July | 2014 | bloodteethandflame

July 25, 2014

Month for Loki, Day 14: Art…and anxiety.

My only anxiety is what I can do… Could I not be of use and good for something?….This world only concerns me insofar as I feel a certain debt and duty towards it and out of gratitude want to leave some souvenir in the shape of drawings or pictures…to express sincere human feeling.

– Vincent Van Gogh

~~~

This past month, I’ve been doing a lot of drawing.

I’ve still yet to put any of my artwork on DeviantArt, but I’ve got quite a stack now, so stay tuned.

For one thing, I’ve been getting a lot of practice drawing facial expressions – including lots of noses. (I’m getting better at drawing noses, so that’s a plus.)

Such as it is, I’m really pleased with yesterday’s sketch – which came together relatively quickly – but I have to do some clean-up on it, or otherwise I’d be posting it.

~~~

I had just been saying to a dear friend that I very rarely draw things directly out of my head, as I often use photos or at the very least, I’ll do a few body/face/positioning studies before I actually draw anything. Within about twenty minutes from ending the conversation – and having not much intent to draw anything moments before – I found myself absentmindedly sketching a face on my drawing pad.

And next thing I know, a whole scene started quickly to come together, and I sketched a woman’s face, eyes nose, mouth…and then, her shoulders and torso, and then…sketched the outlines of a face of a man… his shoulders, chest, and torso…and soon —

I realized that I had drawn a pretty detailed rendition of a young man with long hair and a goatee, lying with his head resting casually in the woman’s lap. The woman is looking downward, smiling at him, and her hand rests lightly on his bare chest. He is looking up at her, with a playful grin, and he is winking at her.

I could hardly believe that the sketch came together so quickly, so smoothly, with so few erasures/corrections — all within about twenty minutes of first putting pencil to paper.

(If I had sat down with the focused intent to draw such a scene, my usual attempts would be made slowly, carefully, and fraught with erasures as I stress over perfecting the jawline, or re-drawing the nose for the third time, or what-have-you, and that whole process would usually take me hours.)

So you might imagine how surreal it felt to suddenly find myself drawing …

And everything

— their facial expressions, the positions of their bodies —

just seemed to flow effortlessly from the pencil to the paper, almost without stopping, and entirely without much intent on my part

within the span of 20 minutes.

~~~

Later on, while making dinner, I was talking to an artist friend of mine, and he asked me how my sketching had been going.

I excitedly mentioned how easy things had been that day while I was sketching, and he remarked that it seemed supernatural compared to my usual anxious plod-through.

Hey, d’you think that it means this thing was divinely inspired? I laughed.

I dunno, but I love it when sketching’s like that, he responded. It may not be divine, but it sure is magic.

Indeed.

~~~

Hail Loki ❤

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July 23, 2014

Month for Loki, Day 13: Preparation is everything.

So, if I haven’t already mentioned, I have been taking a course in Shapeshifting, through Cherry Hill Seminary.

It’s been an interesting few weeks to say the least.

I am preparing for the final project next week

and I decided to get some help from Mr. Tea:

His pants are full of mugwort, and he’s now relaxing in my teacup.

We will see how this goes.

This is where the magic happens.

Wish me luck!

~~~

Hail Loki, Shapeshifter ❤

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July 22, 2014

Month for Loki, Day 12: Lightning

I walked to the grocery store today, to pick up something for dinner.

It had begun to rain shortly before I left, so I was unusually prepared for once, and I brought my umbrella.

So there I was walking under my umbrella, listening to my iPod, and thinking about what sort of meat that I should buy for dinner…

And next thing I know, I do believe that I came extremely close to being struck by lightning.

I was listening to Marilyn Manson’s cover of ‘Personal Jesus’* on my iPod —

and right at that final chorus of Reach out and touch faith

–I saw a bright flash and I felt a brief electric shock that made my hand go numb.

I dropped my umbrella, frightened, and looked up as I heard the after-rumble.

Right then, Led Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’ began to play on my iPod.

All right-y then.

Hail Loki ❤

Hail Thor!

and

Hail the Gods and ancestors!

~~~

*’Personal Jesus’ is a song that I have long associated with Loki.

‘Immigrant Song’ is a song about Vikings – and thus, I’ve found it an easy association with the Norse Gods.

❤

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July 21, 2014

Month for Loki, Day 11: Outing.

I went with my kid, K, and V, to a baseball game today.

It was enjoyable insofar that I discovered that it was a lot closer to where I’m living now than I had thought it would be.

