So hey! A few of us got together and decided to make a thing of beauty–a nice, thick, hunky volume of Loki Lore! We are seeking both general and scholastic writing, fiction, poems, artwork, recipes, rituals, and craft tips. Length from one to ten pages.
Just don’t send something with footnotes or we’ll send it back to you for revision—endnotes only.
Everything you need to know is on the flyer. Deadline for submissions below. We’re looking to have a 100-page publication, obtainable via print on demand. Looking forward to seeing your work!
He may have the physical appearance of a human being but he has the heart and soul of a half-eaten corndog. He is the embodiment of cowardice. There. I said it.
Unfortunately that…man…was lethally armed. He thought he’d be a bigger man, a real man, if only he could get him some fame for mass murdering innocents.
And he apparently fancies himself as a future inhabitant of Valhalla. Bitch, please! Explain to me how murdering unarmed anybodies is an honorable act that would attract the attention of any deity of merit. No, don’t bother. You can’t, because it doesn’t. Got that? Cowards who kill aren’t destined for Valhalla, Heaven, or any other desirable afterlife. Odin has no need of pathetic bullies who kill unarmed children and parents in a surprise attack. Freya, also a chooser of the slain who die in battle, wouldn’t have wasted a nano-second on the likes of you. Even deities of every underworld you can name will spurn such paltry pickings.
You have not found “glory.” You have hand-crafted an artisanal oblivion of your very own. And now you are behind bars.
Life is sacred. Our family and friends and pets and lands are sacred. And our perceived “enemies?” Even more sacred, because every “enemy” holds a mirror. The enemy is not there to be killed, the enemy is there to remind you of what you must confront in yourself–your hate, your entitlement, your petulance, your cowardice and ignorance. Those you deem “enemy” are human beings, like you, forced into a larger complexity of social, political, and economic turmoil, trying to make sense of it all.
If you could have looked into your enemy’s eyes and truly heard “hello brother” (as one of your victims reportedly said) and in that moment put down your weapons and wept, you would have awakened true bravery in your soul. You would have looked at what you’d done, and what you were about to do, and you would have accepted the shame, the guilt, the unneccesary horror you created, and the responsibility to repent and make amends. Living with yourself would not have been easy after that, but you would have taken a step on the road to actual humanity.
Enough.
Yesterday, I could not write with emotion. I felt it, but I could not write with it. Stark facts and statements was all I could manage. Today is different.
But the killer’s problems, whatever they were–and I really don’t care–are as nothing to the fact that he and his ilk are human cancer cells forming a bully tumor of white supremacy, prejudice, and entitlement. They are obvious in their cowardice, ridiculous in their collective and individual self-importance. They proudly display their appalling ignorance and lack of decency. Ridiculous and appalling, that is, until one of the cancer cells picks up a weapon and makes us scared or dead.
Just now I was caught in the trap of trying to figure out–to understand–this phenomenon of the bully tumor and the people who are entangled in it. Perhaps because I hope that if I know more about it, I can strategize for effective resistance.
But what I need to admit is that these white supremacists are merely the disposable tools of policymakers, governments, and industries who stand to gain by their eagerness to provide convenient, blood-soaked distractions while government-sanctioned carnage and pillaging continues. Terrifed by what we see on the news and the internet, we forget to identify the root cause: those at the top who–for their own advantage–uphold systemic racism, zenophobia, cultural genocide, and all forms of social, political, and economic oppression.
My country, the United States of America, is one of the most ardent players in this game of global plunder. Is it any wonder that our so-called “president” spews hate and lies on an almost daily basis? We’re one of the top five arms dealers in the world and constitute “5% of the world’s population but consume 24% of the world’s energy” (Source: “Consumption by the United States,” public.wsu.edu website. Copyright 2008, The Associated Press.) Our lust to consume knows no bounds. We are the least sustainable society in the world.
