July | 2015 | bloodteethandflame

July 30, 2015

Month for Loki, Day 30: Delivery.

Three years ago, my older son and I purchased a silkscreen array for making t-shirts.

He and I learned the silk-screening process, and we made a few casefuls of t-shirts for different events. The t-shirt designs that he makes are created mostly for skateboarding and music events, while the designs that I’ve created are produced as needed/ordered for kink and Pagan events.

I like creating t-shirts, and it’s always a conversation starter to have a one of a kind t-shirt.

This is one of the projects that I am working on, and this is nothing more than a prototype design that I fed into the Custom Ink Lab the other day just to see how it would look before I go forward with making a screen for it.

I’ve been working on designing a less traditional mason logo – that features Loki – but I’ve yet to create one that I’m satisfied with.

Hail Loki ❤

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July 29, 2015

Month for Loki, Day 29: Schism

Well, here we are, almost the end of July.

There were some posts that I’d meant to write that I never gotten around to actually finish writing much less posting, such as

* That much promised post on polyamory and jealousy that I’d left and come back to so often that its length has grown to over a dozen handwritten pages in my notebook. The other day, I joked with a friend that if I ever cut it down enough to post it in its entirety, I’m still going to title it TL;DR

* A post concerning reluctance, runes, and shadow work.

and

*A requested follow-up concerning devotional tattoos.

As well, there were posts that I finished writing but I could not bring myself to post for various reasons. These still sit in a digital folder on the hard drive, concerning:

* A particular example of how I often get pushed out of my comfort zones. This was also by request.

* A personal background post about a spiritual re- connection that I’d made in April 2008 that followed the near-death experience of a family member.

* A poem of heiti and slippery metaphors.

One could say that I didn’t intend to post about this, but when I consider the particular requests and topics with which I’d begun the month, this topic is cake* in comparison.

What I’m about to write about is loads more pleasant and easier to discuss that some of the other requests.

~~~

Speaking of requests, I have started working on a series of drawings which are intended preparation for a much bigger project.

I love to draw, and I have been getting a lot of sketching practice, mostly with charcoals, pencil, and ink.

I was content to just keep on with the pencil sketches. Patterns started developing with my sketching, and I even started putting aside the sketches that I was more than slightly pleased with to post on my DeviantArt account.

As you may have read in one of my earlier blog posts this month, I’ve long had a preference for drawing Loki. About a year ago, this began to extend towards drawing His family too – I started drawing Angrboda, Hela, Fenrir, Sigyn, and Sleipnir. Some of my better drawings of these can be seen on my DA account.

But then I started noticing some synchronicity in what was coming up whenever I was working on new face and body studies to draw.

I’m a pretty avid people-watcher, and I started seeing a lot of ‘odd couplings’ during my walks:

– I’ve had several sightings of a pair of construction workers – a much older man with a longish greying beard and a middle-aged redhead – working at the ever-increasing construction site that has sprung up two blocks from my home. (With the extension being added to an existing hospital, and a huge new entertainment complex being built all within a mile of my house, you can imagine that I may see a lot of construction workers, but still…)

– A large grey-black fluffy wolf-like dog being pursued by several children (which reminded me of this)

(above comic created by JellyVampire on DeviantArt.)

– A tall man walking along the sidewalk, who stopped me, and asked to pet my dog. He had the most interesting light brown eyes that I’d ever seen. His eyes appeared to be almost gold.

And then the dream-visual related to this song:

…which got me to thinking about Odin and Loki catching sight of each other on the huge plain at Vigrid where Ragnarok will be fought…

And I have been visualizing that scene every time I hear Schism ever since

And for some reason, this project, this vision is growing into more than a sketch.

Perhaps it will become a painting.

Not that I am well-versed in painting, but I’ll let you know how it goes.

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July 28, 2015

Month for Loki, Day 28: A bit of Lokean levity

Two years or so ago, I was in a Facebook group named The Lokean League of Very Bad People.

The group is unfortunately gone now, but I remember that -towards the end – some of the more active members of LLoVBP engaged in many verbal sparring matches with that particularly vocal folkish Heathen group, The Odinic Right.*

Here is a ‘letter’ that was forwarded by a former member of LLoVBP some time ago:

“Credit for this one goes to Mikki Fraser and Lagaria Farmer.

If you like it copy, paste, and pass it on!

Dear Odinic Rite,
It is imperative that I get this message to you as quickly as possible. There may be no more time left for me, but you and all the others still have a chance! Recently, I was fortuitous enough to capture a member of the Lokean League of Very Bad People, and after hours of gruesome torture, was able to extract a confession. However, just before the scoundrel bit into their cyanide cap, they sprayed me with a neurotoxin. It smelled like peaches, and I’m not sure what it does yet, but I’m sure I must only have minutes left before it takes effect. Not only is the LLVBP planning a dastardly scheme that involves teapots (the ravings of this lunatic were hard to make out) it turns out that the Dark Lord Loki HIMSELF has been behind nearly every global catastrophe that has plagued mankind.

This is what I was able to learn:

Loki is the father of the Jewish race
Loki was the man on the grassy knoll
Loki is the leader of Al Qaeda
Loki hid dinosaur bones all over the world to make people doubt the Eddas
Loki was the hunter who shot Bambi’s mother
Loki and Sauron may actually be the same individual, AND he can simply walk into Mordor
Loki is the head of the Illuminati
Loki turns baby Dalmatians into coats
Loki was Joseph Stalin’s mentor
Rasputin was Loki’s avatar
Loki gave birth to Napoleon’s horse
Loki invented condoms to exterminate the white race
Loki is responsible for the “mud” races, and may also be Obama himself
Loki side-swiped Princess Diana’s car
Loki ejected Amelia Earhart out of her plane
Loki kidnapped the Lindbergh baby
Loki blew up the Hindenburg
Loki was the captain of the Titanic AND the Exxon Valdez
Loki broke up the Beatles
Loki stole the Ark of the Covenant
Loki whipped up Hurricane Katrina
Loki is the puppet master behind the Democratic party
Loki created all deadly spiders, and hides them in people’s showers
Loki reverts cured gays
Loki started Occupy Wall street
Loki programmed the Y2K virus
Loki was Mary Queen of Scott’s lesbian lover
This rabbit hole goes so much deeper than we thought, and you have to warn the others before it’s too late! And don’t forget that…. That… cough… cough… what’s happening to me? I have the sudden… urge to… have sex with a man! No! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

