Balancing Devotional Action

The feeling of devotion itself, and the enactment of devotional tasks, can sometimes become unbalanced. I think that in the last couple of months, with all the outward movement (organizing LokiFest, working on Loki’s Torch), I became somewhat disconnected from source.

Not that I forgot Loki–not at all. Never any danger of that! However there were times when I skipped my daily altar practice or meditations due to exhaustion or external circumstances, got a little sloppy about certain things, forgot to sweep the “tiny temple,” and so on.

SterlingFractal-GeneratedImage — Public Domain. Sterling Fractal by Stephen Ferguson. 28 March 2004. Author: PhiloVivero.

I am also one of those people who has always meshed whatever I’m doing spiritually with action, and even activism, so it’s not like I’m new to juggling this stuff (meaning I should have known I was getting off balance…)

No. I simply wasn’t going inward enough to connect consistently in the way that I had before.

The most surprising confirmation of this took place on the evening of the day I cancelled the public portion of LokiFest CA. I took up my meditation, half expecting to feel slightly chided for my “failure” (even though it was a failure of money and bureaucracy), and was instead welcomed by my patron deity in a glad “embrace” (speaking spiritually). I was surprised. And a lot of interesting perspective came my way as a result, as well as a pithy tarot reading afterwards, and so golly, I hope I’ve learned something after all!

The consequent Loki’s Torch design marathon was less about over-extending and more about moving the bulk of that work out of the way, so that I can get back into balance again. Even though there is still much more work to be done this summer, the idea (personal gnosis here) is that I’m to work my way back into daily consistency and to deepen my connections to those of the “gossamer realm.”

But I also wonder if my huge workaholic marathon this last weekend was also fueled by the Trothmoot hailing of Loki for the first time in ten years, two states north of here? He must have been awfully focused on Midgard this last weekend, and perhaps I felt that energy.

In any case, mysteries abound, connections persist, and I am deeply engaged with them. These processes often feel like a relentless flow of love and excitement coursing through an underground river–but these words are inadequate.

Hail Loki!

####

Loki’s Torch Design Marathon

What a difference four days makes! On Friday, I sadly had to cancel the public park portion of LokiFest CA (but the online portion is still “go!” — scroll to end of this post for conference registration link) and to ease my disappointment, I promptly set to work doing the layout and design for Loki’s Torch–A Lokean Collection (Loki University Press). It’s one hundred pages in all, so you can imagine that I worked like a madwoman obsessed, to get this done in just a few short days. (I even spent most of Sunday volunteering at a music festival, which really interrupted my work flow… ). It was both fun and nervewracking to combine the written and visual submissions, wanting each piece to shine as well as the entire publication.

(Huge kudos to Rose Moon Rouge for her fantastic logo and cover!)

Loki's Torch PRODUCTION UPDATE

Post-layout snarks: Those writers who add two spaces between each sentence? Here’s some advice: if you don’t want to be cursed for all eternity by a bleary-eyed editor — Just. Don’t. Do. That. And artists? Please send decent photos of your artwork, positioned straight up and down so that I don’t have to crop the heck out of your work in order fit it into the publication without showing (1) the edges of your desk or altar space or (2) the paralax distortion of your image.

Post-layout blessings: To those who sent decent images of your art and bio photos that were already square, I love you. People who spell correctly, I love you too.

Now today, on Tuesday morning, the publication is largely complete, except for a few contributor photos and bios. We are definitely ahead of our August 1st publication date!

Loki’s Torch is an eclectic collection of art, poetry, fiction, articles, prayers, rituals, and recipes. Some contributors are well-known, others–not so much.

Kyaza, Dagulf Loptson, Rose Moon Rouge, and I make up the publication and founding contributors team. It’s an honor and a pleasure to collaborate with them. And, of course, it’s an honor and a pleasure to work in service to Loki Laufeyjarson and to help perpetuate Lokean culture and community.

We think you’ll find Loki’s Torch a welcome addition to your library, either as a PDF or as a “print-on-demand” paperback through MagCloud.com. We’ll let you know when it’s available!

Oneline Conference Link – Limited to 100 Participants

You are invited to a Zoom meeting, LokiFest CA Online.
When: Aug 5 – Aug. 9, 2019 3:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

####

Summer Solstice — Not Feeling It?

