Question: What quality or qualities of Loki do you most admire? What quality or qualities of Loki do you find the most troubling?

I’m going to start by saying that I’m not entirely sure how to approach this question, as I try to keep the fact that the gods aren’t human at the forefront of my mind at all times. Because of that, I can answer the second part first – I don’t find any quality Loki holds to be troublesome because I know that if and when I do, it comes from me slipping and thinking of Loki as more human than god.

I really don’t like this question because it leans too heavily into the realm of assigning human qualities to the gods, and they don’t really possess them. They do have personalities, as they are entities with their own agency, and thus have qualities associated with those personalities. I just don’t know about this question, to be honest.

What I like about Loki is that he exists in the in-between spaces, that he is a liminal being, and that he doesn’t force people into things like some other gods will. He tends to honor the human concept of consent (from what I can tell, the gods don’t really have concepts like that amongst themselves). That doesn’t mean he won’t put a person through an ordeal by fire, but it seems that he usually waits for us to ask him to step into our lives before actually doing so.

I guess, if I had to choose what I admire most about him, is that he is always honest. Sometimes brutally so, and not always in the most appropriate manner – but there is still honesty there. Not that he can’t lie – he can, as shown in the story where he helps Thor retrieve his hammer – but he seems to only lie when dealing with enemies or when the situation does not allow for the truth to be told. He also never breaks any of the oaths he makes – he is loyal to those oaths to a fault. There is a level of integrity that most of the other gods seem to lack – although, to be fair, integrity is a human concept and so not really applicable. This is why I don’t like this question.

I guess some people might find his Worldbreaker aspect troublesome – at least, the larger American Heathen community seem to find this a difficult quality to come to terms with – but it doesn’t bother me. In that guise, it is just him angry about the harm that was done to his children and his willingness to seek revenge, no matter the cost, on those who have harmed his family. That is just another expression of the loyalty he has towards those he cares for, and that, to me, is beautiful.

In general, I have a hard time finding bad things about anyone I consider a friend. I tend to take people as they are, rather than trying to reshape them into who I think they ought to be. Even if I don’t like something about someone, I am not going to try to force them to change. Instead, I am going to try and find a healthier way to view what I dislike about that person so that I can be more fully accepting of who they are. It’s easy to judge others when they don’t fit our standards, but I personally think that we should rework our standards so that we are better able to meet people where they are, instead of where we think they ought to be.

It’s far easier to do that with gods than people, of course, since the gods, after all, aren’t human. I have an easier time shifting my perspective about a god when I read a myth that has them acting in a way that troubles me because I more fully understand that I am only seeing a part of the picture. That is also true with other human beings, but we are all (myself included) terrible at remembering that people are far more complex than the small interactions we have with them often suggest.

Question: How does Loki relate to other gods and to other pantheons? 

In my experience, Loki relates to other gods and pantheons incredibly well, for the most part. He seems to be as adept at creating bridges to other pantheons as he is at maintaining the bridge between the gods and humans. For that reason, he is a god I would not mind inviting to pretty much any ritual, alongside almost any other deity – with a couple of exceptions.

Before I discuss those exceptions, though, I’ll discuss some of the Norse gods and how I perceive Loki’s relationship with those gods. He is very much a family-oriented god, so he seems to get along with all of the members of his family.  He is also a very loving husband, and he constantly returns to Sigyn because, as far as I can tell, she is the one he loves above all others. She is home for him.

Loki and Odin are antagonistic best friends. By this, I mean they are each always riling the other up on purpose, pushing the other to greater heights and into greater and greater dangers. They have mutual respect for each other, but they both approach the world in a very different way. Odin lets his wisdom guide him; Loki sees knowledge through experience. From what I can tell, they have a love/hate relationship, and they both seem to derive great satisfaction from that relationship.

Loki and Thor, on the other hand, are like best drinking buddies. Thor always knows that Loki will come with him if he wants to go giant hunting, fishing, or just down to the pub. Thor respects Loki’s fighting skills (which often go unmentioned), and Loki enjoys the adventure Thor brings into his life. These two make for the best traveling adventures. That’s the impression I have of their relationship, anyway.

Loki and Ullr get along quite well, and both of them have mutual respect for the brand of the other’s wisdom. While it doesn’t seem to happen often for either of them, each will seek out the other’s advice when it is needed. Ullr, as a winter god, has a very different perspective than Loki, who is more of a summer god. They thus look at things in very different ways, and it makes sense that they would seek each other out for advice on occasion.

The Norse gods that Loki seems to hold a level of animosity towards are Freyja and Heimdall. The relationship with Freyja seems to be a rather difficult one, as they seem to move through stages of tolerating each other and hating each other entirely – I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced an aspect of either Loki or Freyja who were closer than toleration. They respect each other, but they don’t seem to like each other very much. That said, the aspects of the gods I experience are not going to be the same aspects other people experience – the gods have many, many faces, and it’s impossible for one person to see all of them.

