Today Mercury goes retro in my Ninth House of writing and publishing (waaaah!) and the Moon is in Pisces, in a transit that also opposes my Venus, according to today’s Astrodient prediction. This transit is termed “indiscriminate affection” and is described thusly:
“This influence can lead to rather indiscriminate affection, because your desire to love someone overrules your normal sense of discretion. This is not especially dangerous, although a certain amount of discretion is still desirable.”
In other words, it’s a PERFECT day to blog without restraint (or discretion) on today’s topic: “what quality or qualities of this god do you most admire? What quality or qualities of them do you find the most troubling?”
Caution: This transit also pertains to “Erotic desires. Are you feeling emotional at the moment but don’t know what to do about it?” (Well, I wasn’t until I read this and started thinking about it…)
Loki Laufeyjarson! The qualities I admire? For simplicity’s sake, I’ll use “he/his” as I generally do experience him in that gendered way. However, I’m just now coming to connect with other gendered aspects, which is great. I am sure it is my programming that has limited me up to now.
Let’s take a personal gnosis plunge. Ready?
First of all–I like that Loki’s here, here with me for the long haul (which, seeing as I’m about to reach medicare age, isn’t all that long…). That doesn’t mean I always feel him hanging about or being all bad boy and tricksy as some people report (and that’s fine, by the way–I kind of envy those folks), but that I know he has my back.
I admire Loki for his willingness to “speak truth to power.” For his intelligence and insightful ability to dismantle hypocrisy. For his unholy glee and madcap humor (yes, I do get to experience the light side now and then). For his intrinsic creative force and ability to spark it in mere humans. For his honor and resolve, no matter how weird his wyrd. For the kindness and tenderness he can sometimes show to his families, as a parent and as a lover. For his beguiling appetites for… whatever! For being “close up and personal.” In short, for being a complex subtle being who isn’t afraid to mix it up a little with troubled humanity here in Midgard.
I admire Loki’s hidden agenda. I don’t know what it is, but I sense it as part of his function as a catalyst of creative chaos and transformation. He’s not raw chaos (usually), he’s strategic, even when looking as if he’s got no impulse control whatsover.
I love his complexity. I love being challenged by Loki, learning from him.
I admire his shape and gender-shifting versatility. His curiosity. His restlessness.
Loki is a good listener as well as a master of direct communication (including barbed witticisms). I admire that too. And if he’s displeased, it’s a clear “no, don’t do that” or “no, I don’t want that.” He’s never passive-aggressive. He asks pointed questions to trigger learning rather than ‘splaining, as I mentioned above.
I admire Loki’s generosity. I benefit from it. He makes his “template of transformation” available. You have only to ask, then to work hard to understand and absorb it.
I admire Loki’s ability to be accepting of all kinds of people while at the same time being perfectly willing to offer a deft kick to the patoosis, as needed.
I trust him in all ways, but not like a fool. He likes me to keep my mind sharp and my eyes open.
And I adore feeling his energy when he’s “around.” I love his readiness to be delighted.
Sometimes I consider the above with a trace of wistfulness. Loki has inadvertantly spoiled me for other manifestations of masculinity (not that Loki’s always “masculine”). He never “mansplains” or “godsplains.” I wish I could meet a human love with even a 100th portion of Loki’s qualities. It would be nice to grow old(er) with one or two such people, especially if they also shared my faith. That’s one of the problems with spending too much time with the divine. You get used to a certain expansiveness and depth. It makes you “nice” in the old sense of the word–particular, choosy.
Qualities I don’t admire? There really aren’t many. At one point I was troubled by slut shaming in the Lokasenna. And I get the sense that Loki can be malicious at times, but only when really pushed, and even then, not for very long. Based on what I know of the lore (and I am still learning), he is far less cruel to others than others have been to him.
As for Loki’s involvment in “the Death of Baldr,” I don’t trust Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda version of Baldr’s death. It’s not the only one. In older versions, Loki is not involved at all, or if he is, he’s most likely acting on behalf of Baldr’s father (Odin) in a sacred rite that ensures Baldr’s return after Ragnarok. I also don’t trust Snorri’s front- and back-end prose additions to Lokasenna (which is an anonymous human composition). They are too pat.
Loki is above all a keeper of certain mysteries. He’s a guardian at the threshold, a deity of all kinds of crossroads. Human lore and literature, whether ancient or modern, is a reflection of human attempts to explain or chronicle the bits of cosmic mysteries we are able to perceive, all based ultimately on someone’s personal gnosis. I feel Snorri had an literary agenda that overrode any sense he may have had of touching on “mysteries.” He was not a mystic, nor did he have a mystic’s intuition.
As for Ragnarok, meh. What we humans are doing to our planet and its climate is more real, devastating, and disturbing than any mythic account of the world’s end. For all I know, we ARE in Ragnarok right now, and from where I sit, I don’t see Loki as an agent of this destruction. In fact, I think he’d rather we wised up and did something about it while we still can. This wasn’t what he wanted for the descendants of Ask and Embla. Or for cats and wolves either.
Lady Of The Lake 