Guidance From The Gods: Loki

Welcome to the second lesson from our beloved Gods. If Baron Samedi could teach us a thing or two on living with less, Loki is the perfect God to teach us about the lies we tell ourselves. Far from being the Father of Lies or crown prince of Norse evil, Loki despises lies, especially those we tell ourselves. As He is also the God who is known as The Closer, He hands out punishment as He sees fit. Usually by running us down with the karma train, all while laughing hysterically.

And I should know. I’m far from a paragon of virtue, and recently my behavior hasn’t been anything to be proud of. While I wasn’t breaking the law or doing anything truly terrible, I was justifying my actions with the lies I told myself, and darn if the karma train didn’t run me down today. And do you know something? I love Him for it!

We need Loki to call us out on our own shortcomings. We need His guidance, because, frankly, you wouldn’t want Odin or Thor punishing you. Loki is actually a lot more lax, and His lessons always come with a joke at our expense, which we can laugh at when we are ready to be honest with ourselves.

I’m including a sample meditation again, but feel free to use what you can and leave the rest behind. This Hub reflects only my own experiences with Loki, I don’t speak for any other witch or Lokean, OK? Nor am I calling you out on anything, He just caught me in my own lies, remember?

This guide is meant to apply to lies that have harmed you or others, or justified wrongdoing. Only you can judge if it applies to you. Well, Loki will happily judge you, but you know what I mean.

Any videos included herein are for educational purposes only. If you own the copyright and want additional credit and links, or something removed, please contact me. As always, all photography and writing are my original work. Feel free to comment below, though as someone must have once told you, if you don't have anything nice to say...

You are having a nice meditation, having been summoned by Loki of all the Gods to meet Him in the astral realm. Far from meeting you in a Norse setting, He’s chosen a coffee house, and as you enter you can feel Him in the back of the room where he waits in the shadows. You approach slowly, and He watches you with His feet slung up on the table. Loki smiles in greeting, a smile with too many teeth and your heart beats slightly faster. “Sit down.” He says, his voice all honey.

You do, giving Him a nervous smile. You realize he knows what you have done, though you have no idea how. No one knew! ”Of course I knew.” He says, reading your thoughts. “I’m the Father of Lies, remember?” His eyes narrow, but He sees to ordering you a coffee or tea, or whatever you desire. “I’m not, you know, it’s actually my job to hand out punishment, call me instant karma if you like.”

“I’m sorry?” You try.

“Sorry you got caught, or do you admit you did something wrong?” He asks, His voice slightly more gentle.

“I’m sorry I got caught, but all I did was lie, no one got hurt.” You say, still trying to justify your lies and get out of any punishment you might have coming.

“Wrong. You got hurt. You lied, you justified doing something you knew in your heart was wrong and you thought I of all the Gods would let it slide?” He pauses to look at you thoughtfully. “Your punishment has already been handed out, as you have done so will it be done unto you.”

You aren’t happy, but you know you are getting the deal of the century. Loki keeps talking until you understand that the lies we tell ourselves are the most damaging. Maybe your punishment has already caught up with you, and as He speaks you realize it was not only fair, it was delivered with a joke at your expense because He loves you, lies and all. He just won’t let you get away with them.

As you part He captures you in a quick hug and you leave, resolving to live the right path you’ve always been meant to live. Freed from your lies you can now soar as you were always meant to.

Loki is the best ally we have. A lot of people fear Him, but it isn’t justified. What scares them so much, I think, it that being a master of illusion He cuts through them easily and He makes us face our real selves, not the lies we tell ourselves. And recently He did this to me in spades. I am not proud of my behaviour, nor do I justify my wrongdoing. I’m just sharing to illustrate.

I had a friend I knew was a liar and a thief among other things. And I knew this, but I still remained friends with her. So all that happened was on me. I knew she was doing something wrong and I turned a blind eye to it because I cared about her. So my heart became heavy and I pretty much got to share her guilt. And of course, since she was such a dishonest person it shouldn’t have surprised me when she lied and stole from me, but it did.

At first I was furious. How dare she do this to me when I’d forgiven her so many times before? Well, as Loki would point out, I got hit by the karma train because I had it coming. By not stopping her wrong actions I was sharing in her wrongdoing, so of course He made sure I got my lesson. It hurt, but when I realized it had His fingerprints all over it as a punishment for my crimes, I was happy.

I admitted to myself and Him my wrongdoing, I admitted on Facebook that the karma train had run me over and it was all on me. And then I laughed about it. Loki had fit my punishment to my lies and I’m actually all the better for it. His punishment helped me let go of the anger over the event and taught me a valuable lesson I hopefully will never need repeated.

We all do it. We all lie to ourselves, and we all know it. And a lot of time they are tiny lies and somehow or another we think we get away with them, but usually we don’t. If we pay attention we usually see a balance to justifying our wrongdoings.

