A haunting melody:
Old Norse/Norrønt lyrics:
Loki
“Loftr, um langan veg ásu at biðja,
at mér einn gefi mæran drykk mjaðar.
Loki laufeyjarson, Loki (x4)
Sessa ok staði velið mér sumbli at
eða heitið mik heðan.
Loki laufeyjarson, Loki (x4)
Heilir æsir, heilar ásynjur
Loki laufeyjarson, Loki (x4)
Loki laufeyjarson, Loki
Loki laufeyjarson, Loki”
English translation:
Loki
“I, Lopt, from a journey long,
To ask of the gods, that one should give
Fair mead for a drink to me
Loki son of Laufey, Loki (x4)
At your feast a place and a seat prepare me
Or bid me forth to fare.
Loki son of Laufey, Loki (x4)
Hail the Gods, Hail the Goddesses
Loki son of Laufey, Loki (x4)
Loki son of Laufey, Loki
Loki son of Laufey, Loki”
I was looking for something else when I stumbled upon this video tonight.
Though I’ve always loved this song, I didn’t have any expectations as to how it might sound acoustically:
The subtle tones of the keyboard, the change in time signature and stripped down vocals of this performance have given me a new appreciation for this song.
3am on YouTube:
As it is with most people, I thought this song was about a romantic relationship.
But when this acoustic version of ‘3am’ came across my suggested YouTube feed today, I actually assumed it was going to be ‘3am (Breathe)’ by Ana Nalick.
Instead, I was surprised to see Rob Thomas at the piano, informing his audience that it was actually meant to be a song about his mother. And he continued on about how when he was 12 years old, his mother was dying of cancer.
Upon hearing that, I suddenly burst into tears.
Not that my mother is dying of cancer, mind you, but I am estranged from her (for reasons which many of my longtime readers may be aware –but I don’t feel like repeating the long and sordid story of our toxic relationship right now….)
Though suffice to say, I sometimes find myself uselessly mourning for the relationship we did not have.
Related to this, I have been dreaming of my father – who did die of cancer – 10 years ago as of last month.
I have been dreaming of him a lot lately…and in every dream, he has come to me asking for me to make amends with my mother.
And of course, sometimes I cry about that too. As much as I would like to oblige my father, I am a stubborn bastard just as much as my mother is. As well, while I know that what is wrong between us could likely have been fixed long ago if one of us could relent, I am tired of being the only one who relents …over and over.
You see, my mother is one of those people who can never admit to the wrongness of her behavior, and so it is unfortunate that she has continued to insist that she has ‘never done anything wrong.’
Thus I haven’t any contact with her since 2009.
And so here I am.
I had three vivid dreams last night.
And this song…
was playing repeatedly in the background throughout all three dreams.
I have no idea why.
Upon awakening, I wondered if the repetition was simply an instance of pandoramancy, but its lyrics or imagery didn’t seem to connect to anything I’d dreamt of, so I guess all that’s left is to consider it as a rather insistent earworm.
Thanks Amber who nominated me for this award!
Here are the questions from Amber:
I have been keeping a journal – in notebook form – since I was 8 years old. (As a matter of fact, I still do write in my notebook journal nearly every day.)
In 2002, I began blogging at LiveJournal and the now-defunct OpenDiary in an attempt to keep in touch with friends that I’d made in various online (and offline) Pagan and kink communities.
This is a difficult question to answer, as it depends on how one would define ‘meeting’ Loki.
I’ve known of Loki since I was a kid, mostly due to the combination of my interests in reading world mythology, cultural lore, fairy tales and comic books.
As well, as I’ve written before, I had an imaginary/invisible friend as a child who ‘left’ me around age 9 or so. Then I started writing – keeping a daily journal/diary, as well as writing short stories that featured several characters. Then, around age 12, I also started drawing in an attempt to illustrate some of these stories, and there was a particular man whose face I drew a lot.
It isn’t a far stretch for me to admit that that man had been my childhood ‘invisible friend.’
