The second phase is very intense and complex. The Dagaz rune is small compared to the entire stone; it overlaps with Naudiz and covers additional areas not covered by Ingwaz.

Similarly, we have even more runes to describe other aspects and nuances of this process.

Sowilo Rune

Let's now take a look at the Sowilo rune. It means "Sun".

You see how it fits into the Stone - it shares the top ascending bar with Dagaz, directly representing the process of ascending Light into Air. It shares the middle descending bar again with Dagaz and Naudiz, highlighting the significance of Earth's transformation in the entire enlightenment process. Its bottom bar shows releasing the Light out of the raw Fire.

From an alchemy perspective, this rune is very dynamic. There are no vertical synchronization bars of simultaneity but three transitional processes between four levels.

It's a pretty challenging rune to do despite its visual simplicity.
I suggest next hands gesture to help yourself navigate all these transitions:

• Your left palm placed above will play the role of the top diagonal bar of the Sowilo rune pointing from the center of Philosopher's Stone to the middle-upper area of the Air. It will conduct the Light from the wrist to the fingertips.
• Your right palm bent into an angular shape, will cover the point of conjunction between the lower ascending and middle descending bars of Sowilo. Spirit of the Fire will enter your right wrist, accumulating in your right handful, while the Crystal between your palms will become clearer, and this process is represented by the upper part of your bent palm - your fingers.

Sowilo rune is not easy to understand from a chronological perspective. We "read" runes from left to right:

You see how in the top diagonal bar the Light begins its ascendance from the Emptiness to Air right from the beginning. It happens not after Earth becomes a fully transparent Crystal, but the process starts simultaneously on three levels. Even semitransparent Earth at the very beginning of the process is already capable of transmitting a small fraction of Light. While the transparency level grows along the middle descendant bar - the "amount" of Light also grows as we see on the top ascendant bar. To make things even harder to grasp, look at how the Spirit of Fire is ascending to the Earth simultaneously. This gives us an idea of Light and Spirit of the Fire as something very connected but different things.

Indeed, after you master the Dagaz rune you may find you now can handle not only raw Fire in your right hand. You may start feeling something different, like a heavy smooth deep orange ball in your hand. It's also hot and possesses qualities of fire, but it's now shaped and compact, like a fireball of the Dawn Sun when it appears right above the hole in the horizon. This ball feels smooth and sleek in the hand, you can try to rotate your handful but you will find it keeps the same orientation, and only your palm slides around it.

Now putting all these parts discussed above together, let's get back to our hands gesture:

• In your right bent palm feel how the warmth of the Fire Spirit rises from below enters the inner side of your wrist and accumulates in your right handful in the form of a sleek heavy hot ball of Dawn Sun.
• Simultaneously, feel how crystalline order grows down along your fingers, giving a cool and, a bit electric, cracking sensation.
• At the same time feel how a spot of warm Light, not so heavy as Dawn Sun, but rather light and fluffy, enters the inner side of your left wrist travels up along your palm, and exists out of your fingertips.

I know it's hard to feel all three processes in parallel so you can focus on them one by one at first, starting from the lowest Sowilo bar.

Once you get familiar with it - you will realize, they are not one-time end-to-end passes. They are continuous streams with no particular beginning and end. The entire Sowilo rune is a continuous process that keeps flowing along all three bars as long as you do it. This triple stream, this integrated Sowilo state you can grasp as a whole and do perfectly, you just need a little bit of practice.

The Light

Enough was said about transparency in previous chapters. Let's now focus on the Light itself. Like the Earth, it's connected to time but in an opposite way. If Earth contains eternity within, Light is instant; it's a zero time of the beginning and end. Light is straight. It inherits the Honor aspect of the Fire and concentrates it into pure Truth. Truth is not just "information" - it's active; it defines reality.

Do you remember in the chapter about Water we were talking about uncertainty, probability, and collapsing into a single explicit "true" reality? This is a function of Light as a "base" mechanism of reality definition.

Light brings clarity to the table as a top part of the Sowilo process.

Light is the way Fire "chooses" what is real from options suggested by Water. And here is another way for us to influence the reality.

From the Water side, we can influence available options, and from the Fire side, we can influence what option will be chosen. This is what True Will is and how it works.

True Will

True Will is a vector.
From math, we know the vector is some amount that has direction and point where it's applied.

• The starting point of True Will is your true self, which you can find in the very center. We learned from rune Algiz how to find and stand on your center point using Faith.
• True direction we found with the help of guiding northern star by doing Tiwaz rune.
• And the "length" of your Will, its intensity, and intention is determined by the amount of the Light you can conduct from your Fire through your Crystal. The clearer and "bigger" your crystal is, the more Light with higher efficiency you can extract from your Fire and use.

You now understand how True Will is not just our arbitrary desire.
To be true, it should come from the true self and it should be directed in true direction. In actual daily life, the direction can be very different depending on the situation and your current position.
But each time we know how to choose the best true direction.

There is an eternal call, coming from the outside level of reality, and you have a small piece of that reality in your very center. It works as a resonator, disturbing us. Like a compass arrow, it always shows us where is our guiding north star. We learn to hear this call and follow it, and by following it we learn to hear it better and make stronger choices. Our rusty link with true reality works better the more we use it.