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What Sigyn Has Taught Me

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Sigyn is perhaps the most understated Goddess in the Norse pantheon. In the Eddas, the only appearance She makes is in the story of Loki’s binding. She holds a bowl to catch the venom that drips from the snake above Him, doing Her best to ease His suffering.

I’ve read articles that describe Sigyn as a passive Goddess and as the embodiment of the traditional wife. I’ve seen Her discussed as someone worthy of disrespect because She stays with Loki despite all of His flaws, despite all of His cheating. That people are so quick to judge the relationship They share by the one mention of Her in the Eddas has always bothered me.

Sigyn isn’t passive, and I wouldn’t say She’s a traditional wife in any sense. She can’t be – look at who She’s married to. Loki would get bored very quickly if Sigyn fit the mold of the traditional wife, but Their relationship is still very solid.

I think what confuses people is the fact that Loki has a lot of godspouses – perhaps more than any other Norse God. People look at that fact and think that means that Sigyn is clueless, that He’s just cheating on her to have a good time.

But that’s because most people don’t approach Sigyn. They don’t try to get to know Her at all. She’s just a minor Goddess, so why does it matter? Even most of the Lokean godspouses I’ve met don’t seem to want to deal with Her – perhaps they are afraid that She would disapprove of them. I don’t know.

What I do know is what Sigyn is like. She’s fiercely loyal to Loki, but She isn’t unreasonably loyal. Though there are those who assume that, since She is the only one who comforted Loki when He was bound.

According to the stories, Loki was bound after His altercation with Baldur. If everyone loved Baldur, then why did Sigyn stay by Loki’s side after He helped orchestra the death of one of the most loved Gods of Asgard?

The most common answer I’ve seen to this question is that Sigyn stayed because She was duty bound to stay by Her husband’s side. And I hate that answer because it assumes that She took on the role of a mindless woman who was so in love with Her husband that She couldn’t see past His horrible act.

If there’s one thing Sigyn isn’t, it’s naive. She knows exactly where Loki goes when He leaves Her alone. She knows all about the godspouses He collects. So, instead of assuming She took on a passive role in the aftermath of Baldur’s death, perhaps the truth is that Sigyn knew exactly what Loki was planning on doing. She knew the reason for Loki’s actions, and She chose to stand by Him because She supported Him and the reasons He gave Her.

It gets under my skin, the way people assume that Sigyn is naive, and I suppose it makes sense that it does. She is the Goddess who understands me best, and the one who helps me understand Loki when His actions don’t make sense to me.

Sigyn is patient, kind, and loyal – but She’s not naive, stupid, or clueless. She has enough faith in the love that She shares with Loki to know that He will always come back to Her, no matter how many godspouses He collects. She knows that He needs His freedom, and, in Her love for Him, she gives Him the freedom to be exactly who He is.

Out of all the lessons Sigyn has ever taught me, that lesson is, perhaps, the most beautiful of them all. She has taught me that love can take on many forms, and that the relationship between lovers depends on their ability to grant one another the freedom to be completely and totally themselves.

So yes, Sigyn knows that Loki has many godspouses, and I’ve discussed it with Her many times – how She can handle knowing that He is out there, forming relationships with so many who aren’t Her. I think the best way that I can sum up what She has said is that while there may be many dalliances along the way, and many broken hearts, there’s only one person who can ever love Loki the way He needs to be loved – with complete and total acceptance of His inability to be tied down to anyone.

By refusing to restrict Him, Sigyn guarantees that Loki will always be loyal to Her – not in the ways of the flesh, perhaps, but in all the ways that matter most. There is no one that Loki trusts more deeply than Sigyn, and, for the trust Loki puts in Her, Sigyn returns that trust with deep loyalty to Him.

While others see Sigyn as a tragic figure – a lonely wife forced to spend a lifetime by the side of Her criminal husband, in lieu of living Her own life – that isn’t how She ever comes across. She has nothing but pride in Her husband, but She doesn’t sugarcoat the fact that Loki’s personality can be hard to handle. The truth is, Sigyn doesn’t love Loki despite His flaws – She loves Him because of His flaws. And that is why, to me, the relationship They share with one another is a beautiful one.

And, even today, when I was making sugar cookies for Her (I don’t know why She wanted sugar cookies, but She did), Loki was hovering and messing around with things, so it ended up taking thirty minutes to bake a ten minute batch of cookies. But Sigyn didn’t get upset or exasperated – and She didn’t seem resigned, either. Her mood was more along the lines of “Yes, husband, I know you like to play with fire, and I like to watch you, so mess around for a bit and get enough of it out of your system for me to have my cookies, then you can play some more and I’ll watch you with cookies in hand.”

That kind of freedom in a relationship is almost impossible to find, and it comes so naturally to the two of Them. I’ve mentioned that I worldwalk before, and I spend a lot of time visiting with Sigyn. Watching Her interact with Loki when He’s there (and it’s not all that often) is incredible. I don’t even have the words to explain how flawlessly synchronized the two of Them are.  Some nights, They don’t even speak to each other, but They are never, ever, out of step.

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Sigyn in Runes

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Sigyn is one of the goddesses that gets some of the least love in the lore we have, but I found myself drawn to her for the role she played when Loki was bound. While everyone else deserted him, she stayed and suffered with him. Sigyn did everything she could to ease his pain, catching the venom in the bowl until the bowl could no longer hold it.

Others have said that Sigyn was cruel because she didn’t free Loki from his imprisonment, but she didn’t have the power to free him from the chains of Odin. I’ve never felt that Loki ever held that against her, and I’ve always gotten the impression that he is grateful for the respite she was able to offer him.

