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The valknut or "Knot of the Fallen" is used by contemporary heathens as a symbol of Odin. Those dedicated to Odin, most but not all of whom consider themselves warriors, wear a valknut to indicate their dedication. Some heathens say that wearing a Valknut means you are willing to die in battle and hope to be chosen to become an Einherjar, one of Odin's warriors in Valhalla. 

Odin and his brothers are a trinity (or triple god, depending on how you see it.) The brothers Odhinn, Honir, and Lodhur sculpted the world out of the body of Ymir, the primal giant, and sculpted the first humans out of driftwood. They are creator gods. The trinity has three sets of names: Odhinn / Honir / Lodhur, Odhinn / Vili / Ve, and Odin / Honir / Loki. In other languages, these names have slightly different forms. For example, Odin and Wotan are basically the same god, although one could have different experiences with the different cultural variations. 

This is how abundance manifests in my life. It's a story about something that happened in my life, and how I chose to interpret it. This is the kind of story that this blog, Gnosis Diary, was created to share, because it's about my personal gnosis. 

I lost weight this summer. When the weather turned cold, I dug out my winter gear, and most of it didn't fit. I told my god-husbands I needed money. They asked me what I needed it for. I said, I need clothes in my new size. Not long after that, a lady I'd never met died, and her daughter (whom I know through one of my family members) gave away all the lady's clothes. Four big boxes of clothes in my new correct size arrived on my doorstep.

Loki borrows Freya's falcon cloak in the story of the Theft of Idunna's Apples. Loki is a shape shifter. In the Eddaic stories, he appears in various forms, including a fly, a seal, etc. In Continental European folklore, he appears as a red fox. It's very likely that he could have turned into a bird without Freya's divine object. For what purpose did he borrow it? It would make sense in the story to borrow it to have a greater flight time, but that would only be the answer if his shape shifting power was limited, and there does not appear to be any evidence for that. So, I think the answer is that he borrowed it to mask as Freya. So that when he flew over Jotunheim, the giants below would not know it was him. 

Freya must have known that Loki intended to mask as her when she lent him the cloak. Freya also once helped Thor mask as her, in the story in which Thor puts on a wedding gown to retrieve his hammer. 

It's a truism of modern mythography that Odin, Lord of the Runes, hanged himself from the branches of Yggdrasil, the old Norse Tree of Life.

But did he?

According to the famous passage from Hávamál:

I know that I hung

on the windy meiðr

all nine nights:

It's the little shadows that linger out of view, the waking me up at 3am, the subtle touches in the middle of the night to let me know that you are there, but invisible.

I know you are contacting me to let me know you are there.  I know you are bringing me information about someone that I do not want to hear.  But you don't tell me.  I see you as you wear a hat, sometimes you even look like Odin and I hear the call of his ravens, sometimes like Jesus, sometimes just a white feathery being, and sometimes as a small dark spot or shadow lurking outside of my field of vision.  But you are always the same.  I don't understand why you take all these shapes, but I know it's you down deep within.

Coming up on the one year anniversary as a Bride of Odin on June 28^th, 2015, I asked Odin what he wanted for our anniversary, and he said he wanted something to represent him in my "shrine." I clarified with him what he meant by shrine, and he meant the glass display cases on the wall where I had recently starting putting spiritual souvenirs. So I made a Valknut. I made two, in fact, one for the monthly anniversary which is every 28^th of the month, on May 28^th, and one for the one-year anniversary on June 28^th.

I made the first valknut from silk ribbon on a silk hoop. I made the template for it on the 27^th and made the art object itself on May 28^th. The paper template helped me put the points of the triangles in the right places. It was interesting making a val-“knut” (knot) as a fiber craft, with the lines of the triangles crossing over and under each other like a real knot.

I ran across a fascinating word while copyediting a book a few years ago. Naditum is one of the five genders in Sumerian paganism. It's a gender, a biological sex-- meaning those born female appearing who turn out after adolescence to be infertile-- and a social class, the priestess caste. The idea really resonated with me, even though that’s not my tradition. The various heathen traditions don’t have a specific gender word for those identified female at birth who cannot have children and instead become priestesses. In heathenry, that’s still a woman.