Ashley Zelinski: Books, Runes, & Nature

Ross Tayler: I'm happy to welcome Ashley Zelinski to Sacred Sundays. Ashley is an antiquarian book collector and seller who has been gathering rare and storied works since she was a young girl. About 15 years ago, she turned that lifelong passion into her work, offering collectible books that carry history, beauty, and meaning. Her deep connection to the natural world was nurtured by her grandfather, who taught her to listen to the elements and to find wisdom in the stories that they tell. Those early moments of sharing books and heart-spoken stories with him became the roots of her path. Through Ash Tree Runes, Ashley now offers readings and hand-carved Elder Futhark rune sets in a variety of gemstones, each piece created with intention and reverence. Her approach to rune work blends ancient symbolism with an invitation to remember the living presence of the elementals and the earth itself, guiding others to reconnect with their own soul, their inner sanctuary, and the quiet magic that never left them. A mother of three, Ashley brings the same sense of curiosity, care, and respect for the unseen into everything she creates. Welcome, Ashley. So happy to have you here.

Ashley Zelinski: Great to be here, Ross. Thanks for inviting me.

Ross Tayler: You're so welcome. Ashley is going to begin by guiding us through a meditation.

Ashley Zelinski: I'd love to. Part of my passion with the work I do is to help people connect with their souls and realize that we're not disconnected from the elements and Mother Gaia around us. In everyday life, I think of a sociological saying, seeing the strange and the familiar. I actually have an undergrad in sociology, so I'm a little bit wired to see that. And what I see is that we are so often disconnected from nature in today's society. A lot of bringing that soul-aligned spark back into our life comes when we are feeling closer to Mother Earth and the frequency that comes up from the earth. It's maternal. It's almost like how you felt when you were little and you felt safe with your parents, with your mother's nurturing energy or your father's nurturing energy. It's feeling welcome from Earth. So I thought I would start with a little meditation that shows the root of what I'm trying to bring into the world.

I'll invite everybody listening to take a deep breath. I'll take one with you. I just heard my cat in the background. He might join our meditation as well. Feel your body, wherever you're sitting or standing, and imagine the ground beneath you as soft, steady, and alive. The earth is a safe place. I think many of us forget that the earth is safe and welcoming. You're welcome here.

So many of us have been taught that to create happiness and abundance, and that's a word we hear quite a bit, we have to control our circumstances, our timing, our own hearts. But I want you to internalize right now, as you're feeling the earth and its vibrations, that the truth is the earth never controls anything. She flows, she receives, she collaborates with all that lives within her. Every tree, every gust of wind, every ripple of water, they're all in conversation. None of them are competing. They're existing in harmony. And so you're invited now to exist in harmony with the world around you.

If you'll receive it, and it's your choice, I'm going to speak a little bit of what some call light language. I believe the origin is a little bit from the Lemurians that I channel and a little bit of the ancient elementals. My intention when I speak this light language is that you internalize that you're welcome here on earth. So if you choose, you can accept this energy.

[Ashley speaks a phrase in light language.]

I invite you to feel welcomed here on earth. I want you to know that the places you go, the places that you imagine, they're real. You feel that in your heart for a reason. There's nothing to try to control. There's nothing to cling to. It's a simple remembering that you're welcome here, and that it's not escapism. The things that you feel and the places that you go that are full of light and warmth are there to remind you that you're home here for now.

Right now, it may feel difficult to trust the harmony that still exists. We live in a world where some try to hold onto the resources and control what's meant to be shared. But even if that feels so strong, it's nothing compared to the might of Gaia. Gaia has seen empires rise and fall. She has seen oceans shift and mountains form. The power that tries to contain her will never outlast her. And I'm saying "her," but there's a shared masculine energy coming down from the cosmos helping her. You, being part of her, carry that same internal strength inside of you. You're walking around as a mini-microcosm on this earth with everything that Mother Gaia carries, and she'll teach you that if you're willing to listen.

So in closing, close your eyes if you like and imagine your breath flowing down into the soil. Wherever you're feeling like it needs a little bit more time to fill up, let it fill those places. Wash away a little bit of the residue of the distortions of your day. Let the energy flow in from the cosmos above, meeting the flow of Mother Earth. Let the flow from Mother Earth swirl up and rest in your heart space while the flow from Father Cosmos comes down and rests in what those who study the chakras call your sacral area, so they're flowing past each other.

I'm going to end by saying you don't need to upload more. Not more knowledge, not more strategies, not more doing. To create the life of abundance meant for you, you just need to strip away, return to simplicity, return to listening, and go back to the earth to learn. It's your teacher, along with the wealth of knowledge that you can see is there when you look into the well of your own knowing.

Anytime you want to ask for help from these energies from the cosmos, but also Mother Earth, it's important to ask for the light beings, those that want to help you step into your higher path. Ask them to show you how to receive without fear. You're not here to fight the world, you're here to harmonize with it. When you live in harmony with all that's alive, abundance begins to flow effortlessly. You begin to believe that you can co-create with the world around you, because you're becoming part of the great rhythm again. No one can control that, not even those who are trying to dictate the resources. And that's when Gaia whispers back, welcome back.

[Ashley speaks a phrase in light language.]

Welcome back. As my cat is joining us here today. So that's my offering for us today, this meditation, this welcome back to the rhythm of your own heart in tune with Mother Nature, knowing that we can co-create with all the elements around us.

Ross Tayler: Thank you so much, Ashley. That was beautiful. You had said you might pull a few runes. Is that feeling like a yes still?

Ashley Zelinski: That's right. I have my bag here. It's never far away. I was going to pull them at the beginning, but let's see the three runes that will come up. Sometimes I toss them, but today I'm just going to take three out of the bag.

What I got was Gebo, Kenaz, and Sowilo [?]. It's a very bright rune pull. Kenaz is the fire torch. It's exactly how it sounds, a fire torch you hold in your hand, and it represents that creative fire and that creative spark. Sowilo is the rune of the sun. So the two brightest runes just got pulled, along with Gebo, which is the rune of exchange. It's also representative, in old Germanic paganism [?], of the rune of gifts. In this situation, I believe it's asking people to share their gifts with the world, their creative spark, and to know that that comes from within.

That's not something you can get from taking courses or reading books, although you should follow your curiosity. I know this is a reminder to encourage people to just start shining what they want to see in the world. Start putting that out in the world. The world might take a little bit of time to catch up, but by the laws of nature, it has to. You're going to start seeing that mirrored back to you if you put it into the world.

Ross Tayler: I love that. I'm pretty sure that at least two of the three runes that you pulled came up in the reading that we did together.

Ashley Zelinski: I believe so. I remember Kenaz being pulled for sure for you, and exchange. I remember it was about what you're putting out into the world and helping people share. Gebo literally looks like an X. It's all about exchange, what we give out and what we get back, and it's a reminder to have healthy boundaries. That's with your podcast and what you're putting out into the world. When you shine your light, you're helping light other people's torches all around you. You may not see that right away. I know with this podcast, it's touching hearts, and you might not see that effect right away. Like any ripple, if you throw a pebble in the water, it has to ripple out. It's touching something, it's radiating something. I know this is reaching a lot of people right now, so it's an honor to be here and to share what it is that I'm trying to put into the world.

Ross Tayler: Thank you for that reflection. It's so important to remember that that's part of the intention of this podcast, but it's also the things that are happening that are unseen, and trusting in that is so important to remember.

Ashley Zelinski: Yeah. Actually, it was you. When I first started doing these rune readings, I was scared to put this out into the world. It was a little bit of what many call imposter syndrome. I'd be going and setting up at markets and I would feel so scared the night before. I thought, I can't wait for the point where I don't sweat the night before putting this out into the world. It's funny, because it's something we all struggle with. I find it fascinating that what we are most passionate about is often what we're most scared about putting out into the world.

You came by my table, and you had these little cards. I still have it, actually. You asked me to pick one, and the one I picked was about shadow work. And I said, yes, Ross, I'm still going through my imposter syndrome, putting this out into the world.

Ross Tayler: That's right.

Ashley Zelinski: I'm happy to tell you that since then, I've overcome that to a point. There are still always a little bit of those butterflies in my stomach before I set up and do my work. The beautiful thing is that when we start to do things that are soul aligned, the synchronicities start to happen at such a fast pace. Like I said, the world sometimes takes a little bit of time to catch up with you. Sometimes you have to have that courageous heart to just get it going. It is helpful to have people around you give you a little bit of a kick in the butt to do your work. I was lucky enough to have someone say, it's never going to be perfect. Those perfect circumstances don't exist. You could even be imagining them. Just start doing what it is you want to do.

It's too hard to ignore the magic, the synchronicities. The runes that show up keep showing up for a reason. When I set the protection at the beginning of readings and invite the energies and the guides of the individual sitting in front of me, with their permission, in every case I see the right runes and the right messages. Sometimes I don't even know why I'm saying what I'm saying to that individual, and I almost have to laugh. I'm like, I don't know why I'm saying this, but every time it's for a reason for that person. So I know that what I'm doing is for a reason. I know that burn in my heart is for a reason. If there's anyone listening who is curious about something or passionate about something, I want you to know that it's for a reason, and you don't have to be completely polished. You could even stumble into your work, and it's okay to be sweating buckets when you start. That's probably how most people who are very advanced at what they do started. So if you need someone to kick you in the butt to get going, I encourage you to just get started. Even if you feel like you're stumbling a little bit at first, I promise it's going to be for a reason.

Ross Tayler: There's so much truth in what you've said, and it's important for that message to get across. What you talked about with imposter syndrome, my reflection to you was my own experience of that and having to work through it. The thing about so many of the, I'll call them healers, wounded healers, is that we've gathered our medicine from picking ourselves up time and time again. That doesn't translate into traditional ways of learning and doesn't result in letters behind our name that prove what it is that we do. And yet that is the most powerful reason why our gifts are so potent, why they have merit, and why we can share them. If I think about the rune reading that I had with you, it's coming up on two weeks ago now. It was so striking to me that you had such a deep connection with this medicine, that you were channeling messages that are so powerful and ancient and wise, and it just speaks for itself.

Ashley Zelinski: I love that you say that. It's bringing something to mind. I've only started doing these rune readings publicly about a year ago, but I've been working with runes for years and years. A side business that kind of holds the other one is Ash Tree Books. I've been a lifelong collector of books, and about 15 years ago I started a website where I began to sell. It was enough just to hold the book, learn about it, and find it its home. Where I'm going with this is that I'm trying to bring in the books aspect to share the story. Books just tend to find me. People say, where do you get these old books from? And gosh, it's a different place time and time again.

I believe books are channeled messages too. I believe a lot of authors, even of fiction, channel what they write. Even J.R.R. Tolkien used runes. There are some very interesting runes on his books, but I believe a lot of what he wrote, he channeled.

I feel the elemental deities returning to the earth right now to help heal it. People with a really strong connection to water were seeing me out of nowhere, and I realized it was to remind them that they weren't imagining this, that they were ambassadors for helping bridge these elemental energies back to the earth. It's not everyone who's drawn to the runes. We are all attached to nature, but there are some people who are drawn a little bit more, for whatever reason. Often they can feel the energy of it just walking by, because they've been talking with nature quite deeply for some time. It's fascinating when I hear at the end, sometimes people share that the reading touched them. Sometimes people sit there and don't say a single thing, but you can feel that what was shared was meaningful to them. But sorry, I digress.

Tolkien, I believe, channeled. There are two things I want to say. A lot of people know his story well, if they haven't read the books, they've watched the movies. There's a part in one of his books, I believe it's Return of the King, but I may have that one wrong, in the Lord of the Rings series, where the trees take a really long time to talk before they take action. I know for a fact right now that the trees have always talked. Their roots are underground, and there they speak to each other. But I do believe they are going to start really making moves on earth right now and showing themselves. It's almost like the energies of the elements are making their presence known. These deities used to walk amongst humans in different timelines. They have left for periods of history because of the distortions on Earth, but they are returning. Water is coming back really strong first. Next I feel the trees, like when the trees rose up and took action and said enough is enough, we are abusing Mother Earth too much right now. That's exciting for me, because I can really feel that. And I believe Tolkien even channeled that. It hit me the other day that, yeah, the trees rose up and had that uprising.

Something else I wanted to say is that I found an old book on the side of the road in a free box, and it was hand typed. Someone had hand typed it, with those rings that...

Ross Tayler: Plastic rings.