Summer_Solstice_Sunrise_over_Stonehenge_2005 — Summer Solstice at Stonehenge. Photograph by Andrew Dunn, 21 June 2005. Website: http://www.andrewdunnphoto.com/ Creative Commons.

I woke up with a foul taste in my mouth, sweat-soaked from the heat, and aware that a long, possibly grimy day awaited me, cleaning up the last bits of “canceling LokiFest CA” debris. So many details to construct even a modest event, particularly one involving vendors, insurance companies, city officials, potential volunteers, etc… and so there are so many details to thus dismantle.

Fortunately I set about these chores first thing this morning, even with only half a cup of black tea and a protein drink to fuel my focus. So it isn’t surprising that Solstice completely escaped my mind–until it began to show up on my Facebook feed.

Happy Solstice!

Shit…

I have no idea what I’ll do to observe it. I’ll be alone except for cats, most likely, and what do they care about the longest day?

I’m a bad neopagan… a bad, bad, neopagan…

Yesterday I listened to our local pagan show on our local community radio station. There was a good bit about Summer Solstice as a time to weed out evil, but I feel some sense of futility, what with the current administration and all. Maybe I should have “ickle talk” with my namesake, the Goetic Demon. As a fallen angel, maybe he’d/she’d have some ideas about weeding out evil. (Goetic Amy apparently can appear as whatever, just like my patron deity, Loki. Maybe they trade wardrobe tips.)

(Oh, that “ickle talk” thing? It comes from E.F. Benson’s Make Way for Lucia books, a series which I’ve re-read at least a dozen times or more over almost thirty years. They never fail to amuse. But I digress… Where was I? Oh yes, bad neopagan…bad, bad neopagan…)

But actually, I don’t really feel bad. I feel gloriously unburdened at the moment. And last night, my meditation session went to places I hadn’t been before. There’s a lot of “personal gnosis” going on right now, but it all feels pretty positive. I’m a bit surprised.

So this might be a day of going off to buy some geraniums for my yard, and watering things, and maybe sipping lemonade in the patio, or taking myself out to lunch. And I’ll light the usual candles for my daily devotions, and it wouldn’t take much to add an extra one for Solstice. And I’ll trust today in our spirit-drenched world and its capacity to right itself one way or another, with or without the dubious contributions of humans.

I probably don’t need to seek out a ritual labyrinth though. The one I’m walking in my own life feels like enough for now.

And if Loki wants a special Solstice Donut on his altar, heck, I’ll spring for it.

####

Bumps in the LokiFest Road

Update: Lakeport park event cancelled due to prohibitive insurance costs which were added on later, as per city requirements. Online portion still on.

First, an offering…

Hail Flame Hair, Consumer of Modern Desserts!

Grant us your alchemy of dough and desire,

Sprinkle us with blessings even as this donut is adorned

With multi-colored sugary goodness.

Dip us in the sweet heat of the moment,

Allow us to savor life even as you savor this goodie.

Hail Silver Tongue, may this edible monstrosity grace your tastebuds,

May it provide complete satiation for your infinite appetites.

Please accept this crisp and creamy offering as a token of our devotion.

Hail Loki!

Dough-Donut-Lemon-Ginger

Please look favorably on our preparations for LokiFest CA in your honor!

Then the narrative. Frustrations first.

Event insurance and city bureaucracy. The City of Lakeport wants ONE WORD removed from a policy document that runs over 300+ pages for an event lasting less than twelve hours. If the insurance company declines, the event is cancelled. The city won’t approve it. I’ve made the appropriate request for policy revision. Now I guess I wait.

I’m not good at waiting…

Food vendors. I haven’t secured any yet. I keep getting “no.”

Retail vendors. Though I have secured several “yeses,” I don’t have applications or checks yet to let me know they are really committed. Emotionally, I’m chewing my nails as I send out reminder emails.

Sound system and sound person. Still elusive, though I have a lead or two.

Musicans. Still attempting to confirm. They are limited to original or public domain music.

The good news.

The online portion of LokiFest CA. This is a free event which will run for three hours a day, from August 5-9, is shaping up nicely. So far, our presenters include Diana Paxson, Dagulf Loptson, Kyaza, and Silence Maestas. I feel honored to have their participation in this new effort. (And I’ll do something about the results of my spectrosexuality/god spouse survey.) There is space still for a presenter or two!

