Twilight Twik Witch

in my opