OK, we're going to throw the bones in order to determine the god's will in a given matter, but first we have to give the bones a ground.

The ground is always either circular or square. Can anyone tell me why?

Good: it's a horizon, a world in microcosm. The horizon is a circle, and the square marks out the four directions. Circle and square are analogous: the circle is a curvilinear square, the square a rectilinear circle.

(Incidentally: these days people mostly cast circles, but back in the days of our people's wandering—nomads don't have fixed holy-places, mostly—our temporary sanctuaries were square.)

So, we begin by spreading out the casting-cloth on the ground. The casting-cloth is square and woven of linen. Why linen? Anyone?

Good: it's the ancestral fabric. Wool would be the other good option here, but with linen and the bones we have both Plant and Animal: Red God and Green, the Horned and his Twin. Wool or linen, though, we're talking Web of Wyrd imagery here, right? The weaving of Fate? Of course, that's something that's intrinsic to our divination.

(In days before weaving, I suppose you'd have used an animal skin, but of course it would need to be the whole skin of a small animal, not something cut from a larger hide, right? Be thinking about why that might be, and what animal you'd want to use; we'll discuss it further next time.)

So, you lay out the casting-cloth. If we were outside, we'd align it with the corners pointing to the four directions, but since we're indoors, we align it with the corners pointing to the four walls.

Can anyone tell me why we lay it out like this, instead of with the four sides of the cloth parallel to the walls?

Exactly: it's the dynamic lay-out. Divination is all about context. To lay the ground with the sides parallel to the walls would be static. Divination is a moving configuration: we want that dynamism factoring into our fluid situation.

OK, so we've laid our ground, we've established our horizon.

Now we cast the bones.

What the Bones Said: How to Cast and Read the Knucklebones

Long ago, in the dawn of days, the Horned gave us the bones and taught us how to read them.

Here's how.

Paganicon 2025

Friday, March 21 – Sunday, March 23