Loki | bloodteethandflame

Questions and answers.

Have you ever played with the Ape of Thoth?

It’s a searchable database of Thelema texts – by verse and chapter, if one knows the number – but what makes it fun is that there is also a feature on the site that is a Thelemic text randomizer.

It’s pretty neat, actually. You type/ask a question, and it brings up a portion of text from the books of Thelema as an answer.

Which makes it so much more interesting than the Magic 8-Ball these days.

So…I have an issue that is quite emotionally-laden for me, and I was having trouble keeping a clear head about things.

So I decided to ask the Ape of Thoth for some guidance, simply typing:

What to do? RE: LOKI

[And this was the answer:]

“Continuation. Further concerning occupation.

Let the devotee transmute within the alembic of his heart every thought, or word, or act into the spiritual gold of his devotion.
As thus: eating. Let him say: “I eat this food in gratitude to my Deity that hath sent it to me, in order to gain strength for my devotion to Him.”
Or: sleeping. Let him say: “I lie down to sleep, giving thanks for this blessing from my Deity, in order that I may be refreshed for new devotion to Him.”
Or: reading. Let him say: “I read this book that I may study the nature of my Deity, that further knowledge of Him may inspire me with deeper devotion to Him.”
Or: working. Let him say: “I drive my spade into the earth that fresh flowers (fruit, or what not) may spring up to His glory, and that I, purified by toil, may give better devotion to Him.”
Or: whatever it may be that he is doing, let him reason it out in his own mind, drawing it through circumstance and circumstance to that one end and conclusion of the matter. And let him not perform the act until he hath done this.
As it is written: Liber VII, cap. v. —
22. “Every breath, every word, every thought, ever deed is an act of love with Thee.
23. “The beat of my heart is the pendulum of love.
24. “The songs of me are the soft sighs:
25. “The thoughts of me are very rapture:
26. “And my deeds are the myriads of Thy Children, the stars and the atoms.” And Remember Well, that if thou wert in truth a lover, all this wouldst thou do of thine own nature without the slightest flaw or failure in the minutest part thereof.”

All I could think upon reading the above is – what remarkably specific advice – even if it doesn’t answer the question that I thought that I was asking.

But sometimes that happens.

Perhaps this is the connection in discovering the meaning of that phrase

Love is the movement that gives substance to the Will

Hm.

7 Comments

June 8, 2015

3rd Blog-aversary

According to WordPress, I have been blogging on bloodteethandflame for three years (as of 28 May 2012), and so I received an email notifying me of my 3rd Anniversary about 10 days ago

Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com!

You registered on WordPress.com 3 years ago!

Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging!

That took me quite by surprise, since I had thought that WordPress would be counting from the date of my first blog entry (7 June 2012) rather than the date that I had first registered.

And yes, I had been planning to write an entry on June 7th, simply because I did get quite a peculiar reminder on 26 May 2015:

I was riding in the car, and we were driving through Winter Haven, on the way back from my therapy appointment. I was riding in the car with V, and we were talking about our kids’ upcoming summer vacation.

I wasn’t really paying attention the cars around me, until he suddenly remarked something about the car that was directly in front of us.

‘Look, it’s a Loki car,’ he said.

I looked at the license plate, expecting that to be what he was referring to, but there was nothing about the license plate that seemed Lokean.

And here is the photo that I took on my phone…but I was not close enough to capture the detail that I am referring to, so you’re just going to have to trust me on this:

It was a Nissan Altima from a Lokey dealership.

(You can almost see their logo (Lokey) to the left of the license plate under the Altima logo if you magnify the photo 200% or so)

And that seems just a funny coincidence – since the last time I had heard reference to a Lokey dealership was here in this entry — that describes my sleepless night at an event, when V and I were in Clearwater in the first weekend of June 2012.

Which also happens to be the first entry that I wrote on bloodteethandflame. 🙂

It has only been recently that I realize that that this particular reminder arrived perfectly on the day that it was due.

It’s funny how the Universe works, isn’t it?

