Lokavísi

In light of updating my blog's focus and aesthetic, it felt appropriate to update my pinned post. Below is what this blog is about, some general housekeeping to keep my little corner of the internet here as safe and welcoming as possible, and other general points of note.

It's frustrating when things fall apart, especially when they're holding something. When your backpack or purse you're carrying tears and everything comes falling out creates a mess and feel embarassing.

The good news is, however, that you now have the opportunity to fix and reinforce the new seams or just buy a new bag altogether. Sometimes rebuilding with a stronger foundation is the best solution, and sometimes something entirely different suits your needs better. Each requires different resources to attain, but both get you the container you need. Just make sure it's sturdy and that whatever you put inside isn't going to cause enough strain to rip it apart.

It's frustrating when things fall apart, especially when they're holding something. When your backpack or purse you're carrying tears and everything comes falling out creates a mess and feel embarassing.

The good news is, however, that you now have the opportunity to fix and reinforce the new seams or just buy a new bag altogether. Sometimes rebuilding with a stronger foundation is the best solution, and sometimes something entirely different suits your needs better. Each requires different resources to attain, but both get you the container you need. Just make sure it's sturdy and that whatever you put inside isn't going to cause enough strain to rip it apart.

It's very tempting to close ourselves off to the painful things in life. What can perhaps feel most painful is that pain is necessary. It tells us when something is wrong and in need of attention. It can indicate major shifts in life and is often an indicator of growth (i.e. growing pains). While it is important to not let pain consume us to the point that we miss the beauty and joys of life, it is equally important that we make space for pain.

Don't forget: it is possible to see beauty and feel joy in the midst of pain. We, as a species, do it every day. For as many atrocities as we commit in a given day, we commit just as many acts of love and play. (I'm talking throughout all of humanity on the broadest scale, but it can be seen on a smaller scale, too.) Neither completely negates the other, but both are signs that we're alive.

I love this acknowledgment and this approach to divinatory work, even beyond dream interpretation. In my own experience, I think of my work as a rune reader. The runes all have general associations or meanings that are largely agreed upon, but each reader has their own relationship and associations with each rune. My interpretation of ingwaz may read a little differently than it would for someone else. That's not to say either interpretation is more "correct" than the other. It's sort of like speaking with a regional accent. The meaning of the words is the same, it just sounds different coming from people from different regions. Equally, the specific associations the reader has may vary slightly from the querent's understanding of the rune. But the more information we know about someone, the more specific we can get in interpreting the rune's significance in regards to their particular situation. That's not to say our general reading without knowledge of the situation is incorrect or not useful. It just means it's harder to offer a more detailed reading. Though I think dream interpretation, more so than sortilege systems like runes, relies much more heavily on the knowledge of detail for the message to be understood.

Artemidorus also emphasizes the importance of recording the outcomes of interpreted dreams and relying on personal experience to inform your practice, which also very much resonates with my personal practices of divination. I always journal my readings so I can reflect on them and see how things came to pass. I refer to the divination I do for the year frequently because as each month passes, I see just how relevant the cards were to those months. And I build trust that the months ahead will come to pass as predicted. It's that experience that not only informs my continued practice (like certain tarot cards become associated with certain things), but also builds my confidence in my abilities which also helps others to be confident in your abilities, too.

You know when stories have characters relive the same day over and over again until they learn some lesson and they're able to move on? That's what this week is going to feel like. Maybe we're not living the exact say day everyday, but we're going to encounter some familiar points of frustration or hang up. You might ask yourself why something continues to be a problem for you or why someone always responds to you in a certain way. Take a moment to contemplate what's the same between all the instances in which that occurs. Is it always after nights you don't sleep well? Is it always during moments of intimacy with the other person? Is it at a certain time of day, week, or month? Notice the patterns that crop up around these things that are bothering you and use what you learn to start breaking free of the cycles that perpetuate it.

To use a real and tangible example in case anyone needs one (and it is a little TMI regarding bodily functions, just a heads up): my wife has IBS-C. She takes probiotic and fiber gummies and eats fiber cereal everyday to try to keep her guts moving. A while ago she went almost a week without a bowel movement. To try to calm her panic, I asked if there was anything she consumed or didn't consume that she usually does/doesn't. She said she stopped drinking her morning coffee because she wanted to cut caffeine out of her diet. Coffee (and caffeine in general) is a diuretic. I told her to try a cup of coffee the next morning, and wouldn't you know it? Her guts started moving again. It was a simple change that she didn't think would impact her that much, but when we stopped to think about the problem we found the solution to moving forward in a way that worked better for her and her body. She's embraced her daily cup of coffee as necessary for her health and wellbeing, and it's helped her a lot.

Sometimes the best thing we can do to care for ourselves is to tap into what really makes us who we are. Tending to our physical and mental health is certainly important - don't stop doing that. But when we're tending to our spiritual wellbeing and trying to really feel well within our souls (however you conceptualize that), remembering who we are and pursuing our passions is a particularly healing act.

My first interaction with Angrboða included her lightly smacking one of my boobs and saying, "What's all that doing there?" I later had an interaction with her where she showed me my "real" body that was much more distinctly male in nature. She was also *incredibly* present for my hysterectomy.

In one of my early interactions with Apollon, he told me I'm "a beautiful man." I also gathered one of the reasons Loki pointed me towards Apollon is because of my "youth" as a man. ("Youth" as in, I'm in my 30s but my "manhood" is just beginning and therefore "young." Like I'm just starting to discover myself as a male/man as a young person would.)

Naturally Loki is all about me finding and being more myself (and changing shape), so they're all excited and proud.