Recently I had a friend ask me what it was like to write with Loki. I've been mentally chewing on this for a bit, simply because I don't know if I can describe it as a process - I've had people ask me for years "where do you get the ideas from?" and my answer is that I have no idea; they just show up.

Loki, as His shell character, just showed up. I didn't spend any time making a character worksheet for Him. I didn't have to ask Him any of His likes, dislikes, fears, desires, or strengths; I just knew them. I knew Him, and that knowing was so completely natural that I didn't even question it.

(In chatting with my friend Seren Lebannen about this, they've said to me, "you just fell out of the Legit tree and hit every branch on the way down, didn't you?" Yes, yes I did.)

And of course I loved Him. What writer doesn't love their Muse? When His Muse shenanigans started back in 2002, I was a fairly baby Pagan (I converted in 2000), but my writing had a very definite Pagan flare, even when I was young and had never heard of Paganism. I have a really old story that was written back in the late 80s that is incredibly Vanic; Freyr, Freyja, and Njord are all recognizable to me now, and it's fair to say that no matter what I try to write, my imagination is my main gate into the astral. When people ask me how they know whether or not they're daydreaming, I'd say it doesn't matter, because daydreams often shift into Something Else, and that staying with the experience and enjoying it (or at least experiencing it, cause not all of it is fun and games) is part of the Work. You can analyze it later. Or not, actually; sometimes just waiting to see what happens next is part of the mystical experience.

I don't think that this experience is unique to me - the uptick in sacred fiction shows that more and more people are becoming aware of the sacredness of art. Writing, drawing, painting, craftwork, music - all of these arts are places where we can interact with our higher selves and spirit guides. I'd even argue that things like science and engineering are arts, because certainly their advances come from creativity, from a willingness to change their minds and have revelation of new information. I'm going to talk about writing because it's my realm of experience, but it's not the only way to experience Them, is my greater point.

I'm also a proponent of using your creativity (in whatever form it takes) because it's a direct, experiential approach and a more direct relationship with Them. Alan Moore talks about this and Pagan mysticism in this interview, which is fascinating.

Moore talks about creativity and spirituality in more general terms; I'm gonna talk about Loki as Muse specifically, because again, this is my experience. I had a very private, intimate relationship with Him as a Muse, because I was blissfully unaware that He was a Deity. I didn't know Who or what He was, and I didn't care, because I loved Him, and it all felt very natural. I don't know how to describe it other than that it felt like talking to myself, even though He was Himself. When we write there's a unity of passion and purpose, even when His ideas or desires are different than mine.

It was psychic equivalent of having a cold bucket of water dumped on me to find out that He was a God, and that our cozy, private relationship wasn't going to be private any more. Figuring out how to relax and be myself around Him is the greatest challenge I've had adjusting to this change in our relationship. Some of that isn't unique to Him and me; learning to be soft in a hard world seems to be a running theme among many devotional polytheists. I don't claim to be perfect at it, but I keep trying, because the alternative is so much misery for Him and me.