Heimdall, on the other hand, seems to be the only god that Loki really, really dislikes – close to the point of hatred, if not there entirely. It is a stipulation of the work that I do for Loki that I am not allowed to honor Heimdall – that is the level of dislike that the Loki I work with holds towards Heimdall. The sheer level of the animosity that radiates from Loki makes it hard for me to perceive Heimdall in any other way. Because of that and the stipulation from Loki, I will not honor Heimdall personally (though I have no qualms with others hailing him in my presence), as I think it would be disrespectful to both Loki and Heimdall if I did.

When it comes to other pantheons, Loki seems to know everybody. In nearly every ritual I’ve ever done or been a part of, Loki seems to show up. Sometimes, the other gods get annoyed and exasperated with him, like he’s too eager to be everywhere. Other times, it’s like the gods are relieved he is around or they give him the spiritual equivalent of a high five. He seems to be almost universally liked by gods of other pantheons – from what I have been given to understand, he enjoys hanging out with Lucifer (who he always refers to as Luci) and sometimes with the hippie aspect of Jesus.

Loki also seems to get along with most of the Egyptian gods, although Set seems to find him like an annoying kid brother always causing him trouble. The Celtic gods also seem to have no problem with him – I think him and Lugh have a good laugh about how people try to conflate them, even though they are vastly different gods.

Loki also seems to know the African orishas, as he has shown up in rituals I’ve attended where the focus was on Oshun or Yemaya. He seems to be incredibly well-traveled and well-liked, and the fact that he spends a lot of time traveling makes perfect sense, as he often accompanies Odin on his journeys. Loki would, therefore, by necessity have to enjoy traveling and meeting new people. Unlike Odin, however, he has a great deal of charisma (in my experience, Odin is not very charismatic).

That said, there seems to be at least one Celtic god that doesn’t particularly care for Loki, and that is Brigid. From what I’ve been given to understand, something involving fire happened, and Loki got the credit when Brigid should have, and she can hold a vendetta. That’s the vague impression I have, but I don’t actually know the story. All I know is that something happened that made Brigid angry, and she has not (and may not ever) forgiven Loki for the part he played.

Loki, then, can serve as the intermediary between gods and humans but he can also serve as the go-between for different pantheons. He can create bridges across worlds that most gods cannot, and that allows for a much wider variety of practices and religions for those of us who follow him. He understands how to operate within each cultural system, and he adapts to the necessary conditions to move freely through the pantheons. It’s no wonder, then, that Odin often considers him his right hand. Who else could fill that role?

Question: How do you think Loki represents the values of his pantheon and cultural origins? 

It’s impossible to know what the gods hold as their own values, but the cultural values of the ancient Northmen definitely give us some insight. Most of the Teutonic people operated through what is known today as an honor culture, which introduces a dichotomy of honor vs. shame in the day-to-day actions of a person’s life.

To act with honor meant to hold frith, to offer hospitality where it was due, and to seek blood revenge when an insult was offered. To fail to do any of these things meant shame for the person who failed to do them, and, by default, shame for the rest of the family to whom the person belonged.

The Teutonic peoples did not view family members as separate from themselves. The actions of each person in the family were, therefore, the acts of every member. If one family member acted outside the bounds of honor, it brought shame onto the entire family, as that one dishonorable act had, in essence, been committed by the entire family.

That is, perhaps, the reason that blood revenge was so prominent among the ancient Northmen. To insult one person was to insult an entire clan, and then that entire clan had to defend its honor or bleed shame for the duration of the clan line. There was no in-between, and the only way to staunch the flow of honor was to staunch the flow of blood from the family who had first offered insult.

When viewing Ragnorak using this cultural lens, it is clear to see that the binding of Loki and his subsequent bringing about of Ragnarok can serve as a metaphor for the honor of the clan. Loki, in a drunken stupor, insults every god present at the feast portrayed in the Lokasenna.

The gods cannot let the insults go, as the insults damage the wyrd of the entire Aesir tribe, and so they are forced to exact revenge upon him. Since, however, he is a member himself of the clan, they cannot outright kill him. The killing of kin was one of the two cardinal sins of the ancient Norse – the other was breaking an oath – and so they could not kill Loki, as doing so would permanently damage the wyrd of the clan.

They did, however, change Narvi into a wolf who, being an animal and unaware of what he was doing, tore his brother Vali into pieces. Vali’s entrails were then used to bind Loki. The Aesir sidestep the problem of killing kin by turning a person into a wolf and standing by as Narvi tears into his brother.