2 Comments

May 16, 2015

The Hypothetical Chicken Sandwich: a conversation.

Scene: A popular restaurant where I frequently have lunch.

(I am looking at the menu, and I realize much to my dismay that the restaurant no longer offers the version of chicken sandwich that I love.)

Me: (dismayed at the lack of my favorite chicken sandwich.)

L: But look! There’s a new version of your chicken sandwich.

Me: I don’t want to try that new sandwich. What if… I hate it?

L: Well. Have you ever considered what if… you love it?

<trolls>Oh no…you just might! <trolls>

So. I suggest that you try that sandwich.

Me: I might.

L: You should. *grins*

Me: (orders the sandwich)

L: ….

Me: OK. I think…I think I love it.

L: *eyeroll* This is… My not-surprised face.

~~~Later~~~

Me: Hopefully, in my next life, I’ll be more easygoing and cheerful.

L: Tell Me why you couldn’t be more easygoing and cheerful in this life.

Me: It’s too late.

L: It’s never too late to decide to be happy.

~~~

So, this seems to have become a thing.

‘Hypothetical chicken sandwich’ seems to be our conversational shorthand for a moment when I refuse to adapt or choose to fight an inevitable change:

3 Comments

May 14, 2015

Process, and projects.

So, as I mentioned a post or two ago, I have been working on several projects.

I have been making jewelry that mostly consists of beadwork and wire-wrapping.

I began last summer making necklaces and ankle bracelets, simply because I found that the process has become quite a meditative and calming activity for me.

I’ve made several pieces now, mostly for myself, as devotional jewelry, because most of the devotional jewelry that I’d purchased from retail was beginning to fall apart.

As well, I have been wearing an ankle bracelet 24/7 * for several years now, and I have found through experience that a lot of ankle bracelets (whether purchased retail or hand made by me) aren’t sturdy enough for such constant wear…or at least, the clasps aren’t. I’m still trying to work out a means of clasp attachment – or a clasp/attachment combination – that will hold for longer than four months. I’m getting there.

On the other hand, I switch out my necklaces a lot more often. I have made several pieces each that are dedicated to specific Gods, and so I often wear those necklaces for shorter periods of time. I might just phase out some of my older (retail purchased) pieces in favor of wearing exclusively handmade ones.

And, of course, there are times when I make something quick, thinking that I might wear it, and then I get the distinct impression that Someone likes it so much that I’ll end up just leaving it on Their altar…

…as is the case here.

The beading cord is recycled hemp, which I’m not familiar working with, and thus the attachment point for this toggle clasp is probably not sturdy enough for wearing for any length of time anyway.

But I have come up with other ideas to expand upon this design, as I really love the earth-toned color scheme.

*Loki seems to appreciate that I have been wearing an ankle bracelet which has a design/color scheme that honors Him and His families.

~~~

I’ve also been working on an embroidery project that features all the Futhark runes.

When it is finished, I will be sure to post a picture of it, as it has taken me a while. Certain runes seem to be a lot more difficult for me to stitch than others, and my perfectionist tendencies aren’t serving me so well in that department.

But as it is with beading, I find embroidery a very satisfying and meditative devotional activity. I am guessing that there might not be too many people in this world who enjoy embroidering their altar cloths as much as I do, but I enjoy it very much.

I probably should switch out my altar cloths more often, or likewise, create more layers on the altars to showcase the ones I have finished.

I usually have one to three unfinished cloths at any given time, so I definitely have an altar cloth embroidery addiction, at the very least. Ahem.

~~~

And finally, drawing.

I was puttering around DeviantArt the other day, and I realized that it has now been 3 years that I have had an account there, and yet I have never submitted any artwork. Still.

(Still, a year or more after saying that I would.)

So, I was having a conversation – no, more like an argument, honestly – with an artist friend of mine yesterday. In the course of our heated discussion, my artist-friend gave me all kinds of grief in regards to my obvious procrastination/aversion towards actually posting artwork, which led to his calling me out in his frustration, in a very Loki-esque manner:

You know what, Heathir?

