#druwicca

Loki Loftur, god of lightning [ᛃ]

It seams to me Loki receives undue malice in modern society. Is this because of his children? Even Sleipner, as icon of death, can be called a monster. Is this reception appropriate?

The focus of the left-hand path is individual growth and actions. Loki seems, to me, an appropriate hero—one who masters their fates to a degree they inspire the same in the rest of us—to such efforts.

Like making a fruit cake, we can assess similarities between recipes, even though our grandmothers’ is the best in the world.

The red brick, or iron rich dirt, symbolizes a wall of protection over those spaces in walls that won’t keep even air out. Only the spirits, living or remembered, with good intentions towards the mistress of the house can cross these barriers. Those who come to your house with love and friendship will feel wonderful. Those with ill or malicious will feel so repelled and want to leave as soon as possible.

Recipe:

Basic red brick or iron rich dirt.

Wash with vinegar infused water:

Sage or other herb to smudge the brick to cleanse it of former influences.

Salt unmolested by iodine.

Wash the brick with the vinegar or whiskey infused water to clean the brick of physical and other dust unwanted.

Inscribe the name, mark, or image of a guardian deity on paper or easily burned medium.

Smudge the brick with sage, tarragon, or absinthe (the herb, though the drink can replace the vinegar. Adding rosemary to the smudge might be good in some spaces, especially those reserved to feminine needs.

Grind the brick with a hammer until it is fine as course salt. Add the salt with the dust to a mortar and continue to grind both until they are like fine, table salt.

Burn the guardian’s paper, add this to the red-brick dust, maybe with the ashes from the smudge.

Save in a sacred (that is a place set aside) space.

Then junior comes in. First he takes that towel and wraps himself nice and tight. Then gives everyone an unintended peep show while switching from his street clothes to gym clothes. If they came in with a friend they talk in the locker room only if it is to ask for room to move. Of course if they have not partitioned the urinals, they will use the commode and waste all that water to keep someone from noticing their manly particulars. Should they take up a chat with a friend they immediately cut it off if someone else walks in. In the sauna they have their trunks under their towel, and they study the walls, the tiles, the heater, anything except the other people in the room.

What do you hide under that besides your hide? What frightens you so flocking much!? You have turned an otherwise harmlessly natural event, the exhibition of skin, into an atrocious display of fear and shame.

Long before the 50s, maybe the 60s, when these people were growing up, the gymnasium was really that, a ‘place of nudity.’ Life magazine has archives of photographs taken at YMCA’s of ranks of nude youth practicing physical readiness on the main gym floor. The kid in shorts was the one considered odd by the others. Clothing, ever an expensive investment, would be left in the locker to keep them from getting worn or soiled. The most they might wear would be a jock strap, just to keep their particulars from getting knocked around. You went to the gym or high school, switched clothes and showered. You did not worry about who was looking unless it was someone suspicious. This is where a boy learned he was average, and differences were not that much to worry over.

The expense of clothing, and the health benefits of naturism, remains the reason that public nude beaches became so popular. Most went there to keep their clothes from getting ruined in the water or on the sand. Only the educated naturist wanted the sun to polish off their health options for them. Those going there for the visual tour were in the minority, and they hung out in the bushes or on the other shore with binoculars.

What happened to us since then? Did britches drop their price? Are they any more durable than they were during the Great Depression or the Great War Era? Have we become more ashamed of our naked assets? Well, maybe each of those options will work, here. The fundamental truth is that we have become too sensitive to sexuality in this nation, and some of us are sorry for the results.

As members of humanity, we need social, personal, even intimate contact with other humans. Without that contact even the best cared for infant will die. That thrill, that fire in the pit of our stomach, drives us to join with others, for protection and health, and at the right moment, to insure the species continues. This, I believe, is where Stockholm Syndrome kicks in. I would rather be with my tormentor than be left alone too long.

This change hit its climax in the seventies. In that time nudity went from innocent, ‘just getting this done,’ to ‘Nudity means sex’ and ‘showing it means advertising.’

What really changed? First was the discovery that nudity can mean sex and showing it can mean advertising. This has always been true. We know the Victorian Era for its shame and preference for euphemisms, like white meat instead of breast meat and covering piano legs because, well, legs. We could go back even farther to the age of the Doric City States when pots depicted athletic events. These cameos often portrayed nude youths, and other activities Athens considered normal and healthy for a boy. Then the boy parts get painted over when they arrive at Etruscan markets. In the early twentieth century America dabbled in new media: Shock Journalism grew new legs; chap books grew up to become comic books; radio and film matured into money making adventures; and immigration hit a new height. Each innovation, and the market they sprouted, introduced a new way to share ideas, old and new. New ideas can be scary, unnerving at the least. Some people will even take advantage of that nerve to make another thrilling dollar. Then, some people behave badly when they are afraid.

Nudity as an avenue toward sex returned to public awareness in the mid-forties when lads from across our forty-eight states went into service for their country. At home they might have felt alone and isolated. Their fathers might have been insular, or might have died at war or in some accident at work. This left junior to earn a living for the family, stunting their adolescent curiosity. When they joined the service, they hit the trains where they caught someone’s eyes wandering. They realized they were not alone, which gave birth to new ideas. This happened while they discovered they can and may do things with their little man besides make things wet. Some enjoyed the attention, the company, the entertainment, the jocular thrill. Some went deeper than that.

