“Friend of Fire,
Bringer of Brightness,
You lead me through the dark,
a flickering flame from a distant candle.
When it goes out,
all feels abandoned,
my heart hurts,
but in the distance,
that flickering flame returns,
guiding me down a door I didn’t anticipate.
O’ Loki,
Blood-brother of Bǫlverkr,
I hail you for the lessons you’ve taught me,
and the warmth you’ve washed my woes away with.”
— hesy-bes
This is such a big deal.
Lokeans and other Rokkatru devotees have been waiting and campaigning for the Troth to change their stance regarding the worship of the Jotnar for a long time.
I am so glad to see that it is actually happening – that things are moving forward, as the Troth issued a new position statement recently:
Hail Fenrir: Celebrating the Troth’s New Position Statement
Hail Fenrir!
Loki has shown up several times in my life, and most often, it has been whenever I was struggling….
And this particular song resonates with me when I think about those times wherein I was struggling with my mental health:
“Jumper” lyrics
I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend
You could cut ties with all the lies that you’ve been living in
And if you do not want to see me again
I would understand, I would understand
The angry boy, a bit too insane
Icing over a secret pain
You know you don’t belong
You’re the first to fight, you’re way too loud
You’re the flash of light on a burial shroud
I know something’s wrong
Well, everyone I know has got a reason
To say, “Put the past away”
I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend
You could cut ties with all the lies that you’ve been living in
And if you do not want to see me again
I would understand, I would understand
Well he’s on the table and he’s gone to code
And I do not think anyone knows
What they are doing here
And your friends have left you, you’ve been dismissed
I never thought it would come to this
And I, I want you to know
Everyone’s got to face down the demons
Maybe today, you could put the past away
I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend
You could cut ties with all the lies that you’ve been living in
And if you do not want to see me again
I would understand, I would understand
I would understand
I would understand
I would understand
I would understand
Can you put the past away?
I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend
I would understand
I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend
I would understand
I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend
And I would understand
I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend
I would understand
I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend
And I would understand.
– Stephen Jenkins, Third Eye Blind
Welcome to July!
As some of you may or may not know, July is the month that many Lokeans dedicate specifically to Loki.
For this reason, every July, I like to spend a bit of time each day either writing, meditating, or engaging in some form of devotional activity, and then dedicating those efforts to Loki.
This year, I will be using some writing prompts developed by fellow Lokean, Dagny created for each day in July.
For the 1st of July: I first discovered Loki when…
As I may have written before, I don’t know exactly when I first ‘discovered’ Loki for myself. What I do know is that my love of reading fairy tales, folk tales, and world mythology probably led me to read about Him at some point.
Perhaps it began when I read about Loki in D’Aulaire’s Norse Gods and Giants:
Or maybe my knowledge of His existence began even earlier than that when I discovered Him within the various stories found within The Children’s Library Collection, a 12-volume set of books that my father had read throughout his childhood in the 1940s.
I remember sitting in my grandfather’s leather easy chair, with this or that volume propped up on my lap, trying to work my way through a European folktale, and feeling delighted with the lively orange and black line illustrations of a clever fox who can run as fast as the wind if only one can hold unto his bushy tail with both hands, or that big helpful bear who carries a young girl on his back so that she may travel safely through a dark forest to reach the witch at the edge of the valley :
Either way, Loki became familiar to me as a short word that I was confident that I could read (and pronounce!) because it only had four letters — and I remember my Dad mentioning that the capital letter meant that it was a name.
Frabjous: (adjective) 1. Joyous. Overcome with a joy that is so intense that it cannot be contained.
Yeah. I want to be that.
So.
After almost a *whole 365 days*
I have a message
for that
particular
person
who has gone
(unnecessarily)
out of their way
to find me
Again
Last Friday, I was out shopping for a birthday gift for a friend who collects Squishmallows.
Though I did not find the particular one that she had been searching for, I was able to locate a few smaller ones that suited the occasion, so I purchased two of them for her along with one for myself.
This raccoon:
So I went home, wrapped the gift, and didn’t give Squishmallows – or raccoons – another thought.
Until the next morning, when I let out my two dogs outside to pee and saw something in the far corner of my yard by my neighbor’s fence.
At first, I thought that it was nothing more than a bundle of sticks, but as I stepped out to look more closely, it began to look like a pile of sticks intermixed with clumps of brownish lint.
Odd.
And then, the scent of whatever it was hit my nostrils, and I realized that his clump of sticks and lint was a dead raccoon.
A long dead raccoon, by the looks of it, and I understood why I’d thought that it was a bundle of sticks at first glance, as I could see where its broken shoulder blade and ribs stuck out, pale against its fur.
I’d mowed the lawn on Thursday and even weed-whacked along the fence-lines, so I couldn’t understand how I could have missed seeing it earlier, but it was definitely there now.
A dead raccoon with delicate little black paws, a black mask, brown eyes…
and yet its matted fur was a dark reddish brown.
I could especially see the fur of its tail ringed in black against this rusty red color
but it didn’t seem to be blood
as all of its fur was that brownish-red color wherever I assumed would’ve been grey.
(That surprised me — I mean, aren’t raccoons usually grey and black?)
It was as if the Universe had dropped this very stinky and very dead raccoon into my yard, saying: Hey. I heard you say that you liked raccoons. So here… have one!
(Though, come to think of it, it was more likely to have been a vulture*)
How odd that I was so recently thinking of raccoons, only to be gifted with a dead (but mostly intact) one dropped into my yard less than 12 hours later.
What a strange coincidence.
______
*Long-time readers of this blog may recall that several years ago, vultures also used to drop dead possums into my yard.
____
ETA:
Can raccoons be red?
As it turns out, they can.
According to this website (and a few others), raccoons’ fur is most commonly a mix of grey and black, but…
“[This] raccoon’s beautiful coat is caused by erythrism, a genetic condition that causes reddish pigmentation of the fur and skin. Erythrism in raccoons usually runs in families. It isn’t harmful and, other than making them more likely targets for fur trappers, erythrism doesn’t affect a raccoon’s life expectancy.”
Huh.
bloodteethandflame 