Runic / Sigil Magic
Runic and sigil magic both work by binding intention into symbolic form, condensing thought and will into marks that serve as vessels for power. Though they share this symbolic foundation, they emerge from distinct traditions and offer different modes of practice. Sigils are typically crafted glyphs, abstracted from words, images, or patterns until they become a unique seal of intention. They are most often created for a specific purpose, charged with force, and either maintained or destroyed depending on the work. Runes, by contrast, are inherited from ancient alphabets—most prominently the northern European futharks—each letter carrying a stable name, sound, and set of mythic correspondences. To work with a rune is to step into an existing current of ancestral knowledge.
While sigils are often associated with high magic—created in ritual space, charged through ceremonial timing, and layered with planetary or elemental correspondences—they are also highly adaptable. A sigil can be drawn in chalk on a threshold, carved into bread before baking, or traced in steam on a kitchen window, blending into low magic practices. In this way, sigils can enhance nearly any form of craft: protective wards, charms of love or healing, even the quiet workings of kitchen magic, where food itself becomes the medium of intention. Runes, too, move across this spectrum, whether cast as oracles, inscribed on talismans, or bound together in new shapes (bindrunes) to embody layered qualities such as endurance, clarity, or transformation.
It is worth noting that there exist time-tested traditional sigils—ancient seals and magical signs preserved in grimoires and ceremonial systems—that retain their potency when employed with understanding and respect. These can serve as models for the student, teaching the language of symbol through practice. Yet practitioners are not limited to inherited glyphs: they may create their own, provided they honor the principles of correct symbology and alignment. A sigil that disregards meaning or correspondence risks incoherence; one designed with care—attuned to elements, directions, planetary hours, or spiritual allies—will resonate more deeply and yield stronger results. In this sense, sigil craft is both art and science: personal expression built upon foundations of symbolic law.
Within the Coven of the Veiled Moon, sigil work is treated as a central art. We consider the act of creating a sigil a spell in itself, a distillation of desire into form and force. Some of our sigils are temporary, consumed by fire once their intent is fulfilled; others are enduring, kept in books of shadows, inscribed on tools, or marked upon thresholds as living wards. Our Coven Sigil embodies this philosophy: horns for lunar and animal vitality, wings for Hermes’ swiftness, a circle for unity and spirit, the caduceus stem for balance and healing, and the triangle of water for intuition and flow. This emblem is not merely decorative—it is a living seal, renewed in ritual and charged to serve both as protection and as declaration of our shared current.
Runes, while less central in our coven’s identity, still flow strongly through our work. They are cast in divination, carved into talismans, or woven into bindrunes that complement sigil craft. Together, runes and sigils provide a balance of currents: the rune anchoring us in myth and tradition, the sigil channeling our immediate will and circumstance. One binds us to lineage, the other empowers us to shape the present.
Examples
- Inscribing protective runes around the coven’s central sigil on candles for a seasonal rite, uniting ancestral resonance with personal current.
- Crafting a sigil of healing and tracing it in honey over bread, charging the meal with blessing and feeding it to the circle.
- Creating a bindrune of endurance and weaving it into a personal sigil of success, then carrying the combined talisman to steady one’s path.
- Chalk-marking the coven’s sigil on the floor of the ritual space, surrounded by runes of defense, to strengthen the working circle.
- Burning a hand-drawn sigil once its purpose is completed, releasing the sealed intention into the unseen.
Note: Symbols are not idle decorations. Each mark carries weight, shaping the current of the work. In our coven, we caution against careless use. To scrawl sigils on unowned property or to use them without respect is not only mundane vandalism but also magical distortion, rooting intention in disorder rather than clarity. Such acts weaken the worker’s current and leave residue of disruption that lingers in both mundane and unseen realms. Runes likewise demand respect: they are ancient and enduring, not to be treated as casual marks. Whether working with traditional glyphs or personal creations, remember that symbols live. To craft or call one is to enter into compact with meaning itself, and that compact must be approached with reverence, or it will turn upon the careless hand.