(I might just go to a game on my own, as I prefer to go to a live baseball game rather than to watch one on TV any day, but we’ll see.)

~~~

A few things happened at the game that seemed to signal that His presence, too, much to K’s delight, especially in that the opposing team’s second catcher was a young man of above-average height and build for a baseball player (at 6’3 and 230 lbs) — with long bright red hair.

What further inspired the thought was in that before the game began, this catcher – #33 – walked past us, and looked right at us for a good 20 seconds. Something V had been saying seemed to catch his attention briefly, and he stopped walking, looked at V and frowned, but then he smiled at K and I, before walking away.

(We didn’t see him again, until the end of the game, which struck me as odd, too. I would’ve liked to have seen him play.)

The other thing, was feeling the feels during mundane things, such as during the singing of the national anthem, and then again, during the seven-inning stretch.

It must have been because we sang, but K kept looking over at me, asking if I could feel that He was about.

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July 20, 2014

Month for Loki, Day 10: A Dream

I had a dream wherein He spoke to me and said that there were three things that I should work on…
And then I had another dream that got in the way of the memory of the first dream.

~~~

That second dream – the one that got in the way of my memory – was about taking V to court in Plainsville, NY (but I think that it was supposed to be Plattsville)…and we had an older daughter who was kinda difficult to handle because she was so angry, and I couldn’t get her to calm down.

But she was there because she had testified in my favor, and the judge ended up siding with me.

I don’t know what that meant.

~~~
But the first dream, Loki talked with me, but I could not remember what I was supposed to work on.
So when I awoke, K told me that He told zir to tell me that I should work on:

Trust, loyalty…. and forgetting.
But K wouldn’t say what that was in regards to.

Stay loyal to what?

Forget about what?

K said that zie was told that I could figure it out.

~~~
And then I remembered something: Loyalty had something to do with the poly thing: that I should stop the behavior of having sex with certain people.

He said that He wanted to choose, and it showed a disrespect of Him or lack of loyalty to Him, to have situations with certain people.

And I remember Him showing me, in images rather than words, to whom He was referring.

He was saddened by something in my behavior, similar to some dreams I’d had before wherein He would say that I knew how to listen and/or do, but that I just didn’t want to.
That made me sad, too.
And the forgetting concerns the past, of letting the past go… of not letting the past keep me from moving forward towards what is changing.

You are changing, He said, and I am pleased with you. Don’t stop. Don’t relent.

I know what that means.

But I am anxious.

I know what He is talking about.

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July 20, 2014

Month for Loki, Day 9: Eiwhaz

I learned something about Eiwhaz yesterday.

Eiwhaz is a rune of letting go.

Long ago, I got the message from Him, that it is my rune.

So, if that is true…then there is nothing more important than that for me to remember – Eiwhaz’s lesson is to allow change, to protect oneself, to defend oneself.

Of course, at the time that I was informed that I must learn this rune, it was a sort of Subtlesauce that I didn’t want to hear, that I didn’t want to know.

But yesterday, I was at a local mystical shop and I found Eiwhaz described as the ‘rune of the World Tree. A rune of letting go, protection, and transformation.’

And suddenly, it finally clicked in my head. Funny that.

Eiwhaz is a rune of letting go.
Now I understand exactly why it was the first rune that came forward to teach me after He strongly suggested that I should begin studying the runes.

He said that I should study it until I was told to do otherwise, and so, that rune had sat on my altar ever since early 2013, well over a year ago.

It was my understanding that Eiwhaz should be my sole focus, a fixed point.

And, I am nearly ashamed to admit this, but I definitely had days wherein I would inwardly grouse about it: When could I learn another rune? It’s not fair…I don’t understand….what am I supposed to understand? Why?

I pouted.

I whined.

And His response was to steeple His fingers, and regard me with a raised eyebrow, followed by an almost grim, implacable facial expression.

Between the two of us, I don’t know who was more frustrated.

~~~
So, that spring, I sent money to a well-respected spirit-worker that I’d met the summer before, and I ordered a custom set of runes that were to be made of ash wood.

And I waited.

And waited.

For six fucking months.

I got so tired of waiting for that order, that I gave up in disgust, and ordered a cheap wooden set off of eBay.

They were made of ash all right, but instead of being carved as I’d been led to believe by the seller, the runes were written on the blanks

black

ballpoint

ink.

O.o

There are no words for how I felt about that.

Sangry would be a good term, I guess.

~~~
But, that August, I was surprised.

I received a package from the spirit worker.

He sent me a rune set of semi-precious stones retailing for $75 -to make up for the fact that I’d gone six months, with no explanation as to why I’d never received the wooden runes that I’d ordered.

