This is not an urban legend!
This quote is from my friend Sean’s dear friend Carol, regarding lessons from the Universe:
Maybe you don’t need more lessons. Maybe you need to get more out of those lessons you’ve already had.
This inspires me…and I think about this every day.
This is such a beautiful description of – and quite possibly the most apt metaphor for – working with Loki that I have ever read.
From an excellent Tumblr blog – see, they do exist! — here is coldalbion’s reply to an anonymous question, “Do you have any advice on working with Loki?”
(from coldalbion.tumblr.com)
===
“Advice, anon…? Not per se. I do have something for you, which may help:
Ah. Loki.
Oh, Loki.
What to say here? Loki’s like a whirling dervish; an expert knife-thrower all shining steel and flame-flicker.
And you’re his assistant.
You may or may not be blindfolded at first, and sometimes that’s better, despite the fact that you can hear those knives whistling towards your head with deadly precision.
With the blindfold on, you can at least recall his charming smile, the wicked quirk of his scarred lips, sly and arch and smooth. How he led you there with honeyed words and soft touches; how the tales of wonder and excitement thrilled you, all bright colours and exotic new adventures. How he picked you up and, somehow, for some reason decided to give you the benefit of all of him – how he blazed with a kind of Light that had nothing to do with vision, and everything to do with existing without reference to anything else.
And the more time you felt his presence, the more you began to know that his darkness was like his Light, a thing in and of itself. The full sense of his presence illuminated you, made you feel like you were the only thing in the worlds. He took your pain and scars and ran himself along them with a kind of knowing, a sense of recognition that generates a seemingly ever-present resonance.
So it’s the most natural, thrilling thing in the world when he asks you to do something for him, to put on a special costume, take his hand and step into the ring for this little act he does, purely for fun.
Charmed, beguiled, feeling the pull of nerves, you do it. You listen to his patter, his introduction as you stand there in the spotlight, surrounded by a audience shrouded in darkness. You’re his glamourous assistant, the absolute necessity to his act.
He smiles at you as he blindfolds you, as he raises you up to the board. Your heart begins to race as he binds you, secures you tight so you can’t move. You’re helpless, waiting, praying.
When the first knife whistles through the air, you stiffen. The wind of its passing plays across your skin – the impact into the board is shockingly loud. You can’t help but gasp, the board vibrating with the force of that blow. You imagine the audience’s intake of breath, but you can’t hear it over the noise of the knives that suddenly seem to come in from all directions.
Again and again and again. When one buries itself scant millimeteres from your face, you realise that you can feel the cold of the metal against your cheek. You flinch, and realise that the buried blades surround you. Your body is ringed by steel. There is nowhere else to go.
The act must be over now, mustn’t it? Surely it must!
So why is it that you can hear more knives coming? What kind of insane game is this – is this madman actually trying to kill you?
You think back to what he told the audience – that you are an absolute necessity to his act. Is it possible he lured you under false pretences, that you are some kind of sacrificial animal, and that one of those knives will be your doom?
No wonder you might be afraid!
And when the blows come, you can feel the edges bite, sharp against your flesh. This is it. You’re going to die. What a fool you were to do this, to let this motherfucker lead you on.
But..wait a minute. You’re still here. Everything is suddenly silent, way too quiet. Heart hammering, you gingerly attempt to move, and, to your surprise, you realise that your bonds, after a moment of snagging, seem to have fallen away.
With trembling hands, you pull down the blindfold, and are momentarily blinded – the house lights have come up and you stumble away from the board a liittle. When your vision returns, you’re in for a shock.
Because there’s no-one there. The vast ranks of seats are empty. The audience have gone, even though you didn’t hear them leave. Maybe they were never even there to begin with…
Maybe you’re still bewildered when a voice tells you to Think fast! and you jump back as a knife suddenly comes out of nowhere and buries itself in the sawdust at your feet.
The unseen voice tells you to pick up the blade. Go on, just pick it up. So you do, and suddenly he steps out from behind the board with a little, courtly, mocking bow.
Turnabout is fair play, he drawls.
It’s your turn. Without thinking, the knife leaves your hand, aiming at his head. But he’s not there.
He’s behind you, lips against your ear, hand on your arm, guiding you through the arc of the throw. The knife hits the board, straight and true, in a way you’d never have known how to do before.
And then? Then he’s dancing and you have an endlesss supply of blades. He weaves and curves, eels and dives in ten thousand intricate movements; a shining, glittering impossibility. Without thinking, you fall into a rhythm, and later you realise the strangeness of this – for you and he are acting together in the space between heartbeats. You’re part of the same dance, the same ebb and flow and weave.
There’s no telling how long it goes on for, or why it stops. Maybe he becomes bored, or maybe you send steel singing so close that it leaves a line of blood along his cheekbone.