While the Aesir manage to avoid, in a rather odd way, the edict against kin-killing, Loki witnesses this atrocious act, and it is his rage and need for vengeance that allows him to keep fighting against his bonds and eventually free himself, bringing Ragnarok. In a very literal and cultural sense, Loki is the embodiment of the virtue of vengeance. He brings the destruction of the gods for the insult the Aesir leveled against him by instigating the death of two of his children.

There are other ways that Loki represents the cultural values of the Norse, but the virtue of vengeance was one of the foremost – if not the most prominent – of the virtues that the Teutonic people were required to hold. An insult could only be met with bloodshed – to do otherwise was to risk the complete destruction of the wyrd of your family.

Note: The information about the Teutonic cultures came from Gronbech’s “The Culture of the Teutons” – both volumes. It is an essential read for any Heathen. 

Question: Are there any mundane practices associated with Loki? 

The practices that I associate with Loki are generally spiritual in nature, as he is a god that acts as the guardian of ritual sacrifice and protects and ensures the existence of the connection we have with the gods. He is a divine builder of bridges, and part of me wonders if he didn’t have a hand in the construction of the Bifrost.

That translates into the mundane world, as any sort of community building falls under his domain. Creating connections between people and forging stronger bonds – this is technically a type of mundane work. It can also be viewed as sacred work; it is in the eye of the beholder.

In addition, any type of ceremony that is meant to mark the transition from one phase of life to another also belongs to Loki, as he is a god of the liminal and transitions are necessarily liminal. The rites of passage within our society can thus be viewed as mundane practices that belong to Loki.

The transition from childhood to adolescence, from adolescence to adulthood – these are often societally celebrated. In adolescence, a person learns to drive and acquires a license, moving from dependent to independent movement. In adulthood, a person gradually acquires the right to indulge in vices like smoking and the consumption of alcohol, and they are also granted the right to risk their lives in war if they choose. They also move from being financially dependent to financially independent, which is perhaps the most difficult transition to complete.

There are other rights of passage as well – there is the transition from single life to partnered life, unmarried life to married life if a person feels so inclined. There is a more permanent acceptance of the identities a person holds, from the sexuality they express to the religion they choose to follow (or not follow).

There is also the transition that occurs when people move in and out of our lives, and the transition that occurs when we move to a new place and leave the old one behind. As we grow into our lives, we gradually begin to accept the inevitable nature of change.

Loki is, in one of his aspects, the embodiment of change, the force that always pushes action and requires the world to keep moving. He is, in some ways, an unseen mover, and so all motion can be attributed to him. There is a lot in the mundane world that is constantly in motion, constantly in transition, and Loki is one of the gods responsible for driving that ceaseless motion.

The changes and transitions we go through in life are not something we often think about as practices, as they are intangible and not something we often have control over. That is reflected in the macrocosm, as liminality is intangible and not something Loki always has control over either – the liminal, by its very nature, is not a force that can be easily manipulated.

Like a river, the currents of liminality ebb and flow, and we have to step into the right current to find the path to the life we desire. Loki is a god of the liminal because he sees more of the path and can thus more readily determine the one that will get him to where he desires to go. We do not see as much as Loki does, and so we often see paths that look good but lead us nowhere.

It is difficult to talk about the liminal spaces in the world as being mundane, as they are necessarily sacred – transitions have a sacred, otherworldly feel to them. So, in that sense, there are no mundane transitions, yet we celebrate those transitions with mundane rights of passage. Those rites of passage, then, are the closest thing we have to a mundane practice that can be associated with Loki.

Question: What places are associated with Loki and his worship? 

Historically, there are no physical places associated with Loki. There are no special landmarks, no particular towns or cities where he was the patron or the beloved of the people. So, in geographical terms, there are none.

In a way, though, the place associated with Loki is everywhere, as he is present in every fire ever burned, both wildfire and tamed. He is present in every ritual done to the Norse gods where a candle is lit or incense is burned or a bonfire is laid. He oversees the ritual sacrifice, and he is the one who opens the ways between the gods and humankind.

Lodur resides in the oldest places, maintaining the connections between us and the gods. He can be found in the liminal spaces, the places that connect two disparate lands or zones, as these liminal spaces are the places where it is easiest to communicate across the worlds.

Liminal spaces include the places where land meets water at a shoreline, where water meets air, where the light meets the dark in caves, and where the land meets the sky across the globe. Another liminal space is the bridge that crosses water, creating a tripled liminal space where water meets air and air meets land and then land meets air. Bridges, then, can perhaps be seen as the most sacred space for Lodur, as they are a strong connecting force.

I have often seen Loki as a builder of bridges, a connector of worlds, and a god that brings people together. It is only fitting, then, that bridges themselves could be considered a sacred place for this most liminal of gods.