I believe the cultivation and exportation of American-style white supremacy serves a larger purpose than simply terrorizing and killing immigrants and people of color. I believe it is designed to inject terror into daily life, to paralyze the populace with fright, so that the elites of Western countries can retain and strengthen their grip on world resources, particularly those in indigenous countries. We are a country of colonists that imported and exploited slaves and tried to kill off the native peoples so we could take their land. We excell at manufacturing weapons and we arm cowards with nary a thought for the consequences. We make wars and create policies that produce immigrants and refugees. We make wars that destroy the environment so that ordinary people can no longer cultivate food and find clean water. And then, when an act of terror happens, our hypocrites in office “send thoughts and prayers” to victims of tragedies that their policies have created.
If there is something local I can do, in solidarity, I will. My own deities demand it.
This morning: 49 dead, 48 hospitalized from a mass shooting and attack on two mosques in Christchurch in Aotearoa (New Zealand). White supremacists planned and carried out the attacks. The gunman live-streamed the carnage.
In-depth coverage of the incident from Democracy Now. The commentaries from Qasim Rashid, a lawyer and human rights activist, and Farid Hafez, a lecturer and researcher at the University of Salzburg, are extremely important.
This is the latest horror to require a repudiating response and a strong call to action and solidarity from activist allies who oppose Islamophobia, structural and personal racism, anti-Semiticism, anti-immigration hate, and so on. (Have any of us done enough? I know I haven’t.)
Here are two opinion pieces just published in The Guardian.
“Your thoughts and prayers will not save our lives, while the actions of politicians and the media undoubtedly destroy them.
Every single day, people like me are subject to a media onslaught. Every single day, we are demonised, both by the people who make our laws and by the people who have significant influence over public opinion. And when I say “we”, I don’t just mean Muslims. Because it’s not just Muslims who are losing their lives at the hands of far-right nationalism. It’s Jews and Sikhs and black people. Because when fascism comes to call, it usually doesn’t care what shade of “different” you are. All it knows is that you are different, and it does not like you for it.”
“Today is Friday. It is the day of the week when Muslims will gather all around the world in communitarian prayer. Many of them in the west will be fearful after seeing the news, worried that this attack may herald a new, ongoing threat to their safety. We have to make sure they know they are not alone. That wider society will stand by them. That we see them not as Muslim communities transplanted into the west, but as Muslim communities of the west. They are part of us, and we of them. If we do otherwise, and we allow this event to pass us by without recognising the ideas that propelled it, then it is only a matter of time before it is repeated.”
I am not sure how to make an impact in my own community. Does Lake County, CA have a mosque? I can’t seem to discover one. Otherwise I would call and ask what I can do, as a fellow citizen, to show meaningful support or action.
Making a donation to some other organization is at least one way to help. Here are two possibilities. I have just donated to both.
This is important as the murderer made a comment about “going to Valhalla” which may indicate a link with neo-nazis who usurp Norse symbols and mythology to justify white supremacy, as the original nazis did.
Sorrow for the families. May the murdered rest in peace. May the cancer of white supremacy and violence be vanquished. May our merciful deities assist us to do much more than we are doing now.
The brand new bottle of new-to-me meds is set before the altar. Offerings have been made. The candles are lit. Several consecrated pendulums are beside me. And thus the ritual begins.
“Beloved Loki, this medicine has been prescribed for me. Do you sanction its use?”
Pendulum swings yes. “And will you bless it for me, helping it to be free of any side effects?” Yes again.
“Thank you, my Lord Loki.”
And so on through my pantheon: Lord Freyr, Lady Freya (and her namesake cat appears at my knee to also add her blessing), Lady Gerda, Lady Brigid, and the Peerless Bastet. Ancestors too. One by one, via pendulum divination, they all accept and bless this medicine. I know they want me to be healthy and resilient.
And then I address the beings of the medicine itself–an artificial creation of “big pharma”–asking it to cooperate with me in a healing and resiliency building process. (Notice the animism in this approach?) I also ask my body to collaborate with the medicine. I pledge to continue taking care of my health in general.
