Category Archives: boundaries

asatru, boundaries, etiquette, Fenrir, heathen, heathenry, honor, Loki, manners, mutual respect, pagan, Tyr

Tyr’s Path: Boundaries

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Generally, when people think of Tyr, they see Him as the god of cosmic justice, but there is more to Him than that. He is also the brave warrior who offered His arm to Fenrir when no one else stepped forward. He has a strong sense of honor, and He is also the law-maker. There are theories out there that say Tyr was originally the god in charge of the Aesir and then some sort of power exchange took place with Odin taking the helm. Tyr is also a war god, but He seems to be much calmer about the wars He engages in than Odin.

Out of all the gods I follow, Tyr seems to have the most patience and seems to be the calmest. I suppose for someone whose main responsibility is to keep things balanced, that type of patience is necessary. While Tyr works to keep things balanced, He is also the one who makes the laws – sets boundaries. In some ways, Tyr is the antithesis of Loki (although the two of them seem to have mutual respect for the other, for the most part) as Loki breaks boundaries and Tyr establishes them. I guess one way to look at the respect between them is to look at the respect a security systems expert has for the hacker who keeps managing to get through the firewall.

In any case, I was having some trouble with a guy who I’ve just started to be friends with. He’s a gamer, so he’s not really used to a lot of social interaction, and his manners were lacking a bit (I absolutely hate bad manners). He usually takes the bus home from school, but I’ve been giving him rides recently, and it got to the point where he was acting almost as if he expected me to always be available to give him a ride and we hadn’t established that as a rule and he hadn’t asked if I minded. That is inappropriate behavior for anyone, so I talked to him about that concern and a few of the other concerns I had, as honesty is an incredibly important part of any relationship.

While I wasn’t sure what to expect from the conversation – as it was our first “confrontation” (there was no fight, thus the quotation marks), the last thing I expected was for him to thank me for setting boundaries. I had been worried that I would offend him by telling him what was bothering me, and I got a response far removed from that. I have a feeling that if I had chosen a day besides a Tuesday to have that conversation, the result may have been a little bit different :p

boundaries, deceit, heathen, honesty, irony, lies, limits, Lokean, Loki, pagan, rules, truth

Loki and Limits

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I don’t think I’ve ever explained why I feel so drawn to Loki, aside from the fact that he’s a lot of fun, of course. The first time I really felt drawn to him was the first time I read the Lokasenna (a.k.a. Lokabrenna). Sure, he’s crashing a party and insulting everyone, but the reason he’s crashing the party is because he didn’t receive an invite – an insult of its own. I can’t really blame him for taking offense. But in the Lokasenna, Loki wields the truth as his weapon and gets accused of being a liar. I think this is mostly because Gods and humans alike don’t like having their dirty laundry aired in public – Loki has no qualms about airing it for them.

The draw though, was that he was telling the truth and being called a liar. That is something that I can relate to incredibly well, and I have a few memorable stories to illustrate that fact. When I was young – around 9 or 10, me and my sister were horsing around, and she kicked a ceiling tile loose above the top bunk of our bunk bed. I was honest with my mother, but my sister had lied and said I did it, and then I ended up getting in trouble for lying.

As a child, I used to sprain my ankle a lot, but I’ve never been one that cries when I’m in pain. I used to get called a liar a lot for that. Just to illustrate my level of pain tolerance – I have two metal rods in my right leg from a car accident from ~ten years ago. I was told that I screamed when I got pulled out of the vehicle, but I didn’t cry at all. I did go into shock (thus the not remembering the screaming).

The worst experience I had with being called a liar – I was 22 (about 6 years ago now), and I had gallstones. One night, I was in terrible pain, and I took two Vicodin (then prescribed for the metal rods in my leg) hoping they would help. They didn’t. I sat up all night, unable to sleep. In the morning, when my roommate woke up, I asked her to take me to the hospital. She refused, and it was fairly clear that she didn’t believe I was in as much pain as I said I was. I gave up trying to get her to take me, and I drove myself to the hospital. When I got there, the doctor who saw me rushed me into surgery right away – I had to have my gallbladder removed.

So, I have had quite a few experiences in life where I’ve been accused of lying even when I’ve told the truth. To say I never lie would, of course, be a lie, but I don’t go out of my way to lie. For the most part, I am honest. I’m not even a fan of white lies. Luckily, I’m not often asked for fashion advice, so I don’t have to worry about the “Do I look fat in this?” type of questions. Plus, people generally don’t ask those types of questions anyway.

So, I found myself drawn to Loki because I felt we both had experiences with telling the truth yet being called a liar, and we kind of instantly clicked. I mean, he likes to “steal” my socks (he always gives them back), and that’s not something that anyone but a friend would do. That doesn’t mean Loki lets me get away with lying to myself, though – I think he detests self-deceit more than the other Gods do.

What I find kind of ironic, however, is that I have a natural dislike of boundaries. I hate being told what I can and cannot do. Usually, if someone tells me I can’t do something, I find myself wanting to prove them wrong. That has gotten me into trouble over the years, but it has also gotten me out of some tight spots. The ironic part of this is that I am very good at designing boundaries. I can set rules and create systems that work astonishingly well because I am very, very good at finding the loopholes. Granted, I have trouble making myself abide by the systems that I create, but I have seen first-hand how effective they are with other people (I ran a guild on World of Warcraft for awhile, and I am currently the President of the Global Students Club at my school).

In this way, I feel that I emulate Loki. Because Loki doesn’t have a problem with rules – he just doesn’t obey them. In fact, I think the slogan “Rules were made to be broken” may have originally been a Lokean saying. There are some areas, though, where even Loki won’t break the rules. Except I think that it’s more that he doesn’t see a need to break the rules in those areas than a desire to abide by them. I have areas like that too – I will abide by certain rules until I see a need to break them. Or until the rules start to feel stifling.

I think it’s because of how similar our temperaments are, in some respects, that I find it much easier to relate to Loki than I do some of the other Gods. Loki is also much more actively involved in the human realm – I think he enjoys the human world.

Anyway, that’s my take on Loki, telling the truth, and the irony of limits. I hope I didn’t ramble too much and that all of this made sense! If it didn’t, let me know, and I will be more than willing to clarify.