He apologized profusely in a nicely worded letter, explaining at length his frustration and disbelief about how the wood that he had been attempting to use to make the blanks kept splitting and warping, making the blanks unusable for runes.

He informed me that he’d attempted to cut the ash blanks with intent for my set on three separate occasions in the last six months, so he hoped that I’d accept the stone set as adequate compromise, with his apologies.
But when I poured the runes out of the bag to examine them – I was immediately disconcerted to see that the Eiwhaz rune – carved into a tumbled stone of bright yellow jasper – was broken in half.

(I never asked for a replacement simply because it was customer service recovery.)

~~~

But I studied Eiwhaz, anyway.

At least, I thought that I was.

I created a daily prayer for Eiwhaz, asking for – and trying to manifest – connection, protection, and transformation.

To be honest, even though I had convinced myself that I understood Eiwhaz on a few basic levels, looking back on my stubbornness, I realize now that I hardly knew what I was asking for.

(And, not surprisingly, He seemed to think that I should be working harder to figure that shit out. And rightfully so, I suppose.)

~~~
Then, in February 2014, I had the blind ignorance to ask Him what rune I should be using to represent myself in the bind rune that I was creating for us.

He drew the rune from the box, and pronounced it with a flourish, and a mysterious smirk.

Eiwhaz.

And of course, I gasped, and proceeded to whine and roll my eyes about the fact that, of course it is Eiwhaz…why is it always Eiwhaz?

I don’t understand WHY….!!

What’s wrong with Eiwhaz? He seemed mildly annoyed, eyebrows raised.

But His tone made it obvious to me that the subject was immutable. Not open to debate.

He then gave me the Holy Bitch Face, and sighed: Don’t ask questions that you don’t want answered – as He drew the rune, Kenaz – for Himself – and suggested that I find a way to incorporate them together.

~~~~

In March, I embroidered our bindrune on the altar cloth for His altar.
In June 2014, I inked our bindrune on my body.

~~~~

Two weeks later, as He traced his fingers on the ink, He asked where the flames were.

There should be flames, He said.

Blood, teeth…and flames, my dear.

~~~

But it was not until yesterday that I had ever seen it come up that Eiwhaz was a rune of Letting Go.

Funny that.

It all comes back to Eiwhaz.
That’s my problem…that’s my work…of course, Eiwhaz would be, should be my sole focus.

Because, you see, I have so much trouble letting go.

So, it’s no wonder, really, that… it’s Eiwhaz.

It would have to be.

What other rune could there be?

Of course, Eiwhaz is MY rune.

~~~

So all I’ve got to say to Loki today is…

I’m sorry that it has taken me so long to figure it out, Simple Dog that I am…

but

Point taken, Sir.

❤

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July 9, 2014

Month for Loki, Day 8: Drawing

I thought that some of you might like to see a sketch that I’ve been working on of Ms. A and Loki

I really like this so far, but Somebody wants it colored.

And then there is the other option – another sketch that involves Them kissing that I tortured myself with in MS Paint this afternoon.

Eh.

But I will say this: I like how Their noses came out, anyway, here.

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July 8, 2014

Month for Loki, Day 7: I love Your face.

Here are some of my favorite images of Loki.

This is Loki and Alberich by bluefooted on DeviantART.

I really love that only the orange spectrum is used here, and I love the sweet youthfulness of His face.

~~~~

Here is the most amazing piece from Sceithailm

There is so much that I love about this piece:

His elegant horns,

the luscious flush of His skin,

the gnarled shadow-trees

that effortlessly bleed into fur and drapery

… and those sorely pink knees of His.

It makes me wonder what kind of shamanic magic He has been working here.

There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground…(indeed!)

~~~

This one is a book-cover, drawn by Piotr Cielinski, for a Polish series of novels that was titled The Liar.

I just like that smile, the good luck charms (as if Himself needed such things), and the runes on both weapon and its silencer.

Hell, I just like the concept of Himself as some deranged yet fun-loving Amish mercenary.

What’s not to love?

~~~

And lastly, in a similar vein, here’s one of my most recent favorites:

This is Loki from another DA artist – Red_Szajn – titled aptly Surprise, motherf_cker!

from that same Jakub Cwiek series, Klamca (The Liar).

I do wish that this sketch was available for purchase.

I’d hang this in my bathroom, or some similarly random area, just for fun.

Why?

( Because I believe that it would seem that Loki is exactly the sort of entity that would approve of such surprises — also referred to His version of a ‘good idea’ –exactly at that moment when one is either unsuspecting, alone, or both — and therefore, a captive audience.)

I mean, how would I know?

I’m just sayin’.

~~~

Hail Loki, Fair of Face ❤

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July 6, 2014

Month for Loki, Day 6: Five words.

