Devoured by Flame

I have previously spoken about how to set boundaries with the Divine especially when dealing with trauma. I even spoke about how often it is that you don’t necessarily know your boundaries until the Divine shows them to you. This is most prevalent when you work with Loki.

In this blog, I am going to shine some light on some aspects of Loki that are triggering as well as parts of Him that do not play well with others. Loki is an incredibly difficult Deity to deal with and it goes to show how often people don’t really realize that due to how popular He is. 

As someone who has been working with Loki a long time – long enough to have seen all sides of Him – I cannot say the majority of my time has been spent with His less difficult sides. I have never seen Him as a prankster or very much of a fool. Mostly, it is because my life that I was leading for the majority of my relationship with Loki was spent while I was in a human relationship with a controlling narcissist who went out of his way to isolate me. It isn’t because I’m a sucker for abuse or I am claiming myself to be a victim but rather I came out the other side a survivor because of what Loki showed me in myself and in others around me. 

It took a long time for me to arrive at this understanding. I regret having taken so long with so many difficult lessons to have been learned and I am hoping that others might come to find it easier than I did. It took years of my life with it all because of some misunderstandings I had about Loki’s nature and why He was doing what He did with me.

At first blush, Loki is manipulative. He is determined to always have the attention of His people no matter how much it takes. He is like the endless stream of consciousness that is always there, lingering in the back of my mind, just waiting for me to say something about it. He is the obsession that put Himself directly into my attention and constant interest in various ways even before I knew His name. 

Some would say He is showing you the ways in which He wants to be the toxic lover and narcissist. When you are in the middle of being in a narcissistic abuse situation, it is easy to see everyone else as narcissistic except for the people who actually are. That is how they play the game of manipulation. They set everyone else as the villain and themselves as the hero in the story, waiting for the new chapter to tell more stories about so that they can have you all to themselves. So in a way, I saw Loki as a narcissist, Himself, due to the fact that He was behaving almost exactly like my ex would. 

Little did I know, Loki was being a mirror for the types of behavior my ex was exhibiting. I didn’t understand that what He was doing wasn’t love just like how I didn’t understand that my ex was abusing me while he was. It was a difficult time of hard lessons that many might describe as cruel or unfeeling. He made sure He was the focus of my attention just like my ex did. 

However, that isn’t all Loki did. At the same time as being “controlling,” He was also making sure I got out and away from my ex to be with Him. He would encourage me to go on walks for long periods of time, go on spiritual trips, go see friends, be with other people who were close to Him so I could also be with Him. It was a subtle way of showing me that I could get out from underneath my ex and be with people so I could also see how much my ex wanted me for himself. He would encourage me to pick fights with him just to see how it would go. He would talk me out of doing things with him just so I could continue to separate myself, develop my own identity, and eventually leave my ex altogether but not until it was the very last piece of the puzzle. 

In a way, Loki tricked me into combatting the toxic relationship without me even realizing He wanted me away from my ex. 

He did the same thing with all of the other toxic relationships in my life. With the community I thought He wanted me to be with, He talked me into pushing certain buttons with them to see how they would react. I did and with little notion of why I was doing that until the reaction was completely out of line. This happened repeatedly until I realized just who I was dealing with and inevitably left those people, too.

This all happened within the span of the year in which I married Loki. Before, it was extremely subtle and the hints that Loki gave made very little sense. I thought He was just trying to pull one over on me. And He was – but not in the way that I thought He did. 

One could say it isn’t inherently gentle what Loki did. After all, He pushed me into the arms of people who weren’t good for me and gave me a way out. He encouraged me to stay with my ex a little longer until I had the opportunity to leave that He wanted me to have so that I would – and I did. In a very large amount of time, Loki both showed me the way out while thinking I was being shoved in the middle of it. It sounds very confusing. It is very confusing.

I didn’t take it all on the nose, either. I did not earn the title of priestess because I tolerated it and went with every single thing He told me. In fact, I argued with Him until I couldn’t any longer because I knew He was right whenever He encouraged me to do something that was scary. I argued with Him and we had numerous fights that led to some heavy disagreements and berating on both sides out of frustration and misunderstandings. It was immensely difficult to deal with Him because it looked like He was trying to control me – and He was, but only so I could understand that I was being controlled.

It all checks out at the end of the day because I did finally leave the people I needed to leave. I did all of those things because I trusted Loki with my life even when I was scared – not just of Him, but what was on the other side of those things that He wanted me to do. 

At the end of the day, what happened was a tragic error in judgment I had about Loki’s nature. This allowed all of this to linger far longer than it ought to. From a very young age, I was taught that men are bad and untrustworthy and so was He. I was taught that I shouldn’t trust Gods by others who were pagan because They are more human than we think They are. Just because They might not always have our best interests at heart and They may appear to be selfish does not mean that is always the case. 

Where Loki is concerned, it is probable that there are some people He could care less for. He shows certain faces to people who expect certain things from Him and if they don’t want to go deeper than that, He is not to blame. I am not saying that everyone needs to work with Loki – in fact, probably don’t if this isn’t something that sounds appealing to you. 

In most cases, people expect Loki to be gentle no matter what and expect Him to uphold boundaries that are unsuitable for the Work He needs for growth. Boundaries are not one-sided – they are an ongoing conversation and that especially applies to Loki. They can change and continue to change and we may not even realize that is the case until they are tested. Loki is who tests their mettle in most cases.

There is rarely a case where Loki is particularly interested in re-traumatizing His people. He isn’t one for repeat stories and offenses. He doesn’t go out of His way to get His point across by doing something without the urge and desire for growth and change. He isn’t consistently interested in bringing people back down to the ground, either. Once He shows someone what’s wrong, they either take it and do something with it or they don’t which either means they are going to need other measures – often more drastic or sometimes more gentle.

This is how Loki plays the game of the human psyche. He is particularly interested in the puzzle of the brain and how it solves and reacts to certain situations because He is particularly an enigma Himself – in some ways, just as we grow to find parts of ourselves in Him, He finds parts of Himself in us. He is interested in the cause and not the solution so He can determine what works for us. This inherent and often triggering aspect of Him often dissolves boundaries and challenges what we think we need to discover for ourselves what it is we really need. 

I feel this is important to share for multiple reasons. For one, because I needed an outlet for my recent experiences with Loki. Sharing is a way for me to respond to what I felt and what I think others might feel who are in similar situations as I am (because my situation is not uncommon by any means). 

Another would be that I think the gifts that Loki has to offer are truly watered down by the community and made smaller by the idea that He is just a wiley trickster who is solely out for Himself. While He is selfish and prizes what He gets out of things, intimacy is something he cherishes as an equal part. True intimacy is where everyone wins – not just Loki because He gets to win at His own game but ourselves as we discover hope in a time of utter chaos and destruction. 

If there’s anything I think is more important for our time, it is Loki. He is extremely important to discuss within and without the community and I’m not just saying that as His priestess, either. 

He is what is needed for growth while what we thought we knew about ourselves as humans decays. It isn’t pretty nor perfect nor can you fit it into a box to put on your shelf for a better day. He is Who He is and that’s all He will ever be.