When things don’t go your way: Unraveling the Mystery of Loki in your life
So the name that was given to me in my spiritual seeking was Jarl Aslaung Thoreskelde, when translated means something like Chieftain Woman Betrothed to the God Beloved of Thor. If that doesn’t sum up my life in a nutshell nothing does. To add to this puzzle I’m going to let you in on a little secret, the woman I love is named Sigrun Rose Angar Laufeyson, which basically means Secret Victory Rose, ruler with the sword, and if you don’t recognize her second last name let me enlighten you, it is also Loki’s Last name. Something about son of a leaf?
I never wanted to be in a relationship and I thought any chance of having a relationship was abandoned when I decided I wanted to basically become a Viking Nun. I married a God named Thor, and he taught me how to be a leader and personable. One day I met this girl who was only half on her path and I helped guide her to her path. She started walking it and got herself married to Loki, and now she and I are getting married to one another.
How is Loki, the trickster god in my life? I’m in a multi-dimensional polyamorous yet physically monogamous relationship. I sound like a crazy person, even when I write that sentence out. To most people in the Pagan Community we are nuts. For us, this is our everyday life. Ninety-nine percent of my life is preparing for what to do when things go wrong and the inevitable chaos that is my relationship with a Trickster God and his wife goes crazy.
Even people that follow the Northern Path and understand that we have something more than a business professional relationship with our deity will rag on Loki, the trickster god. Saying he’s terrible to work with and no good and pure chaos. I want to say something here, yes, Loki is Chaos in its most basic form and working with him causes changes and chaos in your life. He is not terrible to work with you just need to know what you’re signing up for when you put your name on the dotted line.
Loki is going to facilitate the change that you need in your life. Is it going to be that change that you want? Not always, but it will always be the change that you need. Is it going to be in the way that you want it to happen? Never. There is one thing that you can always expect from Loki, he is an a-hole and he will always be an a-hole. If you want to deal with him in any kind of manner where he doesn’t completely screw up your life at every step that you take, well here’s how.
You pay attention. You honestly don’t have another choice. When Loki is in your life ignoring him will make you go spiraling into deep dark abyss quicker than you can think of because he is trying to help you so you need to accept his help or it’s going to go the opposite direction. These are the terms and conditions that you need to accept when you work with Loki.
This I think is where Loki tends to get a bad rap with most people that follow the Northern Path, and most pagans in general. He has three aspects to him depending on his stages in life. You have the completely trickster Loki that is going to do everything to please himself, and for the sheer joy of doing things. This is a Loki you hear about less frequently because he’s not around for very long. This is when he first becomes a blood brother to Odin and in order to get the others to like him he plays pranks.
Spoiler Alert, no one on Asgard liked these pranks, and all he got for it was an eight legged horse that calls him Mom. Which is where you start getting into what I like to call the middle of the road Loki where he causes trouble only to fix it and try to be seen as the savior. Tom Hiddleston plays an excellent middle path Loki (though his hair should be red!) he angers everyone, tries to fix it, and in the end hilarity ensues. While a lot of the facts are inaccurate in the Marvel Universe and those Movies, the character behind that Loki makes him a perfect example of the Middle Path Loki Attitude.
Flash forward a little while in his life. If you don’t know by now, Frigga becomes troubled by dreams of her beloved son Balder dying. So she of course extracts promises from everyone to not kill him except for the mistletoe because it was too young. Loki convinces Balder’s blind brother to throw a dart of mistletoe at him, killing him. Basically after that it is all downhill for Loki in the lore. The gods betray him, they bind him to rock with his son’s intestines, and have a very venomous snake over his head dripping poison into his eyes. At this point who wouldn’t be pissed?
Loki switches teams, will eventually break free, and ride in on a ship of nails leading the army of giants. Then everyone dies. This last incarnation is destroyer of worlds, and he will destroy everything you know and love to set off your own personal Ragnarok.
My point being, know which Loki you are working with, pay attention to what he is trying to do, and plan for when things go wrong. You don’t have to become the Chaos in order to embrace it and you don’t have to fear Loki being in your life. You can just ride the wave and let things happen, Loki is a bad guy but he’s not really the bad guy. Loki is the one that you will fear the least when you understand him.
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