Never name that well from which you will not drink. — The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
I recently read two very thought-provoking posts by the wonderful Dver of A Forest Door (one of the blogs linked at the right). The first is about discernment as it applies to online Pagan discourse in general, while the second is about discernment for god-spouses. While I might quibble with a couple of minor points (and argue that sometimes, people aren’t given the choice to only begin an intense relationship with a deity after a seemly amount of time has passed), I largely feel that it’s about time someone said these things. And I said so in comments to both posts.
After I’d made my comments, I went on to another site where, after reading other people’s writings here and there for a while, I tried to sort out a sort of revelation I had about my relationship with Loki through a journal entry which is, while not explicit or overly detailed, a rather personal thing. There’s a bit more anonymity on that other website than there is here, but even so, writing about this experience without getting into too many private details was a bit like walking a tightrope. And, after all my nice declarations of not writing too publicly about certain things, once I finished writing it, I was told that I ought to (read, must) repost that piece of writing here.
This sort of thing — declaring that I would never do such and such, only to find myself doing it immediately thereafter, whether accidentally or because I’m told to by one of Them – is a recurring pattern in my life. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was under a geas, but it’s probably just my peculiar luck at work, coupled with the gods’ ironic humor. That’s why I have that quote at the beginning of this post. So below, for your perusal (and possible amusement and ridicule) is what I wrote, with minor edits made to reflect the change in audience. You may interpret it as literally or as metaphorically as you wish.
Revelation: Poorly Worded, Incoherent, Immovable
It isn’t really about control. He wants me to choose to share my body only with Him, to choose to share my heart only with Him, to choose to throw open the gates of my soul and let Him be the only one to enter victorious. I may love and cherish others, but they cannot hope to gain a hold on me. He wants me to give myself up to Him day after day, a constant renewal of faith and troth, whether spoken or not. He wants it freely given, not grudgingly handed over by force or manipulation. He asks for it constantly, and I fulfill His request, always. To be free of this choice would be the worst punishment I could imagine.
It isn’t really about enslavement, either. I keep on my altar a box containing, among other things, a heart-shaped lock which I sometimes wear with a chain around my neck. I don’t wear it unless He says to. I carry the key and do not remove it — until He says so. He once asked for a collar and I wore it, and He almost immediately broke and lost it. He asked for a tattoo of dedication, then told me I needed to earn the right to the title He’d already demanded I have marked on my flesh. He starts in the middle and works out towards either end, sometimes both at the same time, but when that happens, I am left unshackled and unchained, yet somehow, ever more His own.
It isn’t even about fidelity. He asked for my marriage-oath in the words of His people’s ancient tongue, which neither my mind nor my soul has ever known. I gave it, trusting Him (and our Chieftess) to do right by me. Then, with the snap of a finger and the wiles of a trickster, He tried to coerce me into breaking my word in every conceivable way. I raged and screamed and wept and swore that I hated Him and would never trust Him again, until He was sure that I loved Him and was His forever, and would never leave.
As for me, I do not know what, if any, hold I have on Him, save one. Years ago, before I understood the significance of this act, He took a part of my heart from my chest — a living, pulsing thing, it was — and swallowed it. Then He tore a part of His own heart out, and bade me swallow it in turn. I did, and I tasted it, felt it slide down my throat and into my chest, knitting itself to my own, filling the void, making what was there more than the sum of its motley parts.
Later, once we had shared blood and breath in the forests of Jarnvidur, before all His kin, He gave me the rest, and took from me what was left, until I could no longer distinguish what was once mine and what was once His. All I know is that this heart that beats in my chest belongs to Him…and yet, if I chose, I could still drag it away and leave part of Him torn and bleeding from its absence. If I chose that, knowing that I would suffer the same thing as He.
I say that I couldn’t ever make myself reject Him or break the marriage-oath I swore, but I know, deep down, that that isn’t true. The worth of the gift is in its free giving, and in the knowledge that it may be taken back if the giver judges it to be ill-used. There was a time when I actually considered doing that, but I no longer do. I can’t say with true certainty that I won’t, one day, reconsider it. I hope not, but the nature of this kind of relationship is in its stretching boundaries that one cannot, from where one currently stands, either anticipate or understand. If I ever stand at that crossroads again, I would hope that the choice I make is the right one. Whatever that is.