Early in the War this was not a problem. Somewhere a marine might have a dress and wig wrapped carefully next to a grenade and his weekly rations. If time allowed, he would put that dress on and sing with joy. He would paint his fuzzy face with rouge and lipstick, then entertain the troops when the USO could not get there with a movie or a real woman. The old colonel would be delighted while watching the show. He knew the mischief would boost morale and improve kinship, even when some of their brothers were dead or recovering from the last battle.

Then, somewhere a general heard about it and lost his humanity, and Charon gained a new tool. Where a soldier might tune up a jeep with just his shorts and boots on, they told him to get back into uniform. Where sailors might cuddle together on deck in boxers or shorts and share letters from their girlfriends and pen pals, command ordered them to put some air between their bodies. Worst, they might target one service member for a violent example. If the youth survived, they would discharge, then imprison him, due process need not apply. What was once the love of brothers forged in adversity, becomes a source of fear, and the dissolution of a fellowship.

But wait, that stuff happened so long ago. That was when my daddy was a kid and he lets it swing in the gym. A body remembers what it often does. Your daddy grew up in a world where nudity at the locker was not an issue. He might have even been considered odd if he wrapped himself up. Unless he was scoffing it and not meaning it to be funny he could flaunt it all the way to the gym floor or the boxing mat, just so l9ng as they weren't pointing.

Then there came Stonewall, the Insurrection that changed the argument. Gays and lesbians started to talk. We made our vote and voice heard, loudly and favorably. That gave the royal opposition an idea. They could make a killing, financially that is. All they had to do was create a big stink, filled with toxic lies, and they could make money. ‘Send me one-hundred dollars and I will rid your neighborhood of all them perverts.’ It only takes ten to make a thousand. What do they get with a hundred takers? Rich, I tell you, very rich.

Yet it gets worst after that. Somewhere a dad learns that cuddling with his son is queer. So, his son reaches puberty without that connection with manhood that fathers impart upon their boys. Sensual contact, not sexuality, will forge boys into men. That is where a boy learns the difference between intimate contact and intimacy. Sitting next to each other on a bench with arms and thighs touching is intimate, friendly and not familiar, according to Confucius. Intimate becomes intimacy when mixed with that juiced up fire in your loins. Thus we become familiar, to whatever degree of friendly it is meant. Under the force of nature, an embrace, however naked they are, just becomes skin on skin, and wrestling does not mean anything more than the art of the advantage. According to the Royal Opposition, an embrace, even with a fence between them, is flirting. Wrestling is just too much for them. What is your hand doing there? Let me tell you, we can hold our opponent a little better there, what with both legs joining and with all those contours to hold onto, he will not go anywhere fast.

Without the physical, emotional, and mental foundations passed on by an older man, the boy hits puberty, gets that added fire, and a hand shake becomes foreplay. Then the boy asks that dreaded question, or experiments like boys have since Adam, and daddy ejects them from the house. Then what do they do? Does that fix anything or make it worst?

Oh, it does get worst from there. When a father tires of having to buy meals for two, he kicks his boy out just to keep them both to himself. How does he justify it? That homophobic preacher said so, tough love, and all of that. What love? How can we call this love? Love does not rejoice in such suffering1, and would not contribute to it if we can avoid that. We cannot count how many ways to kill someone, some without killing them dead. Drugs, hunger-based depression and difficult moral choices leave the heart beating and the mind working. Yet the person remains heartless and broken. If the boy gets killed or doped up, how does daddy graduate to granddad? Does his dad think about how the boy would survive? The only thing the youth has to sell is his body. So, he steals, deals in drugs or prostitution, daddy dearest has left such career choices available to him. They call this ‘tough love.’ I call it an act of war.

Tough love, in my book, is love that remains even after the beating it might take. Rough roads, smooth sailing, tough love says that ‘until death do us part’ is for sissies. Tough love would remain strong even after his son introduced him to his boyfriend. Dad would swallow his fear, take command of it, and then take the next step. Would that be counsel? Would it be adopting the new friend, maybe hope for grandchildren anyway? Really, avarice destroys love. So what they call tough love, I would call tough avarice. Love, they say, is patient and kind. Who would call the tossing of a thirteen-year-old patient or kind?

What is this tough greed like? From the birth of most cultures of faith someone finds a way to get rich off the fear and credulity of the masses. The Church arranges to take advantage of that fear, to cultivate that gullibility. Christ once said they were like dogs sleeping in a manger, neither eating nor letting others eat.2 What does the Church get from kicking Johnny out into the streets? Tough greed, meaning they have another thousand bucks, and one less mouth to feed.

When that preacher finishes with the radio sermon, he retires in the public john hunting for a rent-a-john. He took that thousand dollars and made himself bored and horny. He did not learn how to manage that social drive well, and his dearly beloved wife is not good enough anymore. When he is finished and washing, he prepares to beat that dead lion yet another time. He had not fed, clothed, healed, or awakened anyone3, not even himself or the paramour he kicked out of his daddy’s home because, well, boys will be boys. What does that tell me? Desire, for power, pleasure, and money, can be found at the root of so much evil. Even more deeply, it tells me their god is still dead, and will not be returning any time soon. Personally, I would see him get it done so the rest of us can look after our wild oats and deal with real issues in life, like death and all she teaches us.

1 I Corinthians 13:4-7

2 Gospel of St Thomas