And then I take the first dose, confident in the love and blessings of the spirits who are my family.
Caution: Never discontinue or avoid using any medication without first and always consulting with your doctor and health practitioners.
What would I have done if one of my deities had said “no” to the “will you sanction its use” question? I would have replied, “Thank you. I am going to follow doctor’s orders, as I made a vow to do so, so while I understand your concern for me, will you please bless this medicine anyway, so that I can safely fulfill my vow?”
Spirits understand vows. And doctors understand that you will call them if side effects arise.
Better yet, I would have just asked for a blessing on the medication, without using the first question. That’s what I recommend for anyone reading this article. Just ask for the blessing. (And follow doctor’s orders.)
Why Did I Do This?
Emile Coue. Source: Wikipedia.
I’m a hypnotist (among other things) and so I know a little hypnosis history. One of the “greats” was a French psychologist and pharmacist, Émile Coué de la Châtaigneraie. He’s the founder of autosuggestion. You have probably heard some variation of the saying, “each day in every way I am getting better and better.” That’s from Coué.
He realized his patients often did better when he offered a positive remark while handing over the medicine, such as “Oh, this is exactly the right thing for you. You’ll do very well with this” (imagined examples). Here are two key paragraphs from the Wikipedia article:
Coué noticed that in certain cases he could improve the efficacy of a given medicine by praising its effectiveness to the patient. He realized that those patients to whom he praised the medicine had a noticeable improvement when compared to patients to whom he said nothing. This began Coué’s exploration of the use of hypnosis and the power of the imagination.
And:
Coué believed in the effects of medication. But he also believed that our mental state is able to affect and even amplify the action of these medications. By consciously using autosuggestion, he observed that his patients could cure themselves more efficiently by replacing their “thought of illness” with a new “thought of cure”. According to Coué, repeating words or images enough times causes the subconscious to absorb them. The cures were the result of using imagination or “positive autosuggestion” to the exclusion of one’s own willpower.
So with my ritual, I have gone one better. Instead of creating a hypnotic autosuggestion ritual, which of course I could have done easily, I wanted the full blessings of my divine pantheon and my ancestors. They are deeply rooted in my subconscious and their participation means the world to me.
Also I had a curious incident a few weeks ago. I was in a crisis state triggered by a family situation. I prayed fervently to all my deities, but to Bastet in particular, for help. There is a line in the supposed “ancient prayer to Bastet” that you find on the internet:
“…slay the evil that affects our minds as you slay the serpent Apep.”
And so I begged her to slay the evils of depression and despair that blight my life. Weirdly, the persistent feeling of being bogged down by a constant state of depression and anxiety actually lifted by the next day and I felt light and free, much better than I have in years. This lasted for a few weeks. It’s like I knew I had been wounded but no longer felt it. “The edge” was definitely not just off, but gone.
Dude! I almost didn’t keep my appointment with the psychiatrist!
But though the deities grant grace and boons and blessings, we mortals are the ones to do the heavy lifting. Loki would rather teach magic and mischief and inspire my writing. Bastet prefers to focus on pleasure, beauty, and dancing. Gerda wants me to water the garden and talk with plants. Freyr reminds me that even toxic relationships can be composted for a new harvest. Freya and Brigid bring me back to explorations of the sacred feminine. In other words, there is more to explore in life and magic and if I want to step up my game…well then! My deities and ancestors are quite willing to give me a boost now and then, and blessings too, but I can’t waste my time in tears.
So I kept the appointment. And this morning I lifted the now consecrated tablet to my lips. I washed it down with tea and set the bottle on the altar, to remind me that the medicine is now sacred.
This approach could work for anyone, monotheist or pantheist, no matter who or what you call upon for assistance. I’ll let you know how it goes.