All I know is that the longer I tread this path, in my poor, maladjusted, cynical, and none-too-disciplined way, the more I comprehend the scope of what He hopes to have from me: my entire self, my entire being, a union so complete that the ego shies away from imagining its own immolation. But I’ve been to the place where the land of crazy and the land of the dead intersect, dwelt there for long, terrible weeks, grown used to the flavor of madness and the feel of the tenuous connection between body and soul. I’ve also seen past the mask of this lifetime, past all the masks, back to the beginning when there was no mask and I was more purely and essentially myself. And so (I think) I no longer fear death except in the most adrenal, primitive, reptile-brained, reflexive sense, though saying this is easy for me since daily, the things that keep me tied to this world snap and flutter free, or melt, or are burned away.
I fear separation from Him more than the idea of my own non-existence.
I can see the edges of the thing I’m heading for, glimmering like a mirage on the horizon — that Certain Knowledge, that total understanding, that complete immersion in the thing most desired and beloved, the thing hungered for, the thing that draws one like a moth to the flame of the candle, a thing which is both deadly and irresistibly beautiful, so bright that it throws everything around it into utter darkness. It’s probably a lot farther away than it looks; such things usually are, and I am barely a novice at this, barely along the journey. I shouldn’t even be here, I sometimes think, me with my quirks and lazy habits and filthy Converse sneakers and addiction to Diet Coke. I’m not deep-minded Thomas Merton or brave Joan of Arc or even snarky, tempted Augustine. I’m just me, a tiny spark on the edge of His awareness, longing for the greater fire and shadowed by the haunted memory of an existence I asked Her Ladyship to take from me, the way you clear a blackboard full of figures, which you can still see despite many passes of the eraser.
But I chose this. I choose it. I will choose it, every day of my life from now on, until the land of death grows clear and sharp in my sight, and my life loses focus at the in-between place.
And I now realize that slaves* are not so different from me, after all, on the inside. That’s a choice too, every day, each and every day, even if you’ve supposedly given up the right to choose. Because if it isn’t, it’s meaningless. I’m not trying to speak for others so much as identifying what I feel is something that is poorly describable in our faulty language. The closest I can come seems to be to say that in the end, whether I identify as a slave or not, it amounts to the same thing. Whether or not someone else who does identify as such believes they choose to give themselves over every single day, or has already moved beyond choice, isn’t really the point, either.
I will try to describe it: there are some things that the mystic cannot say in words, only in figures of the heart, just as there are things that the slave — the willing slave who loves the master or mistress, that is — cannot say in words. But both slave and master understand, and both Lover and Beloved know, and both I and He know the shape of the thing I’m describing, too. If you have open eyes, you’ll see it. If you have consumed the meat and gristle of another’s heart, you’ll know how it tastes. If you’ve thrown open your own soul’s gates, whether to conquer or surrender, then you’ll understand.
My heart, chained, is held in His hand, blood flowing from my lips to His, the fire of love a gift that warms us both.
(*I’m speaking here of god-slaves, or even people who live consensual kink lifestyles for spiritual reasons, and not those who are forced into servitude and suffering by other people. That sort of slavery is never justified.)
* * * * *
Speaking of Thomas Merton, the other day, I found a quote of his that seems both relevant and eerily well-timed:
There is no question for me that my one job as a monk is to live this hermit life in simple and direct contact with nature, primitively, quietly, doing some writing, maintaining such contacts as are willed by God and bearing witness to the value of simple things and ways, loving God in all of it. I am more convinced of this than of anything else in my life and I am sure it is what He asks of me. Yet I do not always respond in perfect simplicity.
from When The Trees Say Nothing, edited by Kathlen Deignan (Sorin Books, 2003)
Thank you for putting yourself out there like this.
Thank you, in turn, for reading
Just to clarify, I do understand that sometimes, things progress faster than one might expect or even desire, and it’s not all up to us. Though I still think that making the formal commitment is a choice, and one that perhaps could be delayed for awhile if prudent. But the thing with making statements of any kind about dealings with the gods is that there are ALWAYS exceptions – They see to that!