You need to stop talking about doing, and…f***ing DO.

You need to either shit or get off the pot.

And it was a small thing, such a small thing, my not posting any artwork, you know.

I don’t know what I have been waiting for these past three years. I’ve never had any excuse whatsoever not to post artwork…but I kept hemming and hawing, anyway.

And there was absolutely no reason to be afraid.

So, as soon as I got off the phone with him, I went to DeviantArt, scanned, and finally posted some artwork.

And the more that I scanned, the more that I wished that I’d keep my artwork in one place in a more organized fashion.

I scanned six pages from my sketch-book. I started to wonder where I’d put some of the other sketches that I had done last summer. I began looking through my notebooks, looking specifically for my vulture sketches, and all those face and figure studies that I did last month.

I couldn’t find a lot of what I was thinking to post on DeviantArt because I have been so disorganized in storing my artwork. *sigh*

But, there’s actually artwork there now.

(There should be more, but I learned that my scanner doesn’t pick up my graphite sketches as well as I would have liked. I’ll take that as a sign that I need to draw more confidently, ie; press down a little harder with the pencils, so the scanner will pick up the lines.)

In related news, I did a few more face studies, and one figure study yesterday in preparation for a t-shirt silkscreen project that I have been putting together:

(Figure study #1: I am pleased with the leanness of the body, but I’m not as pleased with the face as much. The eyes are fair to good (right eye is clear, left is not because of erasures), and I like the slightly raised eyebrow, but the mouth, nose, and facial hair need work. And I realize that the hair on the head is all wrong.)

(Face study #1: I love the hair, and even though it’s shorter than intended, I like the flow. I like the left eye; too many erasures are muddying up the right eye, but the eye placement looks good to me. The nose seems wrong somehow, and the mouth seems a bit too wide/too stiff of an expression. Overall, He looks older than I intended, as well.)

(Face Study #2: Facial feature placement seems good, but He still looks older than I intended. Nose is better, and mouth is better. Tried to keep the raised eyebrow.)

(Face Study #3: Most of the time, I look at several photos of actual people and study their faces, and practice drawing the parts of the face several times before incorporating the details of several faces while I’m drawing one face. This was a total freehand in that this face came together all at once, rather than incorporating the various details of several faces from studying photos. This is the last, and oddly enough, the most simple face of the three that I drew. I know that this one still needs work, but I really like that He doesn’t look so…middle-aged as He did in the other ones. )

Hail Loki, Fair of Face ❤

~~~

2 Comments

May 12, 2015

Spending time in the cheapest rooms.

The past few days have been so incredibly stressful/awful/what-have you.

This past Sunday being Mother’s Day did not help. (For some context on that, you can read some here.)

And again, I am aware that some of it is my own damned fault…and yet some of it is not.

But I am reminded that only I can change myself, and only I can change my attitude about what’s been happening.

I cannot change anyone else, nor can I change their attitude.

But nonetheless, whenever I have the sort of time that I have been having – a time which seems damned near insurmountable some days – I get this song as a reminder:

And following that, I usually get the Universal poke to the head from Him, thusly:

May 8, 2015

Tangled Up in Blue

Concerning Petrarch, poetry, and a question from a reader:

I read a lot of poetry, and I listen to a lot of music.

Often these two habits will intersect in my life in strange and delightful ways, especially where and when my Gods are involved.

One particular song that I have always loved is Bob Dylan’s Tangled Up in Blue.

And I came to love it even more when the Indigo Girls released their cover of that song on their live album, 1200 Curfews, in 1995.

As you may or may not know, it was not until 1997 or so that I started getting specific spiritual nudges again. And sufficed to say, this song came up a lot on the radio at that time, and as a result, I heard the Indigo Girls’ cover several times a day.

But as much as I knew the lyrics, there was one particular verse that always baffled me, however.

This one:

She lit a burner on the stove and offered me a pipe
“I thought you’d never say hello” she said
“You look like the silent type”
Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet
From the thirteenth century
And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burning coal
Pouring off of every page
Like it was written in my soul from me to you
Tangled up in blue.

All I could think of was…what sort of words were those? And even more so, who wrote them?

I mean, as a person who loves poetry, I could absolutely agree that poetry, in all its forms, is the highest form of word-alchemy.

As well, I would be the first to agree that good poetry certainly can and does transcend time.

But I had to, absolutely had to… find out who was that ‘Italian poet from the thirteenth century’?

And no, I don’t think that anybody really knows.

As far as I can tell, Bob Dylan has never identified any particular poet as being the poet that he references…so I began to wonder if Dylan was just simply trying to convey some universally profound fact about love and human relationships, as well as something similar to what I just wrote up there about poetry being word-alchemy.

