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Thursday 11 July 2019

Dagaz: a rant.


The symbol of the Climate Change pressure group Extinction Rebellion looks like this:

File:Extinction Symbol, Extinction Rebellion logo.jpg


It's basically a rune (that is, letter of an ancient alphabet (though it's not as ancient as the roman alphabet you're reading at the moment)). This rune is called dagaz, and Extinction Rebellion is using it tipped onto its side so it looks like a hour glass.

Time is running out: geddit?

The circle is there, I believe, just to be pretty.

In the Anglo-Saxon rune poem, the rune dagaz is described like this:

the glorious light of the creator 
is sent by the Lord
it is beloved of men, a source of hope and happiness to rich and poor,
and of service to all.

Dagaz is also associated with great change,

So that's all good, yes? Clever, even.

The only problem is that when runes are turned upside down, or sideways, they have a habit of changing their meanings.

I don't know what effect the turning on its side of the rune dagaz might have in this case, but I've seen a claim that it's a wish for chaos, darkness, and dominance. It's said to have been popularly used in Viking curses.

So really all I can say is that, if you're trying to start a conversation based on scientific evidence, then it might be best to keep away from using magical symbols.

Otherwise, you know, it can muddy the waters a bit.

Word To Use Today: dagaz. This word is a guess at how it would be pronounced in some Proto-Indo-European language. In the Anglo-Saxon rune poem quoted above it's called dæg, which means day.













10 comments:

  1. Thanks for your post..I totally agree one has to be careful when using magical symbols.
    rune meanings are interpreted differently when reversed or sideways..since Dagaz symbolizes light or daybreak,it also can have a chaotic or explosive aspect, so quite powerful for sure. the less positive angles with Dagaz can be darkness, confusion, etc.
    just look at Algiz ..the peace symbol. Check out what it means reversed and we can reflect how things have been the last 50 years. Also encircling runes make them more powerful.

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    1. Thanks very much indeed for your comment, Unknown. I'll certainly do some research into Algiz. I had no idea that the circle makes the rune more powerful. I wonder of the designer of the logo did?

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  2. No problem..check out this YouTube video..it gets into the alchemical symbolism too... Whoever designs these things knows exactly what they're doing..creepy. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzEL8TQGWAo

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    1. Thanks again, Unknown. That's a very interesting video about signs and symbols, taking in magic and alchemy. I learned a lot.

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  3. Dagaz is breakthrough. This is reversed so it is breakdown. It is an hourglass because it represents time. Saturn is time. They are worshipping saturn and are the tools of the elite to achieve there goals. Research on ancient saturn will lead you to the truth, if you can handle it.

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    1. Thanks very much for this. As I've said above, using magical symbols certainly does muddy the waters.

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  4. That's a bit much... I mean I studied Old Norse and Old English so I too think that runes are neat and all... but this is clearly meant to be an hourglass and to interpret anything more into it is just weirdo conspiracy talk.

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  5. That may indeed be so, Unknown, but I'm afraid that quite a few people seem to be puzzled and worried by the image. It would perhaps have been better to put some sand in the hourglass to make the logo unambiguous.

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  6. the first time i saw the xr symbol, i thought "that's dagaz on it's side", the hour-glass didn't even occur to me... strictly speaking, dagaz is an "irreversible" rune, being symmetrical, it has the same meaning upside down. it also belongs to the rune subset sometimes referred to as "the cycle of transformation" meaning daylight or breakthrough, coming into the light as it were. On it's side, I'm not aware of it having any particular meaning, but it is conceivable that it could have a "discordant" effect when used in "magic", but that would I suppose would require intention. Also, I don't think the original dimensions (which some say is relevant) would have been "square" (same height & width) as the xr symbol appears to be... the original looking more like a "bow tie" or, as I've seen in some renditions "horizontally squashed bow tie". finally, I would come back to the human element of "intention", so even if the original designer had a negative intention, the way that people have adopted it in xr is clearly with positive intention. Runic symbols used in "magic" are merely "carriers" for the human intention behind it; the subject of "bind-runes", two or more runes combined into a new runic symbol, is interesting in this regard. I once created a bind-rune to protect my house after being burgled, combining almost all the runes, which ended up looking like a pattern long seen in fencing, that i hadn't realised before creating it. ��♥️��

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    1. Thanks, Anon, this is all very interesting indeed. It makes me wonder if any words have meaning if there's not an intention in saying them. The answer to that seems to be sometimes: da da da dah may mean rather little when spoken by a baby, something different when played by an orchestra - and even the meaning of that will have changed depending upon whether there's a war on!

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