Thank you for sharing this (even if you didn’t want to!), I certainly understand how vulnerable it can make one feel. I really resonated with a lot of what you said about choice – giving to Them freely, over and over again, is such a powerful act. More so when what we are giving is our heart and soul.
I can see the edges of the thing I’m heading for, glimmering like a mirage on the horizon
I know this feeling well. And the follow-up, the knowledge that it is likely further away than it seems. And if you do ever reach it, there will suddenly appear something even more amazing, tantalizingly beyond reach, so that you are always, always striving.
Exceptions also prove the rule, but a lot of people want to believe that *they* are the exception. Granted, it’s tempting, but ultimately it just makes things harder for oneself.
I don’t think of myself as an exception, actually. I wasn’t asked to become Loki’s wife until just over a year after He showed up, which isn’t a lot of time, but more than a couple of weeks, certainly. I also had to think about it for a while before I gave Him an answer, mostly because I had the feeling that agreeing was going to significantly alter my life. Of course, I had no idea at the time how true that would turn out to be, or in what ways things would change, or how much harder things would get before I learned to cope. Becoming a god’s wife was something I had to earn the right to own, as it turned out, just like the tattoo on my arm.
“And if you do ever reach it, there will suddenly appear something even more amazing, tantalizingly beyond reach, so that you are always, always striving.”
Exactly! The road never ends, and one never finishes walking it
As one who spent most of her life as a god-slave (though i am repeatedly told this is no longer *quite* the case) your words are appreciated. Even knowing that the time of this has passed for me (having once believed it was endless) there are hours/days/forevers that I can’t help the hand that drifts to my throat, feeling for a collar that’s no longer there, longing for the safety of restriction that can no longer be. I chase the new thing They insist i can become… but i’m not so young and foolish as i once was, and i know if i ever attain it, there will be some new maythen i am sent to pursue. The quest is endless, which i suppose is most of the point.
The quest *is* endless, and not wearing a collar doesn’t mean that one isn’t bound — by love, or oaths, or a sense of honor, or all of these things, or something else. That’s what I was trying to get across, mostly. But I know you knew what I meant
“Though I still think that making the formal commitment is a choice, and one that perhaps could be delayed for awhile if prudent.”
Sometimes delays aren’t prudent. At the very least, they can be zero-sum – one is left in a holding pattern, neither forward nor back, until the commitment happens.
I knew Loki for nearly 10 years before He asked me to commit to Him. I repeatedly put Him off for another two years before I ran out of resistance and officially said yes (although by that time it may have been fait accompli). I still haven’t had any kind of public acknowledgement ceremony (not that I have a public with whom to acknowledge it).
I admit a large part of this is fear and reluctance on my part. Once I finally accepted it was Really Happening ™, I didn’t want to commit to the responsibility; I doubted my ability and suitability, and rightly so. I didn’t have, and am only barely gaining, the degree of skill and knowledge I consider appropriate to such a relationship, and some days I doubt my ability to succeed at all.
I’ve come within hairsbreadths of snuffing/suffocating the relationship a couple of times, via sheer neglect (the majority of which was not consciously-done). What keeps me coming back is not the shiny spangliness of godspouse kewlness; I don’t have any. It’s the dread that a future without Him would be hollow and flat and filled with the guilt of a Wrong committed – but this is sometimes underpinned with an exhausted, guilty feeling that maybe it would be easier if it all just went away, and living the rest of my life as a 2-dimensional cut-out might well be worth the silence.
As others have said, if I had known what I was getting into, I may well not have done it – the godspouse vocation (how I hate to use that word!), or perhaps even my fulltrui relationship with Sigyn. If I had known that it would all lead to fear, loss, isolation, fatigue, and social/familial conflict – as well as freedom, growth, joy, knowledge, and strength – would I still have gone through with it?
I don’t blog. I don’t participate much in online fora or communities. The things that They ask me to do are, I think, hardly relevant to the world at large, and I gain little by sharing them. I was also, I have to admit, put off by many of the “Loki OMGWTFBBQ!!1!” crowd. I backed right off, and thought that I could just brush the problem off as well. It didn’t work like that. Sometimes the Gods have their own schedules.