In my experience, Sigyn is one of the kindest, warmest goddesses of the pantheon. She’s a quiet homebody, but she has a big heart. And she’s incredibly loyal – who else would have stayed by Loki’s side, watching him suffer through such an ordeal while helpless to do anything about it? And yet, she doesn’t mind the fact that Loki sleeps around. The impression I get is that the reason she doesn’t care is that she knows that she is the woman he always comes back to – after all, she is his wife.

Because there isn’t much lore about Sigyn, it seems appropriate to do a rune reading of her name. The only story we have about her is the story of her role in Loki’s torment after he’s bound, and that doesn’t really say much.

Sigyn’s name breaks down into the follwing runes:

Sowilo, Isa, Gebo, Jera, Nauthiz

Sowilo is the rune of the sun, of success, and of victory. The sun is a nurturing force, and I’ve always found it interesting that the Sun is a goddess in Norse mythology and a god in other mythologies. In any case, this rune describes Sigyn’s warm, caring nature.

Isa is the rune of ice, or of stillness. In rune work, it usually indicates a time of stagnation, although I personally prefer to look at such periods as times of consistency or stability. From that viewpoint, Sigyn is very consistent in her attitude and manner – a perfect counterbalance to Loki’s chaotic nature.

Gebo is the rune of partnership or gift-giving. Here, Sigyn’s hospitable nature can be seen. As I have said, she is a warm goddess and always welcomes visitors. There’s a serenity to her that the other goddesses don’t have, and I find her presence to be one of the most comforting.

Jera is the rune of harvest, or of plans come to fruition. Perhaps in her original function, Sigyn was a grain goddess, but that’s something we may never know for sure. Too much of her lore has been lost.

Nauthiz is the rune of need or need-fire, which indicates resistance or friction. I think that it is this element in Sigyn that allows her to handle Loki’s inconsistency. He is very different from her, and she from him, but they have learned to work together out of necessity.

As I write this, I realize how much of Sigyn’s lore has been lost, and it saddens me. She is a goddess worth knowing, and yet, she is one that few know at all.

 

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Why I’m a Polytheist

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I’m reminded of a conversation I had a few months ago at my school. I was talking to one of my atheist friends about morality, and a girl joined in from where she had been listening. I could have brushed her off as being rude, but I enthusiastically encouraged her to join the conversation because I like seeing things from multiple perspectives. Considering the subject matter, eventually faith was brought up, and she mentioned that she was Christian, so I told her that I was a polytheist. She started asking me questions, which surprised me. In my experience, most Christians aren’t super open-minded. She said she looked at college as a way to explore new things and get new perspectives on life, and I could accept that as an answer. A lot of the questions she asked centered on what it was like to be a polytheist, but she never actually asked me why I’m a polytheist, although I’m sure the question would have eventually come up.

There are a few reasons that I am a polytheist, the first of which is that I’ve multiple experiences with the gods. Loki steals my socks and shows up in the weirdest places. Odin starts me thinking in rhyme. Tyr reminds me that balance and harmony are important. Sigyn demonstrates loyalty and compassion. Freyja teaches me the deeper esoteric meanings of the runes and reminds me that women are powerful forces. Freyr shows me the delights of the wilderness and how important it is to really enjoy life. The gods and goddesses are all around me, so it’s pretty hard not to be swayed by that.

But there are other reasons. One of which is that we, as a species, are drawn to groups. We’re social beings. We build communities in order to survive. In each community, there are smaller sub-groups, but the community still holds together as one. There is, however, more than one community. We continually divide ourselves into smaller and smaller groups. Multiplicity isn’t just a way of life – it’s the way of life we all live, in some fashion or another. Looked at in that context, polytheism just makes sense.

Also, I have noticed a tendency in the gaming world to pray to the rng gods. This is usually said as a jest or out of desperation, but it’s always phrased to the gods. Always plural. We are drawn to plurality like moths are drawn to bright lights (especially the one in my room. I can’t figure out how they keep getting in my house).

I have also amused myself by comparing the gods to the computer programmers who make MMOs run. I mean, take a game like World of Warcraft. Hundreds of people work on the game in dozens of different departments to make it what it is. One person can’t do the work of a hundred. So why are so many people so willing to turn to faiths that insist there be only one God to do all the work. Where’s the logic in that?

I’m sure some people will claim things like “God is omnipotent” so of course, he can do everything. That’s a neat little package of an answer that doesn’t really give any sort of answer at all. My response to a claim like that…”Why would anyone want to do all the work alone?” Also, as an interesting aside – the original Christianity was a polytheistic faith, not a monotheistic one. I wonder what the world would look like now if that had never changed. I have a feeling it would be a lot less stifling.

It still amazes me that Christians act like they are the oppressed. I can’t remember how many times I’ve heard Christians say that they are afraid to talk about their faith because they are afraid of being laughed at. In my experience, even when people are uncomfortable around Christianity, they don’t ridicule Christians – no, rather, they stay quiet and try to stay under the radar in order to avoid persecution. I know that not all Christians are persecuting people for beliefs that don’t match theirs, but the truth is, the majority of Christians act like there is no other faith that is acceptable because that is what their faith teaches. Live and let live isn’t a policy written down in those scriptures, but it would make life a lot less stressful if it were.

Anyway, I didn’t mean to go on an aside about Christianity, but it happens. I do live in the middle of a Bible Belt, and I am as susceptible to stress as everyone else. I was just thinking about the reasons that I’m a polytheist, and the biggest reason, for me, is that it feels as if we are naturally inclined to believe in multiple gods. Oh, and the fact Loki keeps stealing my socks. Seriously. What is with his sock fetish?