Who can tell? Because suddenly, the knives you throw are suddenly plucked from the air by nimble hands, and turned back on you. Lost in the rhythm, you struggle to evade the most lethal, but manage it. But you do not remain unscathed – your shining costume is cut from you swifter than lightning, until you stand naked and nicked in the sawdust.
Your nerves sing – the cuts are not deep, after all, but the endorphins are called into your blood, as surely as someone summoned an army. A single droplet of blood falls in slow motion, splashing on the shaved wood, blossoming and swelling and staining the ground of the ring.
When you look up again, he’s smiling, eyes sparkling with ancient wisdom and dark mirth. Not bad, he says. Let’s go again.
Steel sings and you feel the air move against your skin.
And you smile in return, and you move.
It’s time to dance.”
(Artwork: ‘Jester’ by MuYoung Kim)
They’ll take you places you didn’t want to go,
and see things you never wanted to see,
but be not afraid,
for they are there with you,
for everything.
~~~
Years ago – quite possibly more than 10 years ago – I found the above (unattributed) quote on a blog.
So I wrote that quote down in the daily paper journal I kept, as I did not have my own blog at that time.
And though I could not put my finger on why this quote resonated with me so long ago
it occurred to me this morning that it pretty much sums up
what
spirit-work
feels like.
Because life has just been one thing after another…but I’m doing all right.
I want to believe this is the sort of kindness I could practice, as I have been wrangling with words all day concerning a particularly thorny issue involving the limits of my compassion towards others.
Ah, fuck it…the limits of my compassion towards a particular individual.
*sigh*
So here’s yet another chain of days wherein I am left contemplating the line between being compassionate and being naive.
About two weeks ago, I celebrated a personal and spiritual milestone.
It has been one year since I welcomed Odin into my life.
I say ‘welcomed’ because…well, if you know me, you’d remember that I’d been fighting against working with Him for years.
At any rate, in celebration of that, I’d like to share a story with you – involving Odin, a prayer card, and my poor excuse for neglecting to leave Etsy feedback:
10 January 2018
Today, something occurred to me regarding my attitude towards working with Odin.
Even though it’s been a year – today! – since I welcomed Odin back into my life (it’s a long story!) I realized that I’m not going to get very far if I don’t entirely let go of that default setting/thought under which I’d operated for the four years prior to 10 January 2017…and that concerns what was once my belief that
Odin is an [redacted but rather common obscenity]
It’s getting in my way; it’s getting in the way of my progress.
~~~
But I suppose progress is being made, because there’s this Odin prayer card that’s been sitting on my altar since this past July.
It’s a nice picture of Odin, isn’t it?
The artwork is by W. McMillan.
But what I’m going to write about now about concerns the prayer to Odin (written by Galina Krasskova) on the other side of this prayer card….and how powerful it has become for me to say it aloud.
I want to admit to you all that when I first purchased this prayer card, I bought it for the artwork; I hadn’t considered the prayer on the back of it at all.
Funny how that is, because it’s a pretty powerful one….but I quickly realized that I didn’t feel comfortable saying it aloud.
Words are important.
And the words of a prayer, the words of an oath are even more so.
I didn’t think that I could bring myself to make that kind of oath – to Odin.
So I would simply read the words – in pieces, and never all at once! – and I would silently marvel over how beautiful they were, and how evocative of Him.
But I could not – I would not – read them aloud.
It sounds foolish, I know.
Observe:
Prayer to Odin
Galina Krasskova
All-Father, I ask Your blessings.
Breathe into me,
Oh God of gainful counsel.
Nourish me, Wish-Giver
that I might know You more fully and well.
I hail You, God of wisdom, cunning and inspiration.
I hail You, ruthless in Your desires.
I hail You, God of single-minded hunger.
Be welcome in my life, my heart, my home.
Master of the Tree, I sacrifice to You:
my fears, my doubts, my hesitations.
Open me up to the knowledge of things holy
Wisest Lord, open me up to You.
I will seek You with the fervor
with which You sought the runes.
Always will I honor You.
Be my mead, be my joy,
be the prize at the end of my seeking.
Hail, Odin, Hail, All-father
Hail, Lord of Hosts.
~~~
Reading these words, I felt afraid because the words struck me as an oath that was beyond what I was comfortable giving to Odin.
But as I’ve often said – and I still believe it is true – that whatever Odin wants, He wants all of it. He wants all that can be given. There is nothing half-assed about Odin – nothing. And that was the essence of my awe – and my fear – of Him: I am still both terrified and awed by His single-minded determination…but by the same token, He demands that His devotees be as single-minded as He is – about their desires, their goals, everything that they are. He wants His devotees to know themselves, to push themselves and to sacrifice themselves to … themselves, and to their purpose and to their goals, whatever it may be.
