmented by weeks so that you can start working with ruins and integrate it into your practice on a daily basis. I think guided journal prompts are really useful for a lot of people and that part of the book is going to appeal to a larger audience. So maybe the first part of the book isn't your cup of tea but you use the second part to really dive into establishing a practice and asking questions that help you relate and understand the ruins in a different way. This is a page that I didn't fill out but it's got day four daily focus ask yourself what do I need to focus on today and then pull a ruin. It's got a place for like the symbol and the meaning and then how does this apply to what is happening in your life today and a huge section to write on. Day four continued. What yes or no question do you have for today? Pull a ruin. Why is this question important to you and then validation what happened. So it really walks you through the process of choosing a ruin learning that message and integrating it into meaning of your own life. The final part of the book is just kind of a reference section. It has each ruin, their pronunciation, one word meaning, and kind of this modern meaning, a little bit of story, just like two pages that quickly take you through the lesson or message of the ruin. And then of course the book comes with a set of cardboard or at least cardstocky ruins. They've got this pretty modern purple backing and for someone who is looking for an entry level set and doesn't want to make their own. This is kind of nice. You can really try out ruins without committing too much money or time into like getting a set and connecting to it in a fancy way. If you already have a set of course you can use those and maybe you use these little cutouts to paste into your journal or something like that. It's kind of nice just to have them obviously won't appeal to everyone but I think it does work well with the concept of the book which is basically this all-in-one 30-day jumpstart get ruins into your practice. Overall the concept of this book is nice and is definitely going to appeal to a large audience of folks who are kind of baby pagans and looking to get started and it's a really easy entry level introduction to ruins and divination in general basically. This book however was not for me. While I got to know ruins a little bit more and explored divination and I actually did the 30 days you know I gave up my all in exploring this book I just couldn't quite get over the author's tone at the beginning and just felt kind of out of place. Like I was not the audience for this. This week's sapling shout out goes out to Jake Taylor. They wrote a comment on my review of the Obad Bard course and they actually talk about how they're interested in joining Obad but they're a follower of Norse traditions and a practitioner of Norse magic and so they're a bit confused about how to go about this process of maybe exploring Druidry while still being a Norse practitioner and I would say that most of Druidry does not require you to believe in certain deities nor give up other elements of your tradition. It's really something about adding on to your practice and creating this mentality about creativity and hospitality and your place in the world and Celtic traditions and Druidry are pretty close cousins to Norse traditions and I've mentioned before how useful it can be in our practice to explore something slightly tangential to what we usually are focused on. It can open our eyes and see something new. So I would say Jake give it a try and you know start reading some of the basic Druidry books and see if it resonates with you or if it gives you a new perspective. If you want to be a sapling shout out don't forget to leave a comment on this video or chat with me over on Instagram in the comments there. You can find me at esotericmoment. Thanks for watching and as always may you find peace in the sacred grove.