PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

Or, why UPG is personal, and why no one else's gnosis should get in the way of your relationship with Himself.

Loki is many things - charismatic, cunning, ruthless, loyal, loving. When I was a newer Lokean (yanno, still had the new car smell!), I used to worry that the sweet Husband that I had was somehow a false Loki or a sockpuppet or whatever godphone error. Over time, I've come to realize that it's not that someone else is wrong about Loki being harsh to them, or that I'm wrong in understanding His relationship with me, it's just that I'm not living with their Loki, and they're not living with mine. I suppose some of my feelings on Him are colored by perspective - it's not as if I've never been asked to do something hard - I left my mortal spouse, uprooted my child, lost a fair amount of zie's childhood pictures and keepsakes, many of which I'll never be able to replace, but the reason why He asked it of me was of Nyd, and still done out of love, so I can't truly be angry with Him or feel it unjust.

Fun fact about me: I have a degree in speech-language pathology, and my concentration was in clinical phonology with a heavy emphasis on linguistics. I love studying the sound systems of a language and how sounds are tied to meaning. Today I happened across Forvo, a linguistic site that specializes in using native speakers to demonstrate how to pronounce words. It is single words and not sentences, but it's still helpful in developing an ear for nonnative speakers.

Of course, Forvo has a list of Norse mythology terms and many other languages as well. I hope that resources such as this will help preserve and protect against linguistic extinction. Every language has its own way of expressing a view of the world, and the language we speak undoubtedly shapes the way we think about everything in the inner and outer world. As Pagans we are explorers of other worlds, and so preservation of language is as precious as any other resource.

For those of you unfamiliar, July has become a festival month of sorts for Loki. Sirius, the dog star, is known as Lokabrenna - Loki's torch or brand. Late July/August is when Sirius rises, and so many of us celebrate Himself in the dog days of summer.

Today I'm making Him this: 

Greetings, gentle readers. July is known as a month for Loki, because in the dog days of summer, Lokabrenna (Loki's Torch) rises. For those of you unfamiliar, Lokabrenna is another name for Sirius. Himself is active this time of year, and many Lokeans honor Him this month by posting poems, recipes, or other devotional works. I'm starting my month with a recipe for Him - a meal of hearts.

Loki's lore includes the eating of hearts. Here in the modern US, we don't do a lot of cooking with organ meats, but for seidhr I experimented with cooking chicken hearts, because it was what I could get my hands on locally. I offered Loki some, and He was positively FERAL and overjoyed to get them, because it is such a rare treat. So I'm gonna encourage y'all to try offering Him hearts, and since people usually don't know how to cook organ meats (I had to play Hail Lady Google), I will offer my own experience. I started with this recipe, because it involved grilling the hearts, and if you're familiar with Gullveig in the sagas. you know that He found her heart smoldering in embers and ate it, and barbecue is the closest that I can offer to that experience right now. If I ever get my lungs to a state where I can go camping and not have to worry about campfire smoke messing with them, I'd like to attempt cooking a larger heart for Him the way you do a baked potato, cooked straight on the coals, rubbed with butter and herbs, wrapped in tinfoil. 

Greetings, gentle readers, I’m Heather Freysdottir and I’ll be your Lokean Swamp Witch. I’m a Godspouse, which is a type of mysticism that involves sharing day to day life with a Deity, Loki in my case. I know that some would consider that odd, but for me, it’s an extension of my understanding of the sacred. Yes, Loki is holy. I am holy. You are holy. The goal and desire in this Union is to acknowledge the sacredness of this World and Elsewhere, and to bring them together, and be present and aware of both.

When we cast a circle, it’s often said that we create sacred space, but in truth, every space is sacred, and by casting we acknowledge and create awareness of its holiness, and our own, and create a bond of kinship with the humans and Spirits participating in the ritual. A godspouse’s relationship is much the same. We come together with our Beloveds and go out into our communities and create awareness of the bonds that unite us to the Gods and the Land. We are a circle.

Title: Iduna and the Magic Apples

Publisher: MacMillan

In my last article I proposed to discuss an expression of Loki which tries to avoid the pitfall of declaring to be either for or against this complex and provocative figure. Unfortunately this will entail a bit of self-promotion on my part, because I intend to present and discuss the lyrics to a musical release called Loki Bound, which was released by Milam Records earlier in 2012. Loki Bound was performed by Greed & Rapacity, a band of which I am one half.

Loki Bound is a one-song 30-minute funeral doom metal descent into Loki’s stream of consciousness during his imprisonment by the Aesir, the primary Norse pantheon, for misdeeds real and (possibly) imagined. He lies chained by his son’s intestines to a deeply buried boulder, while a serpent drips venom upon him. His loyal wife, Sigyn, catches the poison in a cup, but when she goes to empty the cup, the poison falls on Loki’s skin. His agonized convulsions are the root of earthquakes, and it is fair to say that Loki is a deity of psychological tectonics.