Recently I reconnected with a childhood friend who, inter alia, apart from being an amazingly intelligent and innovative thinker, worships ‘Loki’. I was a little surprised, I confess, to see how this old trickster has managed to reinvent himself in the past couple of decades.
I am a Pagan Roman Catholic, which means that I believe in the worship of the Great Mother and her epivine son who sacrifices himself for the world. The Protestants do not believe in the ancient sacred symbols or mysteries shared by all mystery religions, including omphagos. Yes, as a Roman Catholic, I believe in transsubstantiation, in the magic of the transformation of bread into the body of Christ, and when He is made Flesh, we consume him and thereby become partly divine ourselves. This is the very centre of any mystery religion. To gain nearness to the Divine.
The old Northern religion simply appealed to me always because it is my heritage and because it speaks to me in a very profound way, but I never mistook the Aesir for kind and compassionate gods. Certainly neither Odhinn nor Loki ever demonstrated any kindness or mercy towards humankind.
I admire and respect Odhinn because he had the balls to sacrifice himself for wisdom and a far view of other realms. He achieved these by hanging himself from the World Tree aand then plucking out his own eye, to theow it into the Well of Memory.
Odhinn is complicated, and has not shown ethical behaviour towards our kind always, but he does not commit evil delliberately to destroy. Loki does. Loki is the Trickster known in many culttures by many different names.
Now Loki is being worshipped as some sort of saviour of the transgender inndividuals, but shapeshifters not only can take animal form, but can transform into any species or gender or like Lucifer, show themselves s their elemental nature which in his case is Fire.
In fact, not only was Loki indifferent to human suffering, but he placed the dart into blind Hodur’s hand and tricked him into killing his twin brother. To add injury to insult, when the dead god’s distraught mother pled for her son to be restored to the land of the living, she was told this could occur if every single creature wept for him. Loki promptly transformed into an old etin woman who refused to shed a single tear.
Loki is instrumental in bringing an end to this world. He rides towards us from the South, in the ship called Naglfar, bringing the destructive power of untamed fire in the form of Surt to lay waste to our planet.
There are those who dismiss these tales, but why should they not have been part of his history? Of all the gods, it is Loki who is the natural choice of a Judas figure, and I do not revile Judas either. His act was preordained, and necessary in the Sacrifice of the aGod. Without the kiss from Judas, obviously an ancient ritual gesture, the pageant could not have moved forward.
Loki’s children are ‘monsters’, and include the wolf who devours the Sun, and the serpent who encircles the world and emerges as a major force in the Ragnarok catacllysm of destruction of the world.
I do not think Loki is a god to be dismissed or reviled. The Trickster gods are powerful agents of change and chaos is a part of change. Laufey is a name connected with Loki, as son of Laufey and that does give him a connection with Earth, as that is probably an association with a tree. Trees have major importance in the old religion. There are the two that propagate the Earth, the Ash Yggdrasil, and tthe sacred Birch of the Mother.
I personally believe he is descended from Prometheus, and like him, gave Fire to humankind, and was punished for his interference. He and Odhinn have a curious relationship, sometimes hostile, at other times, boon companions.
There are those who called upon Loki for aid in times of great trouble. His name appears in place names throughout Northern Europe, but the old word for ‘Lock’ or ‘Loch’ is nit connected to the god. I see no hard evidence to link him to water, even though there is a late tale of one king who cried out to Loki during a terrible storm at sea.
To me, Freyr would be a better choice for transgender supporters. Freyr, very much male, sacrificed his manhood for love of the giantesss Gerd. He self-castrated in the best mystery religion traditions. He is the twin brother of Freyja. Both are agricultural gods, bound to the land and its fruitfulness. The Earth has an inseparable bond with humankind and gods of this kind who form the Vanir. The Aesir, of whom Loki is a member, are really sky gods. The only one who shows trustworthiness and chamionship of our species is the god Thor, which is why his hammer symbol was so popular.
On the other hand, gods can be reinvented as much as history, and ultimately even so-called ‘original sources’ do not always give facts. Most of what survives for many ancient religions was written by outsiders. The Northern religion as described by the Poetic and Prose Eddas really was not an old faith. It was whatever had survived the onslaught of Christianity as well as centuries of land explorations. The Vikings founded Russia, after all, were mercenaries for the Byzantine Empire, and pobably migrated from the Caucasus originally.
When I read messages on forums and in groups about Loki, and their exuberance about their devotion to him, I instantly think of Swinbutne’s caution:
‘Yes, even is not Apollo, with hair and harpstring of gold,
A bitter god to follow, a beautiful god to behold?’
If indeed Loki is associated with the ‘dog star’ Sirius, and there is evidence of that, he is a major force, with links to the Egyptian mystery religion.
