So.
September 12th was my 5-year convert-a-versary and I have been trying to work out how to approach the push I feel to go do a big thing for Loki.
Looking into the path for ordination as a goði right now. I want it to be something where I’m well-trained and legal (weddings, funerals, some…Thor-senings? on the side), and have found a promising way to go about it once I find a kindred to get established in the community. (Got burned by the last recommendation for a Lokean-friendly kindred.)
I offered to get a piercing or a tattoo, but right now am wearing a torq bracelet I made because I am looking into employment once I finish my associates and I want to be employable and established enough to get away with body mods come time. (No set time was involved in the piercing offer, so I’m not…overtly weasling my way out of anything, technically? You can have my head, not my neck, etc. etc.)
That’s blood. That’s an oath. That’s kind of terrifying. That’s permanent.
I’ve done temporary oaths after lots of negotiation, and honestly those have ended up being permanent and just slightly less intense in practice–like growing out my hair. It belongs to me again, but I still refuse to cut it. Even trimming the absolute worst of my split ends the other day made me want to cry because I grew that out for Loki and to some extent I feel like it still indirectly belongs to him as an outward symbol of my faith. I think it’s the idea of surrendering something as all-encompassing as my skin or my blood, for the rest of my life, that is so terrifying. That’s basically giving up the entirety of my being. I hate being controlled, even though giving in to faith is a very special kind of ecstasy (in the strictly religious sense).
EDIT: I also remembered the oath I made to quit smoking. Permanently. Maybe this concept isn’t as foreign to me as I’d previously assumed.
Hopefully there is a local goði I can consult when I find a kindred. Divination is giving a lot of “yes good pls continue” vibes, but for something this big, I need a second (and third, and fourth, and twelfth) opinion.
Falkabarn 
I don’t think you are alone. I’m just not 100% sure we are meant to become an organised priesthood in the traditional neo-pagan sense. Although it could help having at least someone to turn for a reality check now and again. The trickier part of being handpicked by Loki, it seems, is that most of the time it takes one by surprise and leaves them utterly confused as to what next because so little is known about this god, and what little there is may also been distorted from the oral lore of our ancestors.
I have a background in initiatory wicca and ceremonial magic, including kabbalah and at one time I was pulled in the OTO of which I stopped at minerval because I simply was not interested in committing any further. I have cut my ties with initiatory wicca but continue to work with ceremonial magic and then there is Loki which seems to want to speak and have his voice heard. In my case, I speculate, he probably found a vessel with the same passion for exposing hypocrisy, fakery and exploitation going on in the pagansphere.
But I won’t deny that his arrival first and then his relentless pursuit, turned almost seduction have made me uncomfortable and I have been perturbed by my own responses.
At first I thought I was going mad and imagining things, then I started researching and was left gobsmacked as it seems pretty much everyone is taken through the same patterns. As someone who had never had any interest in norse practices and mythology, there was no chance I could have influenced my perceptions to match those I then found online.
As it stands, not wishing to offend a god, I have accepted to be his voice but I have drawn a line to the bride and devotional business, as I have learnt a few lessons about oaths and pacts, giving worship, drawing in deities into myself and possession. Like I said, not enough is known about this god as yet and he is after all a trickster by his own nature. I do not fear it but I do thread around respectfully and with caution.
I agree with you, there is a lack of serious discussion and so I’d be happy to link up with you and exchange UPG and experiences. Hopefully, more serious Lokeans will come along and from there what needs to be done next will hopefully become clear.
You can find me in all my inglorious bastardly light at lokisgazette@wordpress.com
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Yeah, it’s not so much like, an organized and centralized thing I’m aspiring to, for sure, especially because Heathenry has always leaned towards decentralization. (And revivalist paganism even more so.) We don’t really need that, and the decentralization is part of what makes it so freeing. I just think it’s useful to have trained and reliable people to turn to because I was really lucky to have an elder to turn to, back when I was starting out and things were even MORE confusing. Plus, having been sent on (now hilarious) wild goose chases by Loki before, I know I have to be as sure as someone can be before I do anything major.
As for my own aspiration to ordination, it’s more because prison or hospital chaplaincy is something I’m extremely interested in doing, because it’s best suited to my interests and skill set, and because pagans are a terribly under-served population in that regard. (See a need, fill a need, and all that.) Ordination is part of the path to that, because seminary is not an available option.
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[…] the idea to offer up an oath happened on the 5-year mark of converting, September 12th. But I had just started a semester of college and realized it […]
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