But I didn’t think of my invisible friend again, until the spring of 2008, when my younger son became severely ill, and was in and out of the hospital for several months. Though my son was hardly ever alone (besides that my husband and I took turns staying overnights with him throughout each hospital stay), my 5-year-old son told me in April 2008 that a tall, friendly man would come to visit him in the hospital, and that once, the man brought his wife and two sons. The first time that my son described this man – how he looked, what clothes he wore, even the way that he talked – I could not help but admit that this man seemed a lot like the ‘invisible friend’ that I’d had until age 9. But I didn’t think that it could be possible. (I am still not certain if these were dreams my son had had or if these visits were brief waking-visions, but after the third visitation, my son informed me that this man had told him to tell me that of course (he) knows me because (he) was my friend a long time ago. O.o)
And I still didn’t want to admit that that could have been Loki.
That is, until mid-2011, when Loki began to visit my dreams, and actually identified Himself as such.
~~~
So, take of the above ^ as you will.
You could say that I met Loki when I was a young child.
Or you could say that I didn’t really know it was Him until 2008.
Or you could say that I didn’t want to admit that it was Him until He insisted on (re) introducing Himself to me in 2011.
(See above.)
Since I was a kid, but I wasn’t really pushed to put it all together until 2011.
And even then, I didn’t officially dedicate an altar to Him until April 2012.
So what is that 3 years -4 years – officially?
Or should I say what He would likely say: Forever, Heathir ❤
In 1997, I began to identify myself as a Celtic Pagan. I had been studying the Celtic pantheon for a long time before, and I decided to dedicate a lot of my practice/devotion to the Morrighan, believing Her to be my patron Goddess.
But for some reason, things began to change around 2010 or so. I had begun working on writing a book about the Morrighan, simply because I’d been studying Her in lore for years and there wasn’t a lot of discussion of Her at that time. And though I couldn’t figure out why, the more that I attempted to gather information on the Morrighan, the more disconnected from Her I felt.
So, in February 2012 I received a divination that pointed me in the direction of Freyja, rather than the Morrighan.
For this reason, I have always had a permanent altar for Freyja ever since. (Not surprisingly, both Loki and Freyja have interacted with me in an extension of that same sovereignty work that I’d attempted to do with the Morrighan years before.)
As well, before officially dedicating to Loki in 2014, I had had interactions with Dionysus, Baphomet, and Cernunnos. (Dionysus still shows up once in a while, but I’ve never maintained a permanent space for Him.)
I also offer to Freyr and Odin at times, and I maintain an altar for Hela.
I have no set favorite way to unwind.
I like to walk in the woods.
I meditate.
I write.
I draw.
I like to crochet and do embroidery, as well.
Iceland.
I love all sorts of music. I can and do enjoy listening to all different genres of music. I don’t have a favorite genre, but in terms of radio stations, you’ll find me listening to alternative rock, such as what would be found on DC 101 when I’m in the car.
Like music, I don’t have a favorite kind of book. I’ve been reading a lot of mythology and cultural history lately, but I like a well-written suspenseful story no matter what the genre. I also love reading anthologies of short fiction and poetry.
As I’ve said above re:music, I don’t favor any particular genre of music, so I could not ever hope to choose a definitive ‘favorite song.’
But I can tell you that I have had Chris Cornell’s ‘Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart’ as an earworm for over a week now. When I’m not humming that song, lately, it has been either Cold War Kids’ ‘First’ or Coleman Hell’s ‘Two Heads.’
While I have no problem with cats – I suppose that I like them well enough as I have three of them living with me right now – I consider myself slightly more of a ‘dog’ person.
Both. I used to drink tea exclusively, but when I started to suffer from kidney stones, my doctor suggested that I should switch to drinking coffee instead. So I drink 1 or 2 cups of coffee a day as a replacement for all that tea that I used to drink, but I still enjoy a good cup of hot spiced chai once in a while, or a tall glass of sweet iced tea.
I hemmed and hawed about writing this post, as yesterday was a meaningful date in my personal history.
On the evening of Friday, 19 October 2007, my father died.
