Question: When is a time that Loki has refused to help?

This is a question that I find rather difficult to answer, as it is hard for me to think of a time when he has refused. There have been times when he has directed me to other people, other gods for the answers to the questions I hold or the training I need. Magically speaking, he sent me to Freyja to learn more about the depths of rune magic, as he told me I was better suited to learn what I needed to know from her than from him. To me, that isn’t a refusal to help – it’s just a different flavor of aid.

That said, I honestly try not to approach the gods with my problems unless I can truly justify to myself that I need the input of the gods to solve a problem I am faced with. I’m like that in person, too. I won’t ask for help for something unless I really, really need that help. The last time I asked someone for help in person was when I ended up going to a person’s place that was badly soaked in miasma. I didn’t realize it for a long time, so that miasma gradually ate away at my shields until an entity made its presence known. When that happened, I left and asked my roommate (who is a two-headed doctor) to help me cleanse the person’s apartment. She made a few different washes, and we smoked the apartment and warded it, leaving the washes behind for the apartment owner to use.

That particular day was rough for me, as I’d spent the majority of it walking between planes, which is one of the risks associated with the tradition I practice. There are days where I cannot become fully grounded in this plane because I need to do too much work on the astral. I wasn’t psychically prepared for difficult work in this plane on top of what I had already done, so I ended up in a psychic state that required I seek someone to help me help someone else.

The situation above is just an example to show where I have to be before I am willing to seek someone else’s help- and that’s just another person. I do the best I can to avoid taking my problems to the gods, as I know that they have their own lives and their own responsibilities without me adding to it.

Usually, when I communicate with the gods, it is more me listening to them and expressing the appreciation I have for who they are and what they do just by existing. I treasure my friendship with Loki, and I do the best I can not to call on him to help me with problems unless I absolutely cannot think of another way to sort out the problem on my own.

The times I do call on him I tend to limit to when I am giving him an offering or inviting him into a ritual space. I think the last time I called on him to help with a problem (aside from the one mentioned yesterday) is when the Morrigan was stalking a friend, and I asked him if he could step in and reason with her. That was an intense night.

I have never had Loki outright refuse to help me, but that is probably because I do the best I can to respect the fact that he is a god and I am not entitled to his presence. I don’t treat the gods like they are dispensers of aid when I need it; I treat them like they are individual entities with their own sovereignty that just happen to enjoy my company, as I enjoy theirs.