Loki
Intention: Approach cleverness, change and uncomfortable truths
Offerings & Symbols
- A two-faced or mirrored object
- A small flame
- A bound or knotted cord
Culture: Norse Domain: Cunning, change, boundary-crossing
Loki is a complicated figure: blood-brother to Odin, both a help and a hindrance to the gods, whose clever solutions to problems (often problems he caused) run throughout Norse myth, from the building of Asgard's wall to Baldr's death, which he engineered and for which he was bound in punishment until Ragnarök. Modern devotion to him is genuinely divided, and worth researching before working with him.
Associations
Cleverness and trickery, shape-shifting, boundary-crossing, uncomfortable but necessary change.
Ways people honor him (modern)
- Approach him, if at all, with clear eyes about his complexity, not as a simple trickster archetype
- Reflect on times cleverness solved a problem cleverness itself created
- Read widely, including his binding myth, before forming an opinion
- Note that modern Heathen communities hold a real range of views on honoring him
Approach any deity with respect and do your own research. Practices vary widely between traditions, and modern devotional practice often goes beyond what survives in ancient sources.
