Rune Mageia: Letters As Spirits

“Andreas Kornevall is emerging as a force in UK myth-telling - uncoating the tracks we've faltered to leave behind.” - The Gathering Point, Amsterdam

The most powerful symbols we possess are our letters. For a name to exist, including yours, it must have a sound or a graphic depiction. Our alphabet contains 26 phonetic-letter-glyphs, these glyphs have built our world: everything that you know and all knowledge leans on them. The great magician Alan Moore says: "Two dozen phonetic glyphs, they are the titans on whose shoulders the entire Earth is resting. Alive as abstract animals, they animate us, galvanise our inert culture with sublime significance.”

Letters offer us a field of endless exposition and we are all hypnotised; we have all been spelt.

There is an old Icelandic magical idea: it is the shape of the letters (runes, staves, lines) that carry the "primary agency." Therefore, by combining rune-stave-lines-shapes, the magician can perceive new views, new feelings and new worlds.

Drawing from practices, runes, alphabets, signs, and symbols, Andreas Kornevall here is offering a two-hour intensive course on how we can become post-literate. To use our hands to conduct new lines and shapes, expressing our emotions in lettered shapes found in streets, trees, feathers, rocks, furs, snail trails, or ripples of water. To become founders of new alphabets, and play with whim, explorations, spell-metres, new hidden passes and obscurities. To free a magical language from the landscape and from within us - to retrieve new hieroglyphs. When we read the lines of the leaves, the Earth's language becomes mysterious. We are so familiar with the words on the page that we have lost the ability to look at it in its full strangeness.

And yes, what can a post-literate expression look like? And what consequences can it have on our thinking? To step outside of the spelt and lettered to communicate a writing of cognitive dissonance instead of neat "explanations"?

We will journey into the language of something greater: we will enter into the provocation of new thought.

Andreas Kornevall Bio

Andreas Kornevall is an author, storyteller and ecological activist. He grew up in South America, Sweden and Switzerland, and now directs the Earth Restoration Service charity. In response to the sixth mass extinction, he was the catalyst behind the Life Cairn movement: memorials for species rendered extinct at human hands. As a storyteller, he works with old myths and fairytales which shine a torchlight on life’s journey; his stories tend to gravitate around the Norse material which has led him to lecture and perform in universities and other educational centres. He is also a prize-winning author, whose work has been published in magazines such as Resurgence, The Ecologist, Permaculture magazine and in the Dark Mountain series. He is a member of the 'Forn Sed' (Old Customs Association) in Sweden which works closely with ancient Norse culture, traditions and spirituality, unearthing old legends, forgotten folklore and endangered Norse languages.

Through his charity, he has planted over 200 woodlands in the United Kingdom and he has recently been voted by the University of Southern California as one of their 100 spiritual exemplars.

"Andreas Kornevall offers a powerful immersive experience of travelling into Norse mythology and Runic divination, food for both soul and intellect. Understanding Runic script as mythic symbols opens a door into the archetypes that inform all human existence, and Andreas' deep knowledge and love for his subject is truly inspirational." -Professor Angela Voss, Christ Church University

“listening to Andreas’ stories by the fire is the best place to be right now…” - An afternoon with Allison Ferns, BBC Radio

“One of the best storytellers I have heard recently…I would absolutely recommend that you go and hear Andreas for yourselves…" - Wendy Atkinson, GuestHouse Storytellers

"Andreas Kornevall has visited us over the years delivering irresistible myths to the students. He brings a richness of imagery, music and inspiration which offers the students the opportunity to explore areas of ecology, ancient myth and language.  He has the youngest year groups silent and in awe of the stories, right up to the oldest. "- Mike Fairclough, Headteacher/Principal and Author of “Playing with Fire”

“People came out of the session beaming…!” - Christina Oakley Harrington, Founder Treadwell's Bookstore, London

 

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