In a couple of weeks, I will be in the woods at a local Pagan festival, enjoying the lack of cell phone service and not stressing about work. During the festival, I will be leading a ritual to Loki. The origin of my Loki blót (Norse style ritual) is somewhat of a funny story and one I think worth sharing.
I practice various Pagan traditions, with Norse Paganism or Heathenry being one of those. I am dedicated to Odin and my personal practice focuses on Odin, Freya, Freyr and Hel but I do honor many of the Norse gods. Needless to say, Loki was not on my radar. I have never been anti-Loki, Loki is typically welcome at my rituals if He chooses to come, and attendees are welcome to toast to him. Although there are some Norse groups are not comfortable with Loki and do not include him in their practice. I work with similar deities from other cultures, such as Set from the Ancient Egyptian pantheon. I am not afraid of a deity with a chaos label. That doesn’t mean you should not be cautious with them. In my experience, it is a good rule of thumb to be cautious when dealing with any deity. But I am not going to shun a trickster deity simply because they are tricksters. As a child of Odin, I am also aware that there are dark aspects of Odin that I will likely never call on or want to see. In her book “Odin: Ecstasy, Runes and Norse Magic” Diana Paxson talks about the dark, trickster aspect of Odin and says that if you need a trickster deity it would be better to call on Loki than Odin in this guise.
Chaos Serves a Purpose
I am not a fan of chaos, but I understand that if you have order, you must also have chaos. In many mythologies the universe was nothing but chaos before the gods created structure and order out of it. If that is the case, where would we be if chaos had not existed? I prefer that my life not be chaotic, but my higher self knows that sometimes it is chaos that creates change and growth. It is necessary just as order is necessary.
Loki was never a being who I associated with being concerned with order, but that was my mistake. He is a god. How can a human truly understand what the gods want or why? Even when they share information with us, I know it is only part of the story and only the part I am supposed to know.
The fact that this story is about Loki is a surprise in itself. I truly never thought Loki would be the star of this tale. My husband and I went to New Orleans to go on a cruise. I have friends and associates in New Orleans, and try get down there as often as possible. I was trying to coordinate meeting up with a friend, when they gave me some very unhelpful advice. In their defense, they were being a good friend and looking out for me. Which I appreciate. However, their advice just made me paranoid. My friend told me that New Orleans was experiencing an increase in car vandalism and theft, and he wasn’t sure if my car would be safe at the cruise terminal. Truly, he was just looking out for me. My problem though, was that I live in Memphis. Memphis has also been experiencing record numbers of crime, much of it focused on automobile theft and vandalism. So my imagination had plenty to work with in this scenario.
I told my husband about it and we talked about different parking options. In the end we decided to park in the cruise terminal like we had many times before. We’ve never had an issue with safety there. The parking at the terminal is in a dedicated garage that is gated and monitored. There are always lots of people about. We thought nothing of it. When we arrived the morning of the cruise, it was almost impossible to get near the cruise terminal. There were multiple cruises going out that day, there was also a big convention at the convention center which is next door to the cruise terminal. The whole area was a mess. After hours of driving in a circle looking for parking, we finally managed to snag a spot in one of the overflow lots about a half mile from the cruise terminal. The shuttles that were running between the parking lots and the terminal were also stuck in the traffic. So, we decided to walk. By the time we parked, unloaded and were on our way, I was a nervous wreck. If my New Orleanian friend thought that parking in the cruise terminal parking garage wasn’t safe, how safe was my car sitting in a dirt lot a few blocks over? But what was I going to do about it? I locked my car, drew a protection sigil over it and ran (figuratively) for the cruise terminal as fast as my short legs would allow.
Loki Answered the Spirit Phone
While my husband and I are navigating the cruise terminal traffic on foot, I am praying. I tried to calm my inner voice and reach out to my usual deities for protection, but all I received was silence. Odin seemed to be busy elsewhere. Sekhmet was not answering the metaphorical phone. None of my deities seemed to be concerned. I should have taken that as a good sign and been less anxious about the situation but instead I became ever more worried. I then desperately put out a general plea for help and protection of my car to the Universe. Loki answered.
