devotion most divine

Basic skills I wish I'd been encouraged to start with as a baby polytheist spiritworker.

My teen nephew has been making noises about learning spiritwork, so here's what I basically told him.

Have a mindfulness practice so that you know where 'you' end and 'other' begins.

The difference may not be so straightforward, depending on a whole variety of spiritual factors, but GENERALLY SPEAKING, you want to have a baseline standard of being able to know what's your internal narrator/intrusive thoughts/mental illness/etc and what's actually other entities. Not all (or even most) random thoughts for most people are actual spirit chatter. Work on your discernment.

If possible, I'd recommend having a supportive but critical third-party support: a therapist you actually trust, for example. Especially in the beginning, it's easy to get sucked into thinking everything is spirit contact, or spiritual damage, or spiritual something. Maybe it is! A lot of it isn't. Having an incredulous (but supportive) sounding board can help you calibrate how your personal brain stuff plays with your spiritual stuff, and also help avoid getting sucked into cultish movements that do harmful stuff like equate trauma = empathic psychicness.

Additionally, if you're familiar with your spiritual body, e.g. how your physical body carries spiritual energy, it can also help you know when you've picked up unwanted Stuff like some curses, spiritual parasites, or other immaterial 'gunk.'

"Mindfulness" can look a bunch of different ways. More conventional mods of meditation are perfectly fine, but other kinds of somatic/embodiment practices can work just as well: experiment to see what's compatible and sustainable for your lifestyle, resources, and cognitive processing style.

Pick an external divination style and get comfortable with it.

Doesn't really matter what kind: what you're looking for is some kind of a system that can become a shared language between you and your own spirits/gods/blessed powers. That can take some negotiation, and you can always change systems, but pick one to start with and get to know it.

You won't always have to rely on another person to act as the messenger between you and your own spirits. (That said, there are times when you shouldn't do your own div, but that's a different post.)

Having an external div option will help you double-check on your own intuition. Not sure if what you saw was a sign from your spirits? Use div to make a more formal check. If we're personally invested in a particular answer to a question we have, that can skew how we interpret our intuition.

Helps deepen personal relationship between you and your spirits, which also makes shit like mediumship or using omens easier.

You can double-check other people's divination for you. For more important/higher stakes stuff (such as a Tarot reader telling you that a specific deity is now claiming you and you have to swear an oath, dear lord, please take don't take that as face value without at least a second opinion!), this can be particularly important in terms of maintaining a sense of autonomy over your own relationships with your blessed powers.

Basic healthy communication skills that frankly most of us aren't ever taught.

All the meditation and div practice in the world isn't gonna do shit if you don't know how to talk to other beings, human or otherwise. You know what made the actual biggest difference for me in transitioning from 'flailing baby pagan practice' to 'devotional polytheist priest'?

Knowing my boundaries AND how to negotiate them safely and healthily. Learning how to do possessory mediumship first started with me getting every single one of my trauma triggers slammed ALL AT ONCE. Nothing healthy would've come out of that experience if I hadn't had been intentionally practicing my boundary-setting skills in my mundane human relationships, AND if my blessed powers hadn't been willing to meet me halfway. It took a LOT of conversation and mistakes were made on both sides, but now possession is something that's become privately sacred and beautiful and wonderful for me, partially because of how hard-earned it was and how it required the development of mutual trust. (Now I get scolded for being TOO trusting with my main lady, oops. 😅)

Conflict management. A lot of people are conflict-avoidant. That's not helpful. It's also not helpful if you dread 'getting in trouble' or 'being a disappointment' every time you have contact with your blessed powers. Learn how to handle disagreement, misunderstandings, disappointment, and frustration with more intention and skill so that you can move past those inevitable incidents with growth instead of deeper shame, resentment, or resignation.