~~~

*I am not going to link to the Odinic Rite group, but a quick search of Google would school you on their folkish (read: overwhelmingly racist) belief system.

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July 27, 2015

Month for Loki, Day 27: Social

So you’re a social drinker, eh?

Well, I know what that means; if you’re going to have a drink, then so shall I.

-Peanut, renowned gadfly/theatre critic

~~~

If you have been following this blog for any length of time, you may have noticed that I am prone to social anxiety. It is not something that I am proud of, but it is something that often affects my daily life. As a result, I’ve developed many coping strategies and behaviors over the years. Some of them are outward physically noticeable coping mechanisms that serve to help me function better when I find myself in anxiety-inducing situations, while others are inward psychological behaviors and patterns of thought-processing that help me through difficult mentally stressful situations.

However, I try as much as I can to function as normally as possible, but on a bad day, I am likely to avoid social interaction altogether.

Sometimes this desire to avoid social interaction will carry on for several days.

At times like that, I would almost welcome the chance to avoid.

But lately, more and more, I’ve been thrust into situations that make me anxious, but I am left to find a way through somehow anyway. These situations present themselves, and I am caught having to deal with exactly the sort of social situation that I’d more than likely rather avoid.

Today was just such a day. I was informed this morning that two acquaintances of mine (whom I do not know very well at all) were planning on stopping by my home later in the afternoon. Of course, I stressed about this, and was on edge all morning. I’m almost ashamed to admit that I had been practically avoiding them socially for over a month, but things converged last night somehow, and it became obvious to me this morning that I didn’t have a good excuse to avoid them for very much longer.*

Besides, they were only planning to stop by for an hour or two.

I started to think that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

So I buried myself in the activity of tidying up the house. I doubled up my dose on my anxiety meds (something I do with the OK of my physician, of course), and then I meditated and I exercised.

In short, I used every one of my physical coping strategies to prepare myself for that two hour window.

While I was out walking, I had an interesting moment of obvious pandoramancy, as this song came up twice in the music feed on my device:

Gods bless you, Frank Turner.

You seem to know exactly how I feel at times.

~~~

But then, you know what?

The situation with those visitors?

They never even showed up.

Perhaps tomorrow, they will…but I am ready to face them.

With a clean house and a clear, calm mind.

~~~

Hail Loki…for understanding the way I tend to be ❤

~~~

* There’s a short circuit between my brain and my tongue, thus, “Leave me the fuck alone” comes out as “Well, maybe. Sure. I guess I can see your point. – David Sedaris, A Friend in the Ghetto; from Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls

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July 26, 2015

Month for Loki, Day 26: Slacker.

It’s not as if I didn’t think about Loki today.

I just spent oh like maybe 2 or 3 hours talking about Him.

Otherwise, I was a slacker.

I promise that I will write a real entry tomorrow.