Local volunteers. They’re starting to emerge from the Lake County community. Thank goodness! My co-producer, Verge Belanger, co-host of Pagan World Views on KPFZ 88.1 FM, and I can’t do this alone! (Catch Verge’s show via live stream on Thursdays from 11 AM – 1 PM.) Verge’s friends and contacts are the people who are volunteering, so that’s amazing and great. Thank you all!

Raffle donations. At least two people from the Lokean community are donating prizes for the gift baskets. All money earned from the raffle will go to the new safe house for transgender youth, run by Larkin Street Youth Services in San Francisco and The Troth Red Hammer Fund.

And so it goes. As crazy as this all feels right now, it’s an honor to be in service to my patron deity in this way. Weird how my heart lifts even as I write these words!

More news soon! Hail Loki!

####

Seeking Loki’s Mysteries

A moment ago I typed “what are Loki’s mysteries?” as the title of this blog. The question brought tears to my eyes, along with an inner shiver. My breathing even changed as I typed those words. You know that feeling on the edge of a cliff? It was just a little like that, but subtle. I decided to re-write the title.

Beyond, behind, underneath, and through the veils of everything that’s been written or portrayed about this potent being, or what I think about him, that’s where I want to go. Yes, I’m attached to my framed Skeith-A portrait of Loki, to my weekly purchase of sacred donut offerings, to the daily cup of cinnamon and honey tea placed on the altar… I’m attached to this blog and to writing about Loki. I’m attached to the work I’m about to do on Loki’s Torch (the anthology). I’m deeply entrenched in making LokiFest CA happen–both the online “conference” and the local park street fair. Daily ritual, devotion, and service have formed a great deal of what’s meaningful in my life this last year.

Hidden_Mandarin_fractal_Sterling2_3365 — Public domain. September 2008. Author: Soler97

But this morning I noticed that the gingerbread house that I made for Loki last Yule is crumbling in all this summer heat. It’s been on the altar all this time. I tried white glue to reattach the sugar squiggles and candies, and it was fairly futile, and so I was also aware of a lesson: nothing stays the same, no matter how much we–or even a god!–may love and enjoy such trifles.

And I’m aware of the passage of time. I’m 64. I don’t have much of it left. And so as serious as I think I’ve been this last year, it’s time to get really serious and step up my game by stepping away from my preconceptions and patterns. I think… I’m really writing with much more surety than I actually have. Right now, I’m between, and I think my Lokean readers can smile at that. We’ve all been there. A lot.

I do sense deep mysteries with Loki. Was there ever a long-ago mystery school that taught and maintained a tradition of Loki magic, or magic of his under some other name, some other deified persona? Or were his people only found in ones or twos or threes at most? I sense that the gatherings now, via the internet, consist of unprecedented interlocking devotional energies, but I don’t feel this clustering is particularly potent yet. Few of us are adepts, as far as I can tell. I know I’m not.

I had a dream once, when I was in my early twenties. In the dream I sat on the edge of my bed and watched all the objects in my room begin to dissolve into a fog of unassembled molecules. It frightened me. I shouted, “Stop!” and the objects began to reassemble themselves, into their familiar shapes. And then I woke. I’ve always wondered what would have happened if I’d just let the dream continue.

I know that as this “reality” continues, I myself will eventually dissolve into a smear of unassembled minerals and molecules. In the meantime, what clues can I find to the true mysteries of this deity associated with shapeshifting, fire, creative “chaos”, liminal states, and more? I’ve speculated on Loki’s “tantric” aspects and others have mentioned his connection with sex magic. I’ve also pondered Loki as a deity of epigenetic shapeshifting (among other things).

In my daily practice, I try to allow a meditative and energetic connection with his “template” for growth and transformation. It’s hard, as I have an intellectual bent and I’m easily distracted by speculation. At times I “try” too hard. I also “spectator” a lot, which is (ironically) the very thing I try to get people to NOT do during sex (in my other life as a sexologist). I’m probably one of those people who is in great need of fabulous sex, a brilliant love affair, and/or a psychedelic journey right now (all favorite activities of my formative teen years). Except for how much I love my cats in the most tender-hearted, unbearably emotional way, I’m awfully dry-minded right now, rather grim and fell. Getting OUT of my head, or at least shifting my brainwave patterns, seems to be a necessity.

Loki’s template seems more fractal than anything…

I know that question about Loki’s deeper mysteries won’t be answered by intellect, though intellect can help with discernment, later.

