Mar
Feeling the Mannar Rune
These are the exercises of the Mannar Rune,. They focus on the “identity” aspect of the Rune. The goal here is to use identity as a mean to gain personal experience of the Mannar Rune.
Exercise 1) Mannar is a Rune of identity. It is Who you are and What you are. The Who is the unique person. The What includes the many roles and things you do. This exercise will bring you closer to understanding the What of Mannar. Starting with the morning, write down a list of all the roles you fulfill in a day. For example, if you have a family, you may be Husband, Wife, Parent or Child. Walking out the door to go to work, you may be a Commuter. Perhaps you take a train or bus, making you a Passenger. If you take your car, you are a Driver. At work you might be Employer, Employee, Manager, Worker, etc. Should you buy something during the day, you might be a Consumer or Customer, etc. These are examples to help you make your list. If you follow your many roles from beginning to end of day, you get an idea of the many facets of the What side of Mannar.
Exercise 2) What of the “Who” side of it that makes you a unique individual? Here is another list that helps. There will be two lists. On one list, write down ten things you can do. You need not be expert at them. Just so long as you can do them, add them. On the other list, write ten things you like to do. When finished, put the lists aside for an hour or two. You want to come to them with a fresh mind.
Compare the first list with the second. Note where they concur, and where they differ. The things you like to do speak more of your inner self, the “Who”. The things that you can do can be the What or the Who, or a blend of both. This exercise gives a feel for yourself and the connection to some of the roles you fulfill. This is an important part of understanding Mannar.
Alternate exercises: Pay a little extra attention to the people with whom you normally deal in the course of the day. In each case, think of how much you are relating to their role, and how much to the person behind the role. For instance, if you go to get coffee in the same place each day, do you deal with a counterperson whose name happens to be John, or John who happens to be the counterperson? Consider how it is with all of your normal contacts. This exercise shows how Mannar factors in your everyday experiences.
Another exercise is to spend time considering the things that identify you as a unique individual. In other words, consider your own identity. Think of the things that define you to yourself. You might consider your work, your activities, your relationships with people, your sexuality, your pastimes, even your favorite foods and music. Remember that this is all in your own head. You do not have to reveal any of it to others. This is your identity. Few people ever examine themselves this way. It is a good way to get a more conscious appreciation of yourself.
By reflection, our favorite stories reveal much about us. It may be a myth, a legend, a novel or a movie. This is the kind of story that talks to you deeply. It is one you can hear over and over again, and feel that it was written especially to talk to your innermost self. Most people have such stories. Think about yours. Can you think about three stories that speak to you deeply? Why do they reach you? What is it that resonates within you when you hear these stories? What part of your story do they tell? The Mannar of each of us is partly revealed in the stories that talk to us personally.
As an aside, there was recently a situation that illustrates something of Mannar. A woman’s pet chimpanzee went on a rampage and seriously injured her friend. The woman had treated the chimp like a family member rather than a pet. She was so busy focusing on her little monkey man that she apparently ignored the plain fact that it was still a chimp. The species is known for becoming difficult as they age, and they have a great ability to do damage. No amount of training would change that. The error against Mannar was emphasizing the ape boy while ignoring the fact that it is still endowed with the same biology and temperament as any wild chimpanzee.
Many an error in judgement with humans has also been caused when people focus on the “Who” of an individual while ignoring the “What.” Mannar reveals to us the identity and indicates which aspects of a person are most important when dealing with him.
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