I swear ❤

July 25, 2015

Month for Loki, Day 25: Dodge.

[The previous post has been redacted]

I am just going to leave this here.

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July 25, 2015

Month for Loki, Day 24: Crafty.

Though I intended on posting about something else today, I spent a good portion of this evening trying a new weave while making friendship bracelets.

I’ve been wanting to do some new color schemes.

I’m really pleased with this one that I did while watching TV:

The funny thing is, once I untaped the bracelet from the board, it twisted up.

I think that the twist looked rather interesting – and I would have gladly kept it twisted – but it just wasn’t long enough to fit on my wrist (or ankle) as I intended it to do.

Perhaps I will iron it down tomorrow.

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July 23, 2015

Month for Loki, Day 23: And…He’s wonderful.

“He’s like fire and ice and rage.

He’s like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun.

He’s ancient and forever.

He burns at the centre of time and he can see the turn of the universe.

And…He’s wonderful.”

-Tim Latimer, about the Doctor

Doctor Who, BBC series

Season 3, Episode 9: The Family of Blood

11 Comments

July 23, 2015

Month for Loki, Day 22: Prayer beads.

Some time ago, I purchased some prayer beads from Fiberwytch on Etsy:

Though I’ve written before on how these prayer beads are one of my favorite devotional possessions, I’d like to point out as much as I loved them and I purchased them upon first sight, I hadn’t any knowledge of how to use prayer beads.

I was familiar – in theory – with rosary beads* due to my extended biological relatives being devout Roman Catholics – but it’s not as if I knew how to incorporate such an item into my devotional practices.

So, once I’d purchased them, I immediately began searching for ‘how-to’ information as well as a few appropriate prayers.

Most of what I’d found seemed tailored to use with larger lengths of beads counted off in specific order, similar to the rosary bead configurations. At first, I was confused by this, but then I realized that I just needed to adapt the structures a little.

Here is a portion of a lovely but much longer prayer that I found here.

The prayer, from which this portion is taken, was written by Elizabeth Vongsivith:

In the name of Loki, Shape-strong and wily Trickster, may I never take myself too seriously.

In the name of Angrboda, Chieftain and Hagia of the Iron Wood, may I value others for their knowledge and abilities.

In the name of Sigyn, Lady of Endurance, may I endure my own suffering without complaint.

In the name of Fenrir, great chained Wolf, may I have the strength to control my inner monsters.

In the name of Jormungand, mighty World-serpent, may I maintain appropriate boundaries.

In the name of Sleipnir, eight-legged son of Loki, may I carry my burdens with good will.

In the name of Narvi, eldest son of Sigyn and Loki, may I remember those who died unjustly.

In the name of Vali, youngest son of Sigyn and Loki, may I be an advocate for those who suffer unjustly.

In the name of Laufey, Lady of the Leafy Isle, may I remain mindful of the green growing things of forest and field.

In the name of Farbauti, Flaming Arrow, may my will to survive remain strong.

In the name of Surt, Lord of Muspellheim, may I show respect to those who stood in my place before me.

In the name of Utgard-Loki, wise and crafty Sorcerer-king, may I know when to speak and when to remain silent.

In the name of Gunnlod, fair-voiced Lady Under the Mountain, may I find beauty and contentment wherever I am.

In the name of Hyndla, Hagia of the Northern Mountains, may I see clearly into the bloodlines I walk.

In the name of Mengloth, Healer of Lyfja Mount, may I be aware when I cause pain to others.

In the name of Hati, Chaser of the Moon, may I accept my most unwelcome tasks.

In the name of Skoll, Pursuer of the Sun, may I find what joy I can in my most unwelcome tasks.

In the name of Mordgud, Guardian of Helheim’s gate, may I have discipline and self-respect.

In the name of Nidhogg, Gnawer at the World-tree’s roots, may I remember that there is no such place as “away.”

In the name of Hela, Goddess of the Dead, may I honor the beloved dead, revere the mighty dead, and have compassion for the forgotten and unknown dead.

~~~

As well, I have shorter prayers that I recite – such as this adaptation of a Enochian prayer by Sophie Reicher:

Teach me, oh my Gods, to have correct knowledge and understanding, for Your blessing is all that I desire. Speak Your words in my ear, oh Makers of all Things, and set Your wisdom in my heart

A shorter prayer like this feels appropriate at times (like now when it is 4 AM or so) and I cannot sleep, much less focus, and repetition is helpful to me.

~~~

* I am excited and must make a note of this, Galina Krasskova wrote a post on the Gods’ Mouths here, concerning that very thing that I had been looking for, concerning re-working the rosary prayers that she first became familiar with in childhood…and I was delighted to note that she references the above prayer in her post. ❤

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