This isn’t something I’ve really mentioned before (and I blame overtiredness for my willingness to mention it now), but I felt at the time that Loki was rushing things for a reason. I had later omens that this was so, and the reason was nothing to do with me or my preferences. It was just part of the chess game that They play amongst Themselves, and I was functionally irrelevant in the timing. It was important to Him that X happened before Y had the opportunity to occur, and my commitment to Him just happened to be X.
I said above – with foreknowledge, would I still have gone through with it? I would submit that of those self-proclamed “godspouses” etc. who limit themselves, or are limited, to superficial or silly contact, most would, given knowledge of the trials and constraints of serious devotional work, quietly fade away from the “godflag-waving” community and into obscurity. We might find, however, that as well as some of the “bedazzled newbies” who will eventually move on to a deeper devotion, there may be some who are clinging to that superficiality – refusing to leave the kiddie pool, as it were – out of a sense of fear. Playing with the Lokean Community is (to them, I assume) fun, safe, and provides some degree of validation. Actually living a devotional path is Scary, and I wouldn’t blame any of them for being afraid to move into the deeper water.
That said, I loved the original posts that started this discussion, and would like to thank Dver for having the courage to create them.
I know other people who also waited a good long time to commit to Him. Some of them had to pay for it in dramatic ways, but it was a choice that was very difficult for them to make, even with all the pressure, both self-generated and from Himself. So I can understand your position. There are a lot of reasons why people choose to wait, even if not all of those reasons make sense to other people, or even to oneself.
One of the members of my kindred is also a Loki’s-wife, and not public about it at all. I don’t think that people are obligated to show and tell when it comes to commitments like this. I know why I’m public, and why I share the things I do, but I also know that not everything is for public consumption.
I love Loki dearly, and have never regretted making the choice to become His wife, even when I’ve been so angry I considered, briefly, breaking my marriage-oath. But it is, as you’ve pointed out, a hard, scary, and even dangerous road, and not something I would advise anybody to take on frivolously, even if they aren’t given a lot of advance warning. It changes a person in ways over which we have no control, and which are less about seeming “special” as learning tough lessons about the nature of real love and religious devotion.
It’s always good to run into another one of Flame-hair’s folk who share this type of dynamic with Him
Not everyone does, or should feel as if they have to, which is going to be the topic of my next post. Thanks for your comments and for sharing your story. It’s needed, because from what I’ve been hearing, there’s this notion going around that god-spousery naturally leads to being public about one’s roles, and it ain’t necessarily so.
I can see how useful it is to have some people serving as public examples of the Work. But in my case, I’m rapidly coming to realise that (for the time being) every bit of time I could spend blogging, or contributing to social media, is time that’s not available for taking care of my immediate responsibilities, my inangarth. (I am also Sigyn’s, so my focus is “In/Here” more often than it’s “Out/There”.) It’s a case of time management and priorities, I suppose, Theirs as well as mine.
Yeah, I knew someone who belonged to both Loki and Sigyn too, and while she did do things for Him that involved dealing with people, she was also very home-focused, which was where Sigyn’s half of things came in
I do work for Hela too, which largely involves private rituals on behalf of the dead, and honestly, in addition to wanting to do it for Her, I need that sort of thing to keep me from throwing my hands up in the air when the “joy” of engaging with the outer world gets to be overwhelming.
As others have said, if I had known what I was getting into, I may well not have done it
One of the reasons I was advising caution. Because once we make these choices, we often can’t really ever go back. And it can be hard, so hard, to be on this type of path. Of course, sometimes we just leap in and figure that all out later – while I didn’t leap into my commitment to my daimon, I certainly leapt into a relationship with some pretty terrifying spirits very early on. And it all worked out… in that I became the sort of person who no longer wanted all the things I can no longer have.
I do understand that waiting and being cautious aren’t always the proper response, just trying to get some people to slow down for a moment and consider the gravity of the situation.
By the way, my commitment was also part of a larger “chess game”, as unromantic as that sounds. And the Work I do for my spirits is likewise mostly not relevant to the world at large, which is why although I blog, I do not actually discuss most of what I really *do*. Which is just to say, nice to meet another person who understands both of those things.
You’re right, I think over time, some people will fade out, and some will stay in the shallow end of the pool, and a few will go on to really deepen and explore their vocations. It will be interesting to see how things play out. We’re in an odd time right now, where all of this can be so readily discussed and accessed, but few people have actual communities or teachers guiding them through.