Runes in Unexpected Places: Ziu on . . . Medium.com
One of my friends from long ago, Jamais Cascio, is a well-regarded futurist, who writes amazing thought pieces on his blog “Open the Future” and for various publications. His most recent piece on Medium is “Facing the Age of Chaos”, which opens with this image:
My first thought was, “That’s Ziu, reversed!”
Ziu represents the lightning flash of inspiration, which allows you to see just enough to start forward on the path that was revealed and give you the sight of where you want to end up, but does not reveal so much that you have any kind of clear idea how to get there. You are at Point A, you know what Point B will be, but it’s up to you to find the way.
The rune is ascribed to Tyr, the Norse God associated with law and justice. Like Zeus (also associated with this rune, and an etymological, if not theological, relative of Tyr), Tyr can command lightning, although in the form of legal judgment, rather than actual lightning bolts.
The image in the article struck me as an apt representation of the current situation—we are being called to account for our actions (and inactions) by the power of natural forces. It’s not going well for us at all, and there’s no reason to expect otherwise, given our abysmal track record the past few centuries.
The rune also fits nicely in that we know where we are (which is quite a mess), and where we want to be (in a world where people are healthy and safe and can go about their lives), but it’s difficult to say that anyone has much of an idea on how to get there.
We are all figuring this out together; guided by Tyr, we can create a world with better laws and actual justice for all.
UPDATE May 5, 2020: I emailed Jamais with the above, and we had a delightful exchange. He mentioned that when he came up with the acronym “BANI”, he did a language search to make sure it’s not an offensive word in any language. As it turns out, “bani” is Old Norse for “death” or “slayer”. Another synchronicity!
