Devoured by Flame

This post is an extension of a previous post I wrote talking about clearing blockages between you and the Divine. In order to more fully understand what I’m talking about here, please go to the first post here.

Languages of the Gods

In order to best understand how we can better communicate with the Gods, we have to understand that in order for them to get through to us, they have a certain way in which They have to make sense of what’s going on. Human language is not their first language – stories, ideas, and energetic responses are. Whatever can evoke emotions, creativity, or inspiration can also invoke the Gods into our lives. 

We are connected to Them through stories and myths, just as they are connected to us through our own situations in the everyday world. If you are new to communicating with Them, it’s important to realize that there is no single way from which They can reach out to you, no matter how experienced you are. 

In most cases, receiving a message from the Divine can take a long time in order to properly communicate the level in which They are talking to you. In the beginning of being a mystic, it’s exceptionally hard to really understand what They are trying to say to you, especially if you’re just starting out. 

Here are some examples of how They might reach out to you using context clues and associations that click together in a repeated way through time. 

Myths

Myths are one way that storytelling can combine with using words and lessons to narrate a path of being more open to receiving a message. Myths, when used literally, are fairly useless in creating an awareness around what is being spoken to you. When used metaphorically, can create a common ground narrative for you and the Deity to both use when thinking of how the Deity can appear to you or what They would be trying to respond to you by using.

Using an assortment of meanings for different myths can also open up your perspective in the way that stories can become more like metaphorical associations with what’s going on in your life.

An example of the meaning of a myth being changed from what is initially perceived would be the Ragnarok myth which is highly controversial especially when speaking of my primary Deity, Loki. Loki tends to be cast in a villain role which is not entirely why He is involved with the end of times. Being seen as a villain can be detrimental to creating an insight with a follower that He has, and so, viewing this would be a problem for Him. In order to seek out a new follower, one might need to be a little more empathetic to Him and cast Him in a newer light than what He has been cast in for decades if not centuries. 

One could look at the Ragnarok myth and decipher it into being more about Loki not being all too pleased with the fact that His children were either taken away from Him or killed. Of course, it’s a bit more complicated than that. If you look more closely, the resolution He has to end the Gods might also be a part of His association with change through any means necessary. Changing a system that no longer works can be a lesson that is taught from a microcosmic scale all the way to a macrocosmic scale. If you are involved in a situation that has grown to be more problematic due to the fact that nothing has been resolved in a long time, one might think to look to Loki to cause a sort of mini-Ragnarok. When the world has structures around that might be an issue in progression like global scale racism, terrorism, and hunger, the problems that might be resolved might require a bit of seemingly world-ending destruction. 

If Loki was trying to prove a point to me that change might require sacrifice, He might liken His prerogative to being more like the vengeful God He is rather than the God who plays tricks on everyone for shits and giggles. 

He might use this narrative to further illustrate why a world-wide pandemic might be needed in order for different situations that people were otherwise not aware of to be resolved. Or He might use it as a metaphor for being chained up underneath a snake while having venom dripped on Him as a way of showing that sometimes the necessary thing is not what you’re wanting to attain. 

Myths are older stories that speak of human and universal faults and successes at a natural and unnatural levels. Myths don’t need to be stories that are old and full of outdated notions. Myths can also be stories we see over and over again told through different movies, books, and TV shows.

Stories

Usage of stories to describe a concept is one of the many ways in which we can gain a better understanding. By using patterns through tropes, story design, and storytelling, the Gods can then use that to better explain a concept that words have little meaning for. Sometimes this means using a movie to get through to us, and the lesson the main character learns as they discover more about what’s going on. Other times it’s why the main character gets to where they are in the first place and how they figure it out. We use archetypes and other symbols based on common uses of principals or aspects of what it is to have a human perspective on this world to figure out what’s going on.

An example of a story being used to get across something a Deity would want to say would be to use the storyline of “Cars” to explain why Lightning McQueen has a big ego and how he gets to the point of having friends and involving his community to reach more meaningful success. They might influence you to watch this movie by sending you memes of “Cars” on your feed, giving you a recurring image of a character or what they say in the movie that is particularly memorable and you go to watch the movie, you figure out that there is something in your life that is similar to what Lightning McQueen is going through and use other means of getting you to connect the dots that this is perhaps what the Gods have been saying to you for months.

Funnily enough, I’ve personally always found Loki to use Pixar as a means of getting His point across to me. Most recently, the movie Elemental has been used to describe a much more complex idea of how I can be who I am without disrupting the boundaries of others while also challenging the idea that I have to be someone else’s idea of who I am to make them feel affection through the use of fictional characters like Ember and Wade. It came at a time I was needing some sort of validation for what I was experiencing with Him as well as with myself, trying to find meaning in what caused the downfall of certain friend groups I no longer associate with. 

Music

A more popular idea I’ve always enjoyed using is shufflemancy. Unfortunately, right now Spotify does not seem to be a very good randomly selected shuffler of playlists, but sometimes when the vibe hits just right, all of the music that plays in a row can seem to reflect a certain idea that is being translated to me through musical expression and lyrics. 

However, randomly selecting a playlist can often be tedious and there’s room for bias based on what kind of music you listen to. Bias can equally be a problem as well as a help especially if a certain song plays that was used before to relay a similar message from before that is needed now. 