Assertive communication (or your social/cultural equivalent of that, since what's considered 'appropriate communication' might change based on culture, circumstances, etc). Assertive isn't the same as aggressive, either. But basically, this is the kind of communication that's like, "What are your needs, and what are my needs, and how can we collaborate on exploring options to get both our needs met with mutual respect and dignity?" For example: when my blessed powers ask for a daily disciplined routine, my ADHD ass has learned to ask what the goal is and here are the methods I am neurologically capable of to achieve said goals, how does that sound? So far, we've always been able to come to a mutually satisfying plan that doesn't deepen my old, unhelpful, internalized ableist narrative of being 'too broken to do something that any neurotypical person could do.'

dark knightcore pngs request ⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆

Even if people in this generation are working in non spiritual lines of work, things may not turned out as planned, there could be lots of sacrifices needed to be made, they also need to have spiritual approach to work and success in general, where if they push there is coming a time when they have to stop and slow down. And go inwards. Bringing to the world a more spiritual approach to such topics.

Capricorn as a Saturn ruled sign is also heavily associated with fears and anxieties. Wants to achieve things but has to work through their own fears and feelings of inferiority first. When they do this, they’re unstoppable. However, Neptune in Capricorn means a spiritual approach is demanded when it comes to fears and anxieties. This I believe is why this generation the so called millennials are the first wave advocating about mental health which collectively changed our societal awareness of mental health.

Pushing through and ignoring feelings or ignoring the body which was asked of by previous generations is something the Neptune in Capricorn generation cannot do. They cannot put it on hold. It catches up with them in ways other generations were able to ignore (because spiritually they had to, that was their collective karma). And yes their lives will vary because it’s such a generational planet but it shows up specifically in that corner of life where it sits in the chart.

One of the most uncomfortable poems in the Poetic Edda is Lokasenna (“Loki’s Flyting”).

After a feast hosted by Ægir, Loki returns to the hall and challenges nearly every god and goddess in turn. He accuses them of broken oaths, hidden affairs, cowardice, favoritism, and hypocrisy. The exchange grows increasingly hostile until Thor arrives, threatens Loki with Mjölnir, and Loki finally departs.

It’s an easy poem to misunderstand.

Some readers see Loki as telling nothing but the truth.

Others see him as simply malicious.

The poem is far more interesting than either interpretation.

Many of Loki’s accusations draw on stories the audience would have recognized, but he doesn’t present them with kindness or compassion. He weaponizes truth. He chooses the worst possible moment, the sharpest possible words, and the most public possible setting.

That distinction matters.

A true statement isn’t automatically a wise statement.

As devotees, Lokasenna invites us to ask difficult questions.

Am I speaking because the truth needs to be heard?

Or because I want someone to hurt?

Those aren’t always the same thing.

Loki’s role in the poem is often described as disruptive, but disruption isn’t random. Throughout Norse mythology, he repeatedly exposes cracks that already exist. He doesn’t invent every flaw he points out. Instead, he refuses to let polite silence cover them.

There’s a lesson there.

Communities can become so invested in harmony that they stop addressing problems altogether. People smile, avoid conflict, and quietly let resentment grow.

Eventually, someone speaks.

The question is whether that conversation happens around a shared table—or only after everything has already begun to fall apart.

As modern readers, we don’t have to imitate Loki’s methods to learn from them.

Instead, Lokasenna can remind us that truth carries responsibility.

Timing matters.

Intent matters.

Relationship matters.

Some truths heal because they are offered with care.

Others wound because they are offered as weapons.

Loki shows us both possibilities.

For me, one of the most overlooked parts of Lokasenna isn’t what Loki says.

It’s that no one leaves untouched.

Kings, queens, warriors, poets, lovers—everyone is questioned.

No one is beyond examination.

Not even the gods.

That can be an uncomfortable lesson for any spiritual community.

Devotion should never place our beliefs beyond reflection.

Respect is healthy.

Blind certainty is not.

Perhaps that’s one reason Lokasenna still feels so alive nearly a thousand years after it was written.

It reminds us that truth is rarely comfortable.

It also reminds us that honesty without wisdom can become cruelty.

The challenge isn’t simply to “be like Loki.”

The challenge is to know when to speak, why you’re speaking, and what kind of fire your words will leave behind.

Sometimes the bravest truth is the one that breaks a silence.

Sometimes the wisest truth is the one that waits for the right moment.

The gifting cycle is important in building right relationships with the beings around you. Any gift given will be met with some gift in return, but the higher quality the gift given, the more likely you are to receive a higher quality gift in return.

The system intrinsically abuses poor people.

Can I get a Nyx, maybe in relation to her being a mother/having a lot of kids?

Thanks lots!