Y’know, this would have been a better post for yesterday — since yesterday was the 5th and all – but, ah well, I saw this article posted again today.

As if to remind me.

So, here we are.

And yes, I do believe that the writer of this article is correct.

I’d seen this life-changing statement that answered the endless plea that I had made to the Universe regarding What I Should Do several months ago – yes, I had seen the article before, you know – but I wasn’t ready to see any of my relationships in this statement of just 5 words:

Only stay where you’re valued.

Yes. That’s it. Simple yet powerful, if you think about it.

There were no complex quizzes, no lists of questions that I should be asking myself when I thought about ‘Should I stay or should I go?’ or any of the other fence-sitting navel-gazing sort of circular musing that I am famous for engaging in at 4 AM while lying awake with insomnia.

This article asks one to consider just one very vital aspect of any relationship – especially personal relationships – and that is to think about the concept of value.

Not ‘Are you needed?‘

Not ‘Are you happy?‘

Not ‘Are you paid attention to?’

or even

‘Am I loved?’

Or any of the other variations on the theme of that last one that a worried brain who questions the status of their relationship can come to at 4 AM.

Why?

Because, if you follow along the premise as presented in the article, if you are valued in a relationship, and you value those who are in a relationship with you*, then all those other questions answer themselves.

(*Psst: hey, even if the relationship is with yourself, *this statement still works*. Kinda sneaky ton of bricks, isn’t it?)

Seriously.

Go read it.

~~~

And with that, on the sixth day, I say,

Hail, Loki.

Thank You for the reminder, my Sweetest Friend ❤

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July 5, 2014

Month for Loki, Day 5: Facing Anger

“Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don’t know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

~~~

I had a strange dream about a crazy, angry zombie-like woman living in my house (which was like a dormitory with many rooms).

She was in a specific room.

And in the strange dream-logic, I remembered that I had met her once before.

I realized that I was afraid of her, and she knew it.

She seemed to feed on that fear of mine, and she relentlessly pursued me. (She carried a large machete-like weapon).

I tried to avoid her….

….but the rituals of my avoidance of her were so ridiculously time-consuming.

I hadn’t time for anything else. I was losing so much time every day.

I felt so much shame. I felt so much embarrassment.

I just wanted it to be over.

I was tired.

But once I had resolved to find her and face her, she was very difficult to find.

I kept returning to the room where she was, but she was not there.

~~~~

K and I had an interesting conversation, within in the dream, about how she could be found, and about what must be done when one does.
It was hir belief that you must take her weapon from her by force; meanwhile, I was adamant that I might convince her to put it down/give it up.

Was this a battle between Force vs. Reason?

But then, another spoke to me: She will not be convinced; she is too angry. She will not listen to reason. You must find another way.

~~~~

And that made me think of that Louise Bogan poem, titled [maybe not-so-ironically]

The Dream:

O God, in the dream the terrible horse began
To paw at the air, and make for me with his blows,
Fear kept for thirty-five years poured through his mane,
And retribution equally old, or nearly, breathed through his nose.

Coward complete, I lay and wept on the ground
When some strong creature appeared, and leapt for the rein.
Another woman, as I lay half in a swound
Leapt in the air, and clutched at the leather and chain.

Give him, she said, something of yours as a charm.
Throw him, she said, some poor thing you alone claim.
No, no, I cried, he hates me; he is out for harm,
And whether I yield or not, it is all the same.

But, like a lion in a legend, when I flung the glove
Pulled from my sweating, my cold right hand;
The terrible beast, that no one may understand,
Came to my side, and put down his head in love.

~~~~

Suddenly, I had an idea.

In the very room where this crazy, angry zombie-like woman lived, there was a door that opened to the outdoors…to sky, grass, trees…to the outside.

It was a Dutch half-door, of inlaid exotic wood, laid in an interesting pattern of X’s and W’s.

The top-half of the door was open, but the bottom half remained closed, perhaps locked.

It hadn’t a doorknob that could be worked from the inside, but in studying the area where a doorknob would be from the out-side, there seemed to be an elaborate puzzle of turning latches that hid tumblers that slid smoothly into the door-frame.

Suddenly it occurred to me that if this woman were anything like the way I am when I am angry — no, blindly enraged — a latch like this would prove too complex a situation to ever hope to overcome.

Her mind would just be too clouded. Had she given up?

How frustrated she must feel, I thought, to never have been able to open this door.

Suddenly, I realized that that was the answer.

And so, I resolved and I focused and I opened it

for her

for me

and

I left

open.

~~~

Hail Loki, Opener of the Way!

❤

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Month: July, 2014