He is similar to a relentless general that way:
Honor Me by being the best that you can be in My name, for Me.
One of the most profound things I’ve ever heard said about Odin is that He will never ask you to do something He hasn’t done, or rather, something He would be unwilling to do.
Think about it: Odin hung Himself for nine days and nine nights.
Perhaps it was to discover what death was, or to find out where Death takes oneself – He was willing to metaphorically
if not literally
die .
He didn’t even spare Himself in His quest for knowledge, for that paradox of experience, for Divinity itself.
Perhaps He had to know, He had to experience that situation first-hand – you gotta admit that’s pretty f-ing crazy and yet unerringly logical – if one wants to know every nook and cranny of an experience, they are going to have to go through the experience themselves.
There is no avoiding it.
For me, that is the essence of His fury.
Odin is relentless, insatiable, mysterious, and multi-faceted.
There is only one other God that I know of Who is as insatiable, as relentless and as multi-faceted as Odin
and that is Loki.
So it is no mystery to me as to why They’d be drawn to each other
Nor is it a surprise to me that They would have such a powerful and profound connection between Them.
~~~
But nonetheless, I am ready.
Asbjorn Torval’s latest post on spirit animals brings up some good points regarding spirit animals, personal bias and what he terms ‘power play’ when considering why there are so many folks who choose wolves and bears as their spirit animals, and yet no one seems to choose cockroaches or rats.
Why indeed, and this post has given me much food for thought regarding my own experiences in that if I were to choose a spirit animal, I would likely choose the fox, the horse, or the raven
– and yet, if I were to be honest –
The reality seems to be that my spirit animals are
Vultures
(L-R: Turkey vulture; Black vulture)
and
Possums!
(L-R: angry possum; possum ‘playing dead’)
You see, ever since I began working with Loki – and then later (and at present) Odin – my life has become overrun with vultures and possums!
Did I expect the relentless presence of vultures and possums in my life?
Well, I cannot say that I did, and yet – much like the Gods Themselves – I find that my life is full of signs of their presence at every turn.
So what have all of these interactions with vultures and possums taught me?
As many long-time followers of this blog may recall that I have written of my mundane (and spiritual) experiences with vultures, I don’t think I have ever written about my interactions with possums.
I grew up in a rather rural town in Massachusetts. My father had quite a sizeable garden on the 1/2 acre property, and as you might imagine, I came across possums – both living and dead – quite often.
As a matter of fact, a dead possum was likely my first childhood experience with death – when, at the age of five or six years old – I found the very much dead body of a possum under an outdoor picnic table in the backyard. I remember my father explaining to me how sometimes possums would ‘play dead’ – just like I’d seen in cartoons – but that this one was really dead 😦
As well, my siblings and I would often come across live mama possums -with tiny babies – living in our root cellar, or trying to survive the winter by sneaking under the bulkhead stairs and into our basement. (I remember my older siblings and I learning to build a (humane) catch and release trap (courtesy of a Mark Trail book) for catching all the possums and other animals that snuck in, and how aggressively we competed with each other for the exciting and very honorable privilege of being the one who help our father carry the [occupied] trap into the woods to safely release whatever animal it had caught.)
But then, once I grew up and left home, I spent many years living in suburban areas and in bigger cities like Boston, Orlando, and Newark…and I didn’t see another possum for almost 25 years.
Fast forward to 2010, when my husband and I bought a house in a large Central Florida suburb…and I am telling you, I have never seen so many possums in all of my life.
In the month of July 2013 alone, I came across eight dead possums in my backyard; I swear that the vultures were bringing them – perhaps even dropping them – into my backyard, which is surrounded by a 6 foot privacy fence. Two of them were huge- larger than each of my three full grown house-cats – and even my 75 lb Labrador retriever was afraid to go near them. (They were very dead and very heavy – and the body of one of those particularly big ones would not fit on the scoop/blade of my largest shovel.)
And nowadays, I’ve seen a few (thankfully live) possums while walking my dogs at night, either trotting down the middle of my street, or perched on my next-door neighbor’s fence or in the tree overlooking their swimming pool.
My dogs go berserk and stand out there barking at them every time one of the possums show up- but I don’t think they even blink anymore 
~~~
Most of those ‘What’s your Spirit Animal?’ websites (like this one) often portray Possum as a sort of trickster and problem solver:
~~~
So, considering best laid plans and all that…
Every time I see a vulture, I take it as a reminder that I need
And, oddly enough, when I see possums, I take it as a sign that I need to:
That being said, I think Vulture and Possum are my unexpected spirit animals
…and I imagine that they are here to stay.
bloodteethandflame 