I would not find out about until the next day – Saturday – as my mother called me almost 8 hours later, leaving a four-word message on the home answering machine, to inform me that my father had passed.
My husband, my sons, and I had returned from a local skate tournament to see that little flashing light notifying us of an incoming call that we had received earlier that afternoon from an unfamiliar number.
I had been estranged from my parents for several years at that point. To put it bluntly, my mother had ‘disowned’ me in 2005 over something so incredibly petty that I am ashamed to admit now that I honored her wishes for nearly 2 years. And, unfortunately, my father did, too.
But I remember that last conversation that I’d had with my father in early October 2005.
Cancer had returned – malignant melanoma – but my father had insisted that it wasn’t such a big deal.
We danced around the subject of the impending surgery that would require the loss of his right eye, and, in typical form, my father joked about his options upon coming to terms with the reality that he’d probably have to wear an eyepatch.
He insisted that he couldn’t decide if he should tell people that he’d become a pirate, or if he should tell people that he’d given his eye to Odin, for knowledge.
I didn’t know what to say; I was just pleased to be speaking to my father, and I told him that I would be delighted to support him in either choice. In a roundabout way, I was trying to comfort him, but honestly, I would have agreed to support him in any way that I could, even if most of the time my support of him simply required that I cheerfully go along with his jokes.
That was my father. That’s the way that he coped best with adversity – through joking about it.
Though I didn’t want to discuss our own adversity — that elephant in the room — concerning how he missed me, and how he hoped that my mother and I ‘could somehow work things out’ so that he would be ‘allowed to talk to [me] again.’
I was inwardly furious that he felt like he had to sneak around – while my mother was not home – just to talk to me. (Of course, I was too stubborn to look the other way concerning my mother’s obviously toxic and controlling behavior. I was well aware of what a rare occurrence it was that my mother was not at home.)
Despite this, I truly thought that my father and I would speak again.
But we didn’t.
After my father died, my brother told me that the cancer had spread rather fast – but my father was overly proud man and it surprised no one that my father insisted on downplaying the debilitating effects on his quality of life – but as a result, my father refused to allow anyone to contact me concerning this reality.
I’ve no doubt that my father thought that he’d live forever, as long as he could joke about it, but he told my brother that he was even more ashamed to be seen as sickly or frail by anyone, let alone, his daughters.
Please let them remember me the way that I was was what I was told that he had said.
It turned out that my older sister -who was also estranged, also ‘disowned’ by my mother – didn’t even know that he’d died until two months after the funeral. While I am grateful that at least I had been informed in time to actually attend his funeral, I’m ashamed to admit that I was told that she knew but that she just didn’t show.
I regret that I didn’t question that further.
~~~
But, my dysfunctional family aside, I miss my father dearly, even now, even today, eight years later.
So what do I do to honor my father?
I will hold a ‘silent supper’ for him this week, wherein I provide him offerings of his favorite foods. Steak and potatoes. Blueberry pie. Sardines. Figs.
As well, it is likely that I will go to McDonald’s today. I will order – and mindfully consume – a Big Mac and a strawberry milkshake. It was the meal that my father loved, the ‘last meal’ that I was told that my father would often insist that he wanted – and then insist upon eating – even though I’d imagine that his body could scarcely have handled digesting such ‘junk food’ towards the end of his life. (Though that wouldn’t have deterred him, however.)
But I will enjoy it, as he would have wanted to enjoy it. (I mean, what the hell, I can imagine him arguing, I’m dying. I don’t worry about nutrition now. Fuck that. I want McDonald’s.)
As well, I have a playlist of his favorite songs that I will allow myself to listen to, and it is very likely that I will have a good cry over this one:
Perhaps I will read him Philip Levine’s poem, ‘Starlight’
(This is the poet, Philip Levine, reading ‘Starlight’)
~~~
This is a photo-booth photo of my father and I from 1974ish or so.
It is one of my favorite photos that I have of my father.
This is a photo of a self-portrait that my father painted in early 2007.
~~~
I miss you.
I love you, Dad.