People take umbrage at the most ridiculous things these days. Last night I was weeding out the incomplete responses to my Neopagan Spectrosexual and God Spousery survey–since I need 100 surveys with all ten questions answered–when I stumbled across one person’s irate offering. [Data collection now closed.]
“I don’t consider myself neopagan” was the first sniffy salvo.
Okaaay…I’m thinking, sure not everyone can relate to the label, but it was the best umbrella term I could use. Otherwise I’d have had to put in a whole laundrylist of super-specific traditions: Wiccan with a twist, Heathen but also into crystals, hedge-witch-but-only-with-roses, corporate shamanism… and I would have left out a category and someone would have been offended. Umbrage, you know.
But I was prepared to be patient.
Then the respondent included their fairly specific list of magical lineages and explorations.
Cool. That’s the kind of information I’m seeking. So far so good. I can put up with a little attitude for the sake of data.
Then came the (inevitable) outburst in the comment box which I paraphrase as “god spousery is crap because you can only legitimately be a god spouse if you’re involved in: ________________, _______________, and _______________” (fill in the blanks with the most obscure religious tradition you can find during a five minute poke at a search engine). The respondent ends of course with a nasty little jab at “Tumblr Loki” (a jab which encompasses his god spouses, of which there are legion) and then disappears after question five.
I looked at the screen. I’ll admit, I felt something like dismay, at first, as I am always surprised when (1) people turn nasty for no reason at all and feel it is important to inflict that on others and (2) when people who pride themselves on their “intelligence” can’t read a clear statement about the intention and desired sample of the survey.
But my dismay evaporated quickly. “Is there any reason I should keep this response?” I wondered. “The…hostility is…interesting….though regrettable.”
But no, this isn’t a survey for people to weigh in on the topic of whether or not spectrosexuality and god spousery are real, important, delusional, silly, or only legit when practiced by a brand-name corporate shaman buggering the ghost of the company’s founder with the intention of boosting profits among the living. If it had been, hell yeah, I would have kept the response (assuming the rest of the questions were answered).
The point is, my modest inquiry is a survey of a specific sample: those people engaged in any sort of “neopagan” practices and traditions who feel they have or have had sexually intimate encounters or relationships with unseen beings.
Bottom line: the umbrage person did not fit the sample. I deleted the response. But now I wish I’d taken a screenshot. I was sort of interested in tracking down that corporate shamanism reference. (I’m joking.)
I am tempted to do a follow-up survey though–testing positive and negative opinions about spectrosexuality and god spousery among “neopagans.” People with umbrage would be welcome then. And I’d have time to armor my stomach against their vitriole.
Respect for human sexual (and asexual) behavior is a foundation of sexology.
The most important thing I gained through my sexology education was an immense awe and respect for the range of human sexual behavior and erotic response. As a result, I don’t rank anything that adult people do as “better” than what other adult people do. Whether it’s a Christian marriage between an asexual cis-het couple or a triad consisting of two human beings and a god (who has countless other partners, both spirit and human), my only criteria for “judgment” has to do with consensuality and age of consent.
Prejudice is ugly. And shame can kill.
I have always felt particularly concerned for outsiders, for people who are included in what is known as “sexual minority groups.” (Ditto for “gender minorities.”) Shame, scorn, ridicule, and shunning are profoundly aggressive methods wielded by people who set themselves above others, due to prejudice.
Spiritual shaming is a “kissing cousin” to sexual and gender shaming. There is no difference between a witchy pundit dissing an ardent “Tumblr Loki” god spouse and a right-wing minister calling down the wrath of god (and the congregation) on a gay teenager.
No difference at all.
Unconditional Positive Regard
That’s why I’m engaged in my modest inquiry. I suspect that god spousery and sex with spirits is the new “love that dare not speak its name” (and it won’t be the last). There’s plenty of ridicule and shame being heaped on the people who take my survey and I’m actually sick of that shit.
And I suspect that the phenomena of human-spirit intimacy is as old as humanity itself.