There’s a change coming. Changes never stop coming. The trick may be to hang-ten on the yellow line (my metaphor is drawn from bus surfing) and ride what’s coming. Or it may be to jump off the bus altogether and push through the shrubbery to something beyond.

We’ll see.

Dear Readers, may there be peace between us for all of our days.

####

LokiFest CA Online!

LokiFest ONLINE Best Flyer Free! Web conference limited to 100. Sign up soon!

You are invited to a Zoom meeting, LokiFest CA Online.
When: Aug 5 – Aug. 9, 2019 3:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Register in advance for this meeting:
https://zoom.us/m…/register/f1a6411238d0a0e5c5b9141539e44ee6
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

7:30 LokiFest Online

Hail Loki!

####

Public Service: Climate Change Reversal Resources

As a public service, here are a few resources from your friendly neighborhood Eco-Lokean. Be sure to scroll down to the end for solar cooker info and “hay box” thermal cooker how-to links.

DRAWDOWN

Drawdown.org is a research-based initiative created in part by Paul Hawken. From the website, here is a definition: “Drawdown is the point at which levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and then steadily decline, ultimately reversing global warming.”

Here are the 100 research-determined solutions from the website. Each solution has a link to an in-depth explanation and a ranking. You can also access a PDF of the Summary of Solutions by Overall Rank.

List from DrawDown.org

You can also order the Drawdown, the book, via IndieBound, a community of local, independent bookstores.

FINNISH RENEWABLE ENERGY STUDY

Corbley, McKinley. April 22, 2019. Researchers Create ‘First-of-its-Kind’ Roadmap for Saving Earth From Climate Change Years Before 2050 Deadline. GoodNewsNetwork.com.

Below is the link to the report mentioned in the above article:

The authors dedicated this report:

“To Greta Thunberg and to the whole #FridaysForFuture movement, for your relentless courage for the preservation of our planet, and a better future for us all.”

Ram M., Bogdanov D., Aghahosseini A., Gulagi A., Oyewo A.S., Child M., Caldera U., Sadovskaia K., Farfan J., Barbosa LSNS., Fasihi M., Khalili S., Dalheimer B., Gruber G., Traber T., De Caluwe F., Fell H.-J., Breyer C. Global Energy System based on 100% Renewable Energy – Power, Heat, Transport and Desalination Sectors. Study by Lappeenranta University of Technology and Energy Watch Group, Lappeenranta, Berlin, March 2019.
ISBN: 978-952-335-339-8
ISSN-L: 2243-3376
ISSN: 2243-3376
Lappeenranta University of Technology Research Reports 91. ISSN: 2243-3376 Lappeenranta 2019

From the Executive Summary:

“A global transition to 100% renewable energy across all sectors – power, heat, transport and desalination before 2050 is feasible1. Existing renewable energy potential and technologies, including storage, is capable of generating a secure energy supply at every hour throughout the year. The sustainable energy system is more efficient and cost effective than the existing system, which is based primarily on fossil fuels and nuclear. A global renewable transition is the only sustainable option for the energy sector, and is compatible with the internationally adopted Paris Agreement. The energy transition is not a question of technical feasibility or economic viability, but one of political will.”

And:

“Global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced to zero by 2050, or sooner, across all energy sectors
• Annual global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the energy sector decline steadily through the transition from approximately 30 GtCO2eq in 2015 to zero by 2050 (see Figure KF-4). The remaining cumulative greenhouse gas emissions are approximately 422 GtCO2eq from 2018 to 2050. Energy-related GHG emissions account for more than 60% of total global GHG emissions in 2015.
• In contrast to popular claims, a deep decarbonisation of the power and heat sectors is possible by 2030. The transport sector will lag behind, with a massive decline of greenhouse gas emissions from 2030 to 2050 (see Figure KF-4).”

SOLAR COOKING

Developed to assist people in imporverished countries, I predict that home solar cooking will also become increasingly important in “developed” countries as a primary and emergency cooking and water purification technique.

From the Solar Cookers International website:

“One solar cooker preserves more than 1 ton of wood every year.”

“Using no-emission solar energy to cook and make drinking water safe improves health, builds resilient families, breaks the cycle of poverty, boosts local economies, empowers women and children, and helps achieve all 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”

“HAY BOX” AKA THERMAL COOKER

How to use much less energy for cooking. How to make one. The man who did this video also mentions his “rocket stove,” which he demonstrates in another video.

Here’s another thermal cooker “how to” video.