Lokean Swamp Witch: Trickster-Induced Mysticism and Mayhem

Diary of a Lokean mystic.

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The Pagan Experience: Deity - Loki

(Image of Loki by Astral Eventide, commissioned by me in 2011)

The prompt for Week 3 of the Pagan Experience is to blog about Deity - Those Who guide you. Considering the fact that this blog is pretty much The Loki Show, it's probably redundant to introduce Him here; if you read my blog, you're familiar with His work.

So instead of "heeeerrrreeee's Loki!" I'd like to talk about "Why Loki?"

I've given different answers to this question at different times; the one constant that I can say is that it's because I love Him, and He loves me, which is a good enough reason in itself.

Now, did I pick Him or did He pick me? I think it's a bit of both, or perhaps neither - one of my main flails when He first showed His true face was that I'd always perceived Him as part of me in a way, and the longer that I'm a Godspouse, the more I understand that this is not wrong. There's a Oneness there that is hard to explain in words - sometimes it's more present and sometimes less, but it's never completely gone.

But early on, I didn't understand that, and so I felt like I'd had a chunk of my soul ripped out, and worse yet, that it was never really mine to begin with. Not that this is what Loki was going for; I think He was tired of pretending to just be a Muse, and it was going to make or break things, and possibly (probably?) both, at least for a while.

The song "Blinding," particularly this version sums up my feelings about this - it was overwhelming, terrifying, and ecstatic at turns and often all at once. And it still is; I hope I never get to the point where I think I've got this all down pat, because that seems to be when He gets "Challenge Accepted" on me. The last time I did that, I said to Him, "How much weirder could this possibly get?" Loki laughed and laughed and laughed at me, and I was given a Fae Court.

Note to self: I'm feeling less than challenged = you must need more responsibility.

Speaking of responsibility, one of the first things that Loki asked of me was to be a public wife. I have a number of tattoos for Him, and if I'm asked about them, I have to answer honestly what they mean. The more detailed the question is, the more explicit my answer must be. It's one of the few taboos that He's ever given me. This also means that from time to time I get unsolicited opinions about my relationship with Him, and that's one of the weirdest things that I had to adapt to - as author and Muse, it was just us; people liked our stories or didn't, but no one had opinions about whether I was Doin' It Rite or Wrong. Learning to separate our relationship from other Lokeans' opinions was the steepest learning curve; there was an ease in our relationship because it was very solitary, and it took a long time to get back.

There are reasons for this - Godspouses are often subjected to the trope of Community Servant, and if you buy into it too deeply, you get burnt out because the relationship is about Work Work Work and not about Love. I am the sort of person who has always been fueled by Love-work - Gods know that no one teaches for the money, cause it ain't there. So I had to learn how to be okay with not being all things to all people all the time. I also learned - and this is always ongoing - that I can love Loki and not love some of His people, that I can adore some of His people and neither of these things has anything to do with Him and me when we're together.

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Lokean nun, writer, swamp witch. Heather is a Pagan monastic, writer, editor, and mother. She has written and edited for a variety of publications and social media, including science journals, romance novels, and technology blogs. She also holds degrees in education and speech-language pathology, and has a passion for historical linguistics.

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