This is not a scientific or academic inquiry. I’m not an impartial researcher. I never was. My agenda is to discover “what people do and how they feel about it” and then to present those discoveries in a context of “unconditional positive regard” in whatever way I can.
And if my patron god chooses to shapeshift into “Tumblr Loki” now and then, who am I to denounce his pleasure? Or those of others? I have compersion–have at it, friends!
Hail Loki!
Notes on Quotes:
The “love that dare not speak its name” is a phrase from the poem, Two Loves, by Lord Alfred Douglas, Oscar Wilde’s lover.
“Unconditional positive regard” is a phrase from the psychologist Carl Rogers, founder of client-centered therapy. Here’s an article which explains the concept.
Yesterday was March 6th. According to Susan Miller’s Astrology Zone March forecast for my Sun sign, that was my day for a big candy box of astro-goodies. I had (1) New Moon in Pisces in my fifth house (love and romance)–though I didn’t “go out and circulate” as advised, except for a trip to the grocery store and no, I didn’t meet a new love in the parking lot. (Gluten-free crackers were on sale though. That was a score!)
But perhaps all that action in my fifth house is what inspired me to launch my Neopagan Spectrosexuality and God Spouse survey this week? Looking for 100 good respondents who will actually fill out all ten questions. If you’re having spirit sex, I want to know. Totally confidential. (No one keeps secrets like a Scorp!)
According to Miller, I also had (2) Neptune doing the conjunct thing with the New Moon in Pisces, where the Sun and a retrograde Mercury are also canoodling. And (3) Mars is in my seventh house “partnership sector” which I guess is dandy, but since there is no human partner on the horizon, it seems kind of a waste. Now a literary agent–that’d be a treat! I could get serious about that!
So here I am, waving a nice internet signal flag (below) to the literary world and to fans of fantasy fiction at large. It’s a “showcase” of the first three chapters of the first book in my Guild of Ornamental Hermits fantasy trilogy–a tale of mid-life magic. It’s meant as a “teaser,” so please, purchase and be teased!
Plus, the entire profit ($3.00) of each print or PDF copy goes to the KAHEA Mauna Kea Legal Defense Fund as a “give back” to the “Big Island” of Hawai’i.
Showcasing the first 5 chapters of a tale of mid-life magic. A ragtag bunch of artists and musicians learn mystic arts and team up with Elves as they resist interdimensional baddies, a giant salamander, and the usual real estate developers. Set in the lava land of Puna in the “not too distant future” of a renewed Hawaiian Kingdom. The lead characters are trans and intersex, and many others are LGB and queer. The $3.00 profit from each copy…
Getting those five chapters into the MagCloud format, and launching it, was what I was doing yesterday instead of displaying my charms at the Foods Etc. parking lot in Clearlake. (Sorry, fellas!)
(4) Miller also heralds this March 6th astro-quake:
“Uranus into Taurus for the first time since 1934 to 1941. This means the influence will be brand new to you and most people living today. Uranus takes 84 years to circle the Sun and all 12 houses of the horoscope, spending seven years in each house this planet visits. The seven years Uranus will be in your marriage and partnership house will be from March 201[9]* until April 2026.” (She wrote 2018* but that was obviously a typo.)
I’m twitching with anticipation. And since I’m 64, a Uranus in Taurus partnership just might get me through the remaining years of my life. We’ll see. If nothing else, I guess I’ll make a few more trips to the grocery store.
So, just as any good Scorpio would do, I ignored the romantic promptings of the stars and shunned human company so as to thrust two more projects out into the world in order to advance my aims for world domination. It’s a life that only my cats–and Loki–can understand. That is, until you read my five chapters and take the survey…
Then you’ll know…all!
P.S. Yesterday I found out that microwaving marshmellow Peeps is a popular form of consumer product torture. I never knew it was a thing. Is it kinky? Should I run a survey?
Lady Of The Lake 