~~~

Cut to three years ago, I was in a large retail bookstore chain, just browsing, as I often do.

If you must know, I wasn’t even in the poetry section. Because, as much as I love poetry, I hardly ever buy books of it.

So it was more than likely that I’d been skimming a Kingdom Hearts graphic novel with my kid, or trying to choose between two or three sci-fi/fantasy anthologies, or whatever, when ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ came up on the in-store music system.

I remember looking up from the book that I had been browsing, to see that someone had left a copy of Petrarchian love sonnets on the floor.

…and that exact verse – with line about an Italian poet from the thirteenth century – was the verse that was playing when I noticed that book on the floor.

And no, I didn’t buy the book. I brought it back to the poetry section and left it there.

If I bought anything, I probably purchased an anthology of short horror stories and a comic book for my kid.

But when I got home, I Googled ‘Petrarch.’ Having been an English major in college, I did know that Petrarch was an Italian poet… and just as any English major who studied poetry, I was familiar with the Petrarchian sonnet.

What detail that I didn’t know, or likewise remember, was that Petrarch wrote most of those sonnets about love and loss…in the 13th century.

In that next week or so, I hemmed and hawed about this whole thing being a ‘universal sign’…

But eventually I did purchase a book of Petrarchian love sonnets a few months later.

So.

Yes.

You may take it however you will, but that book of Petrarchian love sonnets is on my altar because of one particularly sneaky incidence of pandoramancy coinciding with a misplaced book.

🙂

5 Comments

May 8, 2015

File under: A few of my favorite things.

I swear to Gods, I’m not a wreck all of the time.

But lately, one might think so, judging by how often I have chosen to write posts that detail my latest struggles.

So, in an effort to be more positive, I wanted to post something that makes me happy.

This is one of my Loki altars:

This altar happens to be the first thing that I see every morning and the last thing that I see every night. And, as you might imagine, it holds several devotional items that have come to have a lot of meaning for me lately.

First, there is the very large picture of Himself, a special commission that I had done (for my 43rd birthday) by talented Pagan artist, Kimberly Williams. While this picture might not be everyone’s cup of tea – as some folks are of the opinion that He has a frighteningly voracious grin – but I find His grin tremendously comforting, if not downright friendly at the end of a particularly trying day.

Secondly, there are those lovely – and powerful! -Loki prayer beads purchased from Fiberwytch on Etsy. I can’t say enough how much I love and heartily recommend Beth Lynch’s work. The beads often reflect light with a lot of fire and flash whenever I use them, and the hematite and jackfruit beads are positively silky to the touch. The sleepy fox charm, on the other hand, comes across to me as more adorable than sneaky, and that’s just fine with me.

Overall, these prayer beads are a joy to handle and use. I pack them whenever I will be away from home overnight.

Thirdly, is my latest purchase -also from Fiberwytch – a tinned candle with a wooden wick for Loki that is so strongly scented of espresso that my family often insists that I must be brewing a bottomless pot of fresh coffee in the bedroom. (Though I would imagine that He wouldn’t mind that one bit.) As well, the wooden wick does crackle like a miniature bonfire – which also sounds and smells woodsy and wonderful – creating the perfect atmosphere for Lokean meditations.