I have learned that it is better to ask a god what kind of compensation they want for something before agreeing to do anything with them, even if they are a patron of yours. While I appreciated someone hearing me and being willing to help, I was not going to say yes without asking some questions first. Especially since I knew just enough about Loki to be wary, and I had never had any interactions with the god before this. I asked Loki what he wanted in exchange for watching over my car for the week. His response was that he wanted me to do a blót/ritual dedicated to just him.
This is a request that I get fairly often from gods. I am not under any delusion that I have the biggest platform or do the best rituals. But I do have a platform, one that the gods like to use. Through my store and through both my Wiccan and Norse religious groups, I have a longer reach than some. Yet I know there are many people with larger audiences, who can take messages from the gods to a different level than I can. But what I have seems to be enough for the gods, for now.
I agreed to host a Loki Blót and He and I did an astral handshake on the matter. I was then gifted with the entertaining visual of Loki as a seal sitting on my car. With Loki protecting my car, I tried to put my worry out of my mind and enjoy my vacation. A week later we disembarked from the cruise and made it back to the parking lot, this time on a shuttle. I was much relieved to see my car sitting exactly as it was when I left it.
Once we arrived back home and tackled the list of things that pile up when you’re gone from work, I turned my attention to creating a Loki ritual. I knew this was going to take some extra time, as I did not have a real relationship with Loki before this. I never advise someone to invite a deity into a ritual when they have never worked with that deity or spent any time with them.
When I create rituals to specific deities, I begin with asking them what they want me to say or do, to see if they have a message they want shared. I had no idea what to expect from the Trickster when came to what He wanted in His ritual. I anticipated traditional trickster tales of learning through mistakes or saving the day through unconventional methods. I did not expect Loki to be serious.
Unraveling the Surprises of the God of Mischief
Firstly, Loki reminded me of the messages he had delivered through a channeler at Mystic South in 2022. I was not at the conference sadly, but John Beckett was. It is no secret that I am a fan of John’s and a regular reader of his blog and books. John was conscripted into documenting Loki’s message at the conference which he wrote about here. I encourage you to read John’s post about this experience but to summarize, Loki had three messages he wanted to deliver. The first was to cultivate joy. Even in the darkest of times, we must find our own joy and let it shine to encourage others. The second message was that it was time to prepare our masks or our shields if you will, as it feels like an unsafe time to an out of the broom closet Pagan. His final message was that life will go on no matter what happens.
Taking Loki’s Advice
We don’t have time to talk about Ragnarök, or to debate if it is a literal event or a metaphorical one or both. We know from Norse mythology that life will indeed go on after Ragnarök. Baldr will come out of Helheim and will rebuild the human race as well as the ranks of the gods. Life is going to continue to go on, even before Ragnarök. I think some of us, perhaps many of us, look at the environment, politics, capitalism, and the atrocities happening in the world and wonder how we are living through this and surviving this. How in the dark and dread, how through despair and pain, we persevere. Life will find a way. Life must go on. And we must continue to do the things and the work that have been laid upon us by the gods. No matter what new hell is on TV, the dishes still need doing, the laundry still needs doing, we still have to go to work and pay bills. The world will continue to turn before, through, and after Ragnarök. We must do our part to continue to live and live fully. We must continue to find joy and happiness and we must continue to fight and stand strong against the forces of darkness.
The world feels chaotic right now, but it’s not. It is all part of a carefully crafted plan and we are but pawns in a game we do not even know exists. Loki is the chaos that we need right now. Let him be the chaotic winds that tear apart the plans and rewards of the powerful and evil. Let his trickery torment our oppressors and let his monstrous side fight for us, as a powerful agent of change in a world that needs to be shaken up and torn apart. As the Disney characterization of Loki once said, “I am burdened with glorious purpose.”
This is the message that I take with me into the woods next month. As it turns out, Loki is a being concerned with order and the state of the world. Afterall, without the order of the world, how can we see Loki’s flame of chaos? He might be a trickster, but tricksters are teachers too. And his serious messages for us shed a bit of light on this misunderstood deity. Regardless of his reputation (both earned and unearned), Loki is a god who can protect us when called upon. If we will let him.
Hail Loki!
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