To quote Bladerunner, "How can it not know what it is?"

I had lived a healthy portion of my life before I started to self identify as heathen. In my youth, my friends and I were aware of paganism and actually referred to ourselves as heathen, feeling some affinity to the norse gods. However, as I left my teens behind, I began to consider myself more of a nihilist than anything. Famously engaging in good natured competition with a fellow nihilist as to who believed in less while out one night in Grimsby. I won by virtue of the fact that the guy believed in believing in nothing, while I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Such sophistry appealed to me back then, I guess.

But, in my early thirties, the quest for romance took me to Sweden. I moved in with my then-girlfriend in Boras, Sweden. It was only fated to last a year, but that was a year that taught me a lot about myself. During that time, we made a trip together to some woodland, just outside of Svaneholm. It was there that I had my spiritual awakening. A feeling of awe overcame me and felt in some ways divine. It was the first time I felt divinity to be something outside of (but connected to) myself. It was also connected to the land around me at that time and linked me and the land to my ancestors and, what I later came to refer to as wights.

That didn't exactly set me on a new path, but it caused me to think more deeply about the path I was already on and how it could be considered to be a pagan one - and, more specifically, a norse heathen path.

Now, I find myself still on that path - and travelling as often as I can to Sweden where the landscape is as awe-inspiring as ever. The train from Stockholm to Kiruna, for example, took me and my (English) wife through some amazing countryside. Forests, mountains and lakes all call to mind faerie tales, sagas and myths that have been knocking around in my brain since my childhood.

UKPagan blog July 2012: Lokke = Spider = Loki ?

Here is another post from a while ago from another pagan blog of mine (see The Valley UK Pagan forum for more goodies like this). I know I am posting a lot of this kinda thing, but I hope it gives you a better idea where I am coming from vis-a-vis my pagan path, and maybe gives you a little food for thought, too.



Now a good few years ago, when I was living in Sweden, I 'rediscovered' my paganism. Around the same time, and perhaps connected (who knows?), I had what I refer to as 'a waking dream' or hallucination which occurred just as I awoke. It was a hallucination of a bloody huge spider in my bed. Scared the shit out of me and caused me to wake my (then) girlfriend up in the middle of the night - which may have contributed to our splitting up (again, who knows?).

I have found references online to a book, "Loki in Scandinavian mythology" by a Ms Roothe which posits that Loki is, in fact, an anthropomorphic deification of spider. Apparently, spider in old Danish is "lokke", which may have mutated into 'Loki'. I am hoping that is not the only (rather tenuous) justification for the association.

The only copy of said text that I can find is at the John Rylands library here in Manchester. To access it, though, I fear I need to pay an annual subscription of £30, for access (reference only) to the library. Thing is, this is the first time I have had to put my money where my mouth is regarding the weirdish things that have happened to my around and since my 'spiritual awakening'. I have had a few of these hallucinations or what have you and I would normally write them off as the symptoms of fatigue or stress or somesuch. But as I am being more open minded and experimenting with some rather more far out beliefs than normal, I would like to investigate further.

But, £30? Not that much money, but it is a good night on the beers, or a respectable surprise gift for my baby daughter...

Have I been touched by Loki?
How will that contact affect me in the future?
Can I point out on the doll, for the benefit of the court, where Loki touched me? ;)