Lyrics to a song are essentially poetry which has also been used for centuries in relaying complicated emotions and feelings that are best left as an analogy or metaphor than simply stated. 

How Media is Used

Media today is overwhelmingly massive. We all have our own streaming platforms, Spotify playlists, and YouTube channels that we subscribe to and have at our fingertips. While it all can prove to be a problem as a distraction as I have mentioned in my previous post about this, it can also be used as a tool in order to get an idea you might be struggling to understand through other means of communication.

I’ll speak more about the use of divination in communicating with the Gods, but for now, I’ll detail out a theoretical process in which I use the examples form before to explain how one could arrive at a message the Gods might be getting across to you. 

Say I pull the Devil tarot card on repeat. I cannot fathom why this is being associated with me, nor can I understand the context around it being used to frame a circumstance that needs my attention. I feel as though my shadow work has been up to snuff, or perhaps I’m too overwhelmed with life to really understand the context of pulling it over and over again. For those who don’t know, the Devil is often used in tarot to describe being enslaved to your ego or shadow, and when you react based off your shadow, you tend to drive a situation entirely into the dump.

I go to a store where Cars is playing on the background. I think about how I haven’t seen “Cars” in a while, and because I have Disney Plus, I can turn it on to watch on a day I’m lounging around my apartment. Something sticks out to me about the main character’s story arc that feels like it resonates with me differently, even though it is an older movie I’ve seen quite a few times. Something sticks in my head in which I see myself in Lightning McQueen’s shoes as being successful but alone. McQueen drives people away due to his excessive intolerance for failure without truly realizing what the problem is. He relies on materialistic success to attain some sort of wealth for him. I see myself in that material way – I drive people from me because I can be self-righteous. I am a Taurus, of course, but that doesn’t mean I can only benefit from being a stubborn asshole.

I think of the myth in which Loki tells off the Gods in Lokasenna. Though it is likely my responses to people have been perfectly justified in a hypocritical way, I can also see why it would hurt in the long run and push people to a point of needing it to stop whether that be not associating with me, or rather I push myself away. 

On my commute to work, I hear a song on the radio playing by Florence and the Machine called Haunted House and it particularly sticks out to me all of a sudden. I feel seen by a lyric which says “My heart is like a haunted house, there’s things in there that scratch about. They make their music in the night and in the day they give me such a fright.” I find that this perfectly illustrates the feelings I’ve been having and why this has been my problem. This also presents a perfect explanation for why pulling the Devil card has become common in my daily tarot pulls, and also a way for me to understand a complex revelatory experience where I finally understand what Loki was trying to show me.

All of this was achieved without ever needing to have a direct line to the Gods themselves and following my own interests and patterns while also remaining grounded and perceptive about the world around me. 

This does not always mean that I won’t have a more direct communication from Loki later on, though. Sometimes when we understand things that have been getting in our way for so long, it clears some of the fog around what He’s been trying to get across to me for days, weeks, months or even years. 

Signs and Omens

Revelatory experiences can be as small as what I just described or they can be as big as an ecstatic ritual that allows for someone to become more open by creating an altered state of consciousness. 

People often disregard our daily lives as ways for the Divine to reach down and bring us a sign. I more often see people regarding signs and omens as something that doesn’t happen in your normal lives and would rather it be some fantastic occurrence but I disagree. Signs can mean anything you want as long as you’re open to receiving them in any form they come in. The more open you are to suggestions from the world around you, the more grounded you are in your daily life, you are more open for responses from the Divine and ways for Them to reach you. 

If there is anything I have learned about the Divine is They more often than not would sooner elect efficiency over anything else. Making a sign that catches your attention in an extraordinary way would be much more difficult than dropping hints in your normal life. Even if it’s not necessarily a way for the Divine to reach out – not everything is a sign – it’s still a way of looking at the world from a different perspective outside of where you have been looking. 

Altering your perception and opening your mind to more experiences outside of what is typically expected of you can greatly encourage a more broad approach to Divine communication.

What to Avoid

There is a delicate balance to walk here, however. Paranoia can happen when you allow it to run your life. If you believe that the reason you pulled the Devil card today is because something horrible is going to happen that will change your life forever, you’re probably in a state of anxiety about something else going on which can encourage it to manifest even if that wasn’t the original intention. 

Signs are not meant to harm us and they’re not meant to mean that the Divine are mad about what you’re doing. They are not punishment – they are only meant to be used to achieve some sort of way for the Divine to reach us in a meaningful way outside of our ordinary existence. 

If you feel that your Deity is cracking down on you hard because they think you’re horrible and need to change all the time, that could be a sign that you need to pull away and return back to homeostasis. Something in your life that isn’t your spirituality needs to be resolved, otherwise it’s going to constantly effect everything around you. Suddenly, the children’s movie becomes a criticism, the myth becomes an omen, and the song lyrics become a call-out. It isn’t the Deity who is calling you out, it’s yourself and your own harsh criticism of who you are and how you’ve ended up here. 

I’ll speak more about using tarot cards and other means of divination as a communication tool in my next post. But for now, what’s something that happened to you that changed the way you perceived something without any sort of elaborate ritual or event happening? What’s the most surprising tool the Divine have used to communicate with you that other people might find to be too trivial? 

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