bloodteethandflame

A life in threes

Tag: altar-gifts

…and the world shall open up to receive your joy.

I’ve been meaning to post about some lovely things that have been happening in my life.

I’ve been collecting up these bits of joy, and out of a habitual fear of jinxing things, I’ve been keeping these things to myself.

But I am getting the impression that my cautious optimism will no longer do:

“…and the world shall open up to receive your joy.”

~~~

mala

Recently, I ordered this Loki mini- mala from Beth and I received it in the mail the other day.

Since my family and I were hosting guests from out of town the day that package arrived, I put it aside to open later, perhaps the next day.

Well, things got busy, and our guests lingered for a few days.

 

However, my thoughts kept straying to the package.

I’ve never had a mala before, to be honest, I was looking forward to having some time to myself to fully immerse myself in the use of this one.

And finally, almost a week later, I finally got my chance to open the package, hold them and pray with them.

*squeee*

 

This mala is truly a pleasure to work with.

(But then again, I think that could be said about every ‘touch bead’ item that I’ve ever purchased from Beth, as this mala joins a small collection of prayer beads – two of which she has also made – that reside on my Loki altars.)

But this mala has the addition of a black silk tassel that I absolutely love to touch – and the beads!

The beads just slide effortlessly through my fingers.

I am continually impressed with how Beth’s choice of bead (size, weight, and texture) always seems to be spot-on energy-wise in every prayer item that she has made that I have purchased.

As well, Beth enclosed a beautifully handwritten(!) prayer card with the mala:

IMG_3544

While I admit that I referred to it the first few times I prayed, the words and imagery of this suggested prayer served as a lovely jumping-off point for creating my own personal prayer as I moved through the beads during later sessions.

That alone was pretty powerful…and things got even more interesting when I began praying with my own words.

~~~

There was a personal prayer that I would offer back when I was just beginning my devotional practice with Loki in 2011.  I was transitioning from the mindset of a skeptical agnostic to making my first attempts at opening up to being a devotional polytheist.

It was at that time in my life that a specific prayer had nearly become a daily mantra that I would return to whenever I was full of doubt.

It was a prayer about letting go of anger, pain, and fear… and opening up to trust, to joy, and to love.

 

So, fast forward to last night.

I’d gone through several cycles of prayer.

Perhaps my brain was casting about for something else, but I found myself returning to the beginning of things, and when I began speaking the words–

May I let go of my pain and open to joy….

I inexplicably felt the need to pause

Because suddenly I just knew!

There had always been a response:

and the world shall open up to receive your joy.

~~~

These beads are full of such warmth.

They feel as if they are bursting with a bright expansive energy.

Loki is just so present in them.

 

I am in love all over again.

~~~

Thanks Beth!

 

 

 

Grateful.

I know that I haven’t been posting much, or rather, I haven’t been posting as often as I’d intended.   Though it’s not as if I have a shortage of topics to write about – as a matter of fact, I’ve been writing a lot lately.

My devotional practice has been going through some changes, and as much as I wanted to share my thoughts about some of the work that I’ve been doing, it just hasn’t happened.  I’ve been wanting to write about the connections that I have been making – but somehow coordinating my thoughts into succinct blog posts hasn’t been going so well.

Somehow I haven’t been able to Post All the Things.

But I did want to post about how delighted I was to receive my copy of Silence Maestas handmade Loki devotional:

altarbook

So I moved some things around on my altar – because He seemed to want it up there as soon as I opened it.

But it’s a strange sort of thing because when I was reading it, the vibe that I was getting from Him seemed to be both excited and irritated that I was reading it.  Perhaps He was cranky over the fact that I had to remove the book from its place on the altar there in order to read it?  I don’t know.

I bought a copy because I was excited to support Silence’s book project overall, but I was also curious and excited to read more information concerning the feminine Loki as well.

So my purchasing this book was intended as a gift for both of Us, in this sort of roundabout way: it was certainly intended as a gift for Him, and a combination gift/informational research project for me.  (I’ll admit that those two aspects often become somewhat entwined whenever I purchase books pertaining to Him, but, then again, not every Loki-book ends up on the altar… so there you have it.)

I also got the nudge from Him to get my hands on this antler-piece

Lokiantler

–thought I’m not exactly sure why.    Another gift, perhaps.

I’m kinda using this as a bookmark – as the leather thong that came attached to the antler works rather well for holding my place in the large poetry book that I’m reading right now – but when I’m not reading, He seems to like it if I keep it on His altar for now.

And most recently, there’s these Loki and Sleipnir mini-rosary beads from Beth Wodandis Designs:

LokiSleipnirprayerbeads

They are lovely is all I can say.

I was struck by the coloring and quality of the labradorite.  I find them especially beautiful*

You see, I almost fell asleep while praying with them on the night that I received them.

The other darker beads are ‘dumortierite.’

I have read that dumortierite works well to increase one’s state of inner peace.

Indeed.

I am not kidding when I say that holding these has been immensely calming somehow, even though I had read in several other places that ‘dumortierite can be psychically energizing.’ Labradorite has a similar intensity of effect for me…but either way, I am not complaining.  

Perhaps I have been more hyperactive than usual, therefore the intensity of these two stones has had a calming influence in response to my hyperactive energetic state.

Who knows?

~~~

*It would seem that Loki considered this mini-rosary as an appropriate gift for Him, as well, since every piece of labradorite I’ve ever had has eventually ended up on His altar somewhere.

Perhaps I should make Him a themed altar just for all that labradorite that He’s been wanting ❤