Loki Never Mansplains

…Or, given that Loki isn’t a human dude, and is often not even a dude-appearing deity at all (shapeshifter that he/she/they/ze is), perhaps I should write “Loki never godsplains.” Whatever! “He” does show up as mostly male-ish to my mortal inner eyes though, so I tend to use that pronoun the most. “He” seems to be cool with it.

Okay,  now that I’ve mortalsplained the above, I feel moved to celebrate the pithy, punchy, to the point, mostly non-verbal communicative stylings of my all-time favorite trickster deity, the marvelous (no pun intended) Loki Laufeyjarson!

Loki leaves verbosity to me and that’s just the way we like it. He is happy to receive offerings of novels, devotional poems, and blogs in his honor. But Loki communicates his needs and his lessons in immediate and sometimes dramatic ways. Even though I don’t have a “godphone,” I have at least one example of an inner-audible “sound bite” that nearly bit my head off.

There was the time I absent-mindedly licked the spoon after putting a giant dollop of Nutella from HIS JAR into a bowl as an offering. I had sworn I’d never eat from that jar, and so I immediately thought “well, I didn’t take it from the jar!” as a half-assed apology. Was I surprised then when a big “NO!” resounded in my mind? There was no way Loki was going to let me get away with breaking an oath. No way at all. All I could think was, “damn, shit just got real!” Needless to say, I’ve never licked a spoon from his jar again. And he didn’t have to explain why he “shouted” no. I got it. Immediately.

Loki is also good at delivering what I call “pings,” “pokes,” and “signal flags.” I don’t know how to explain these exactly. I experience them as a spontaneous combination visceral/mental message that doesn’t seem to originate with me. They are often so off-the-wall that they do not reflect my usual thought processes and they have a compelling energy. An example would be the time I was scrolling through printed shower curtains, as a way to decorate the inside of Lokabrenna Tiny Temple. I was online, cruising shower curtains with “magic forest” themes, as that seemed mystical and Norse-ish, and I was really set on my vision for a complete “look.” But I kept getting a ping every time I scrolled past the large, bright colored donut shower curtain. I tried to deny it, but it was so repetitive that I was convinced that Loki wanted the donut shower curtain too. I checked this request with a pendulum that I use only for Loki. It swung “yes” to donuts. As a result, Lokabrenna is three walls of magic forest, one wall of donuts. And it now seems so right.

These simple communications are quite adroit. Many who are close to Loki have similar stories. In fact, the “Loki wanted this” story is quite common on social media–to the point that we could consider this community-verified gnosis about how Loki will interact with humans. Are every single one of these genuine communications from a Norse deity? I can’t say and wouldn’t presume to judge. Most of us know the importance of individual discernment or are in the process of learning about it.

One might wonder why a powerful preternatural figure would want a donut shower curtain or any of the other reported trivial requests. Here’s my UPG: I think how we meet Loki’s requests let’s him know how much we’ll listen to him (about small matters and large ones), how much we’re willing to pay attention, how much we care about him, and how far we’ll go to indulge in light-hearted whimsy. More UPG: I think he really needs the latter sometimes, and humans can be a fine source of amusement.

Since I use the pendulum, tarot, and the AI “Inspirobot” program to “talk” with Loki (that last is not entirely serious), there is no way for me to have a complex conversation with him. (It might be different for others.) That means there is no opportunity for tortuous god- or mansplaining. Yay! And as I said, he’s direct and terse most of the time. And if you don’t pay attention to the ping, the poke, or the signal flags he’s waving at you, he’s perfectly capable of rearranging your life until you finally “get it.”

I love that Loki doesn’t give us complicated rules or doctrine. The only hard limit I can think of is to never break an oath (especially to him).  Of course, expect the unexpected is a given, but we all knew that going in.

At the end of this awfully weird year, I’m looking forward to another trip around the sun with Loki and the rest of the deities I work with. I wish you all the same–may you have joy in your spiritual quests!

 Hail Loki!

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