And when we start lying to ourselves about our own wrongdoings, when we start justifying more harmful actions, Loki cuts through our lies. Usually with a punishment that lets us see how we like a dose of our own medicine. Loki doesn’t take excuses. We can tell ourselves we had a good reason for what we did, but we can’t lie to Him.

There is no saying we deserved something because of our past, or our age, or hard times, or anything. There is no getting vengeance and saying the other person had it coming. There is no backsliding into our old ways and bad actions and blaming the Universe, Loki or anyone else. The only person responsible for our crimes at the end of the day is us, and He knows this.

I know it isn’t fun when He catches you in a lie. Loki can seem downright merciless at the time He’s running us down with the karma train, but He does it from a place of love. If He didn’t love us He just give us enough rope to hang ourselves with then forget to rescue us.

1) When Loki catches you in a lie do not dig yourself deeper with more lies. Trust me, it will not end well. More lies tend to make Him raise a brow and add on additional corrections.

2) Don’t justify your actions. Loki really isn’t going to care what the other person did to you or any other excuses you cook up. And the more you justify your wrongdoing, the worse off you will be in the end.

3) Admit your guilt. Seriously, just admit that you know what you did was wrong. Your heart will be lighter and you can start on the path you were meant to walk.

4) If you can’t make amends, proceed accordingly after your lesson is learned. Sometimes the kindest thing to do can be to walk away. The victim of your lies and bad actions has every right to refuse your apology or have anything to do with you. See what I mean about punishment?

5) Have you hugged your God of mischief lately? Seriously, thank Him! Do whatever you can, talk out your feelings of regret and ask for help in being a better person in the future. Remember, if Loki didn’t like you, He’d just let you keep going until you really got hurt.

I justified the wrongdoing I supported because at first I wasn’t sure it was actually wrongdoing. But even when I did realize it was wrong, that someone was being hurt, I still justified it, hoping that the person doing it would turn her life around and do some good. In the end I ended up getting drug into it, so thankfully Loki decided her also hurting me was punishment enough. There’s nothing I can do to make amends to the person who got hurt except to leave her alone as we were never good friends in the first place, but I do wish her well, even if we will never be friends. At least now we have something in common!

Accepting Loki’s lessons about the lies we tell ourselves can be a very liberating experience. It certainly wasn’t fun to see myself the victim of the same actions I’d turned a blind eye to, but it is classic Loki and the first thing I did was attempt to hug Him to pieces. I got off lightly because He felt I’d suffered enough, and I know I got of lightly.

Maybe your actions are different, and maybe your punishment won’t be as light, but if you accept it as the gift that it is and learn your lesson Loki will be more than happy to stick with you. He won’t abandon you for wrongdoing, but He isn’t about to let you get away with it either, and that’s a wonderful thing.

Sometimes, very rarely, Loki will simply walk away. I can’t give you a list of exact crimes that would make Him do so, but not having a problem with your actions even after He corrects you might be a good one. The response: “Yeah, I know.” Usually means that while we do know we did wrong, we don’t plan to change any time soon.

Despite Loki rescuing me I got involved with the person who drug me into the mess again because, frankly, I misheard Loki. I thought He was saying one thing and He was saying something very different. And somehow this person had managed to convince me they were innocent. Yeah, right.

Well, it turns out they finally admitted to me they’d been lying all this time and darn if I didn’t hear the karma train in the distance. I wished the person luck, pretty much knew they weren’t going to change because they saw no problem with their actions, and were even justifying them and shifting blame, so I left and put my shields up.

Because, once again, the karma train would have hit me. And that’s something to be aware of. Some people have an uncanny gift for causing trouble and bringing the fall out to your door while they skip merrily on their way.

As soon as I put my shields up a funny thing happened. I felt better than I had in ages. Whether or not the individual ever has trouble for their actions is not my worry. My worry has to be that I know better and had to stop lying to myself because some people will just dump all their bad stuff on you and not deal with it themselves.

So, lesson learned, again, but that is actually all right. But if Loki walks away instead of teaching you a lesson? Let it be. Do not chase Him, it won’t work, and definitely do not try and force Him to do anything, as you won’t like the results. Loki will teach us the same lesson a hundred times if He sees in our hearts we are eventually going to learn.

But if He sees we’ve come to love our lies more than Him, well, sometimes a parting of the ways is the kindest thing He can do. I’ve frankly heard of more people fleeing Him in terror because He will sort our problems out and drag everything we need to address to the surface, but if He has left, well, sometimes the price of our lies and resulting actions are the ultimate price.

Got any advice for dealing with Loki or any burning questions? Ah, since I’ve been getting a lot of mean-spirited negative feedback lately all comments are moderated, don’t even waste your time if you are going to post negative, hateful or intolerant garbage. But thoughtful comments to spark a positive discussion are always welcome.