And so there you have it -three of my favorite devotional items made by two talented Pagan artisans – both of whom I would highly recommend.

~~~

Perhaps tomorrow, I will post some of my own personal artwork, crafts, and offerings that I have been making to the Gods

….as well as the beginnings of my latest long-term fun project that I’m hoping to expand upon this summer.

❤

7 Comments

April 24, 2015

Allow.

‘There is a secret about human love that is commonly overlooked: receiving it is much more scary and threatening than giving it. How many times in your life have you been unable to let in someone’s love, or pushed it away? Much as we proclaim the wish to be truly loved, we are often afraid of that, and find it difficult to open to love or let it all the way in.’

John Welwood

~~~

He said:

‘Is it so difficult?

And so I will tell you again what you must do:

Open up to love.

Just love.

Let love consume you.

Let love engulf you in its joy.

You must trust in your love.

You must allow love to take hold of you.

You must allow yourself to feel.

You must forgive yourself and allow yourself

Love without condition,

Love without attachments,

Love without goals,

Love without agendas.

You must love for the sake of love.

Don’t you see?

You must allow yourself to be taken by joy.

Release yourself to love. Surrender yourself to joy.

You must not fear being open.

You must open up to love.’

~~~

1 Comment

March 31, 2015

looks up

Another emotional weekend.

Another chain of days wherein I am left contemplating the line between being compassionate and being naive.

~~~

And here. Here is a foolish thing.

This morning while I was out walking my dog, I noticed at least a dozen black vultures perched upon the streetlights lining the parkway that runs along a significant portion of my daily route. Even though vultures usually don’t roost in my neighborhood very often, I figured that there must have been some fresh roadkill somewhere. (I didn’t — and I still don’t — want to assume that their presence has any at all to do with the fact that that I’ve also been dreaming of vultures a lot lately. I comfort myself to think that there has to be some other mundane reason.)

So, as I was walking toward quite a large cluster of them, I realized much to my dismay, that, with the way in which the road was laid out, I was going to have to walk past several streetlights in the row.

And I was going to have to pass beneath quite a number of them where they were perched.

(Yes, I’ll admit that I feared being…hissed at and shat upon.)

As I got closer, I began to walk more briskly, all the while telling myself that I am going to be OK, I’m just passing through…this is not something that I can avoid. These are just…vultures. A lot of black vultures.

And looking back on it, you know, I can’t explain why I started to feel anxious, but I did….

and so, next thing I know, I had started running….

And because I was so busy feeling anxious

and not really looking where I was going

I promptly fell hard into a hole that I could not have seen

and I twisted my ankle.

I laid there for a good minute or two, feeling mortified, embarrassed and hurting.

Upon looking up, I see them – three vultures — calmly looking down at me, from their perches atop the streetlight.

They did not move. They did not hiss. And they did not shit on me.

They just looked at me.

(They were just like this – except for looking downward. I didn’t take this picture. ^Phil Thach did.)

Evidently, black vultures like to perch on street lights

…and eat ‘horrible things for tea.’

(I guess that ‘ and eat roadkill when necessary’ doesn’t have the same ring to it, though it has the same amount of syllables.)

Not making fun. Just trying to adapt.

~~~

Mr. L is wondering why I am avoiding again.

Asking why I am struggling to embrace my spirit animal.

Because, sometimes…vultures frighten me.

*sigh*

3 Comments

March 16, 2015

Amazed.

~~~

Thank You, my Beloved.

For everything

Today and Always

❤

bloodteethandflame

Category: Loki

June 21, 2015

Questions and answers.

June 8, 2015

3rd Blog-aversary

May 16, 2015

The Hypothetical Chicken Sandwich: a conversation.

May 14, 2015

Process, and projects.

May 12, 2015

Spending time in the cheapest rooms.

May 8, 2015

Tangled Up in Blue

May 8, 2015

File under: A few of my favorite things.

April 24, 2015

Allow.

March 31, 2015

looks up

March 16, 2015

Amazed.