Ashley Zelinski: Yes. Someone had taken the time to hand type this up, and it was all about meeting your soul. They said it was a message channeled from a guide with a really long name, I couldn't even try to say it. It was someone channeling from their guides, two guides they had, on how to meet your soul. So I did this meditation on myself, and it was fascinating. I felt like I got to meet my soul for the first time. This was about 20 years ago. I felt like I really got to know my soul, and I started doing this meditation with others, and they met their soul through this meditation. I then gave the book away, and it ended up on Salt Spring Island, and I'll never get it back. It's just carrying on its journey wherever it is.

When I do these rune readings, and I think of the historical context of the Germanic [?] peoples, the northern peoples, the Scandinavian communities, it's about reading your tapestry and meeting your soul. It's a lot like that book I found on the side of the road many years ago. So that's another key part of rune reading, just reading one's tapestry.

Ross Tayler: There are so many branches, if you will, in all that you shared, that I could go off of and ask questions about. But there are some things from my own experience. One was finding a book at your table that I knew I had a connection with quite a while ago, and my friend actually ended up buying it for me. There's magic in that. There was magic that that book was there. There was magic that I had a connection to it, and it was unexpected. That's what's so cool about your connection to these books, because it seems like you have a relationship with each book that you bring in.

The other piece that really struck me was in terms of the rune reading. My friend and I were at your table two weeks ago, and I asked you about the readings and asked you to tell me about the runes. What struck me was that you weren't answering from your mind. You closed your eyes and answered the question, and you spoke to us. That was the moment I was drawn in. I thought, I have to have a reading. I think that speaks to the next point I want to make, which is something you said in the meditation. You said we don't need to upload more. The reason I'm linking these two things is that we're searching for answers, and yet the answers are within. When you closed your eyes, you were sourcing from within, you weren't answering from your mind. You were modeling that piece of not needing to upload more, because it's within me. I think that's showing up in a lot of ways in different situations for me and for others, of turning inward, reclaiming ourselves, and not sourcing who we are from the outside but finding the source inside. There's so much medicine in what you said, and I really hope that someone out there needs to hear it. I'd love to hear your response to any of those things.

Ashley Zelinski: Thank you for sharing that. That's actually really good feedback for me, because when I set up at a market, I get asked constantly throughout the day what a rune reading is. It's such a wide abyss of what I could talk about. The word rune literally means whispered secret, and runes are ancient, and there's so much that we don't know, but we learn as we get to know them. It's kind of like learning about wine. You can study it your whole life and only have the tip of the iceberg. I took a wine course back in my hometown, and there was an elder in the community who had an Italian restaurant. It was just a week-long course I was taking, but this man had studied it his whole life and he was admitting that it's just the tip of the iceberg. That's how I feel about the runes as well. We don't even know how old they are.

There are two things again that I want to say. The first is that when I first started setting up, part of me wanted a sense of organization, a little bit of structure, so that I felt like I knew what I was doing and so people had confidence in me, because I could at least answer what a rune reading is. But what I found is that I cannot. My soul will not let me have a scripted answer. Every single time someone comes up and asks me what a rune reading is, I give a different answer. It's the truth every time, it's what I feel that person needs to hear. One thing I will sometimes go into, if I feel there's interest, is the three aettir of the Elder Futhark [?]. I remember talking to you a little bit about that, because it gives a strong sense of what the Elder Futhark is about. There are different rune sets, and it helps speak to the energy of this one. But for those first couple of sentences, my soul won't let me have a scripted response.

The second thing is that some people come up and say, this is a Norse thing, isn't it? It is a Norse thing, but it doesn't just belong to the Norse. It belongs to the Scandinavian peoples and the Germanic [?] peoples, who were everybody throughout Europe. Originally the Scandinavian people, but then they migrated to Germany and Poland and all throughout England, and also, not directly, to the Italian communities. People migrate, people move. It's basically all of Europe, and it was just an everyday part of life. Even the names of the days of our week in the English language are named after the deities of the runes. It belongs to everybody, and to anyone who's interested in it, even if it wasn't one of the areas I mentioned. It's so ancient it's touched many parts of the world, and the runes were initially sounds before anything else. There are the three aettir, and the order in which they fall also tells a story of the earth and a lot of things that unfolded. It even talks about the giants that walked the earth and all types of things that we often have a hard time finding in history.

My second point there was just that it's for everybody. It's not just for people who have a Scandinavian background, although they kept that folklore alive. The oldest runes were found in Europe, so it touched a lot more people and was a bigger part of everyday life than we even realize. It was driven underground in the 13th century due to the reign of the churches. People had to keep a lot of these traditions underground, or else they would have found themselves in a little bit of a pickle.

Ross Tayler: I love all that information, and it's such a great reminder of how, when people move, these traditions move with them. Before we got started, you mentioned something about unlearning structures. I think that might be a good place to end.

Ashley Zelinski: You want me to elaborate a little bit more on that?

Ross Tayler: Yeah.

Ashley Zelinski: When we're connecting with our soul space, it's not about uploading more so much as it's about unlearning a lot of the distortions of what we have learned. We are often taught to be separate from the world around us, or that the places we go in our head are not real, that it's escapism, or that it's a mental illness. A lot of us fear that these channeled messages are a form of mental illness. I'm not trying to downplay mental illness as an ailment or anything like that. I think a lot of people have channeled messages and think right away, this isn't real, this is just fantasy, this is just escapism, and they shut that down deep, deep, deep down.

Sometimes it's about having awe for what is actually around you. For example, there's a rune that represents the sunset, Dagaz. We don't spend our day obsessing about the sunset, and yet it's so miraculous and so beautiful. We've just learned to accept it as a fact of nature. But if we really look at how beautiful and miraculous that is, we realize just how magical the world around us is. We can't control the sunset, just like we can't control our very breath. Realizing that we ourselves, as a mini-microcosm of the entire universe, are a miracle, we realize all the wisdom that we can tap into inside of us, just by getting quiet and listening to that wisdom inside of us.

Often we put people around us on pedestals and forget just how wise we are, and that you actually know the best thing for yourself better than anyone else can. There are beings and nature and energies all around us that are alive. Even water is alive. You can talk to it. You can work with it. The trees will talk to you if you let them. If you're patient enough, they take a little longer, and their messages are very clear cut. But there's deep wisdom in things that are very clear cut. Simple is sometimes the most profound.

Ross Tayler: So true. Thank you for sharing that, because I feel like it's such a powerful message that is so needed at this time when we're so distracted by so many things. One of the things I notice is that I really long for and yearn for the quiet of the forest, because it's just the opposite of all of that. I think you brought that into this conversation as well. I think we have to wrap up there, but I'd like to ask you a question that I think you already answered, though perhaps you could bring it into a more pointed answer. What's one simple way that someone could connect with the sacred today?

Ashley Zelinski: I'm just thinking about a bird that flies. We don't control the currents, yet we can navigate with them. We can co-create. You watch a bird and it doesn't fight against the wind. It doesn't go crazy trying to flap its wings, unless it's really struggling, and sometimes you've got to flap a little bit harder to get where you're going. But in general, it just notices the wind and glides. That's how it's meant to be for us in this world. We can create a sanctuary, even though things are distorted. I started with that meditation about even the people trying to dictate all the resources. Even their control is futile in the end compared to the might of Mother Nature. I suggest that instead of lining up our priorities with the false sense of power that's out there, we align them with nature, and we'll have that life force energy coursing through us, and we'll be able to glide just like that bird without much effort. That's how you're meant to be with abundance and life and co-creating. You don't need to control. You just glide with it, and you'll tap into that as you listen a little bit more to nature itself and your own heart.

Ross Tayler: I agree. Thank you so much for that. I love that reflection and the metaphor contained within it.

Ashley Zelinski: You're welcome, Ross. Thanks for having me here and letting me share what excites my soul and my passion for helping ignite the torches of other people, to bridge their hearts with nature and to help them remember that the Earth is a warm and welcoming place.

Ross Tayler: You're so welcome, and thank you again. We will put all of your contact information in the show notes so that people can reach out to you. I just want to say a heartfelt thank you for being here and for the messages that you brought through in this conversation. It's really been such an enjoyable experience.

Ashley Zelinski: Thank you, Ross. I appreciate all that you're doing and all the bridging that you're doing, letting people who are here to share their gifts share their stories and be a beacon out into the world. And the healing work that you do too. I appreciate you here.

Ross Tayler: Thank you. And to everyone listening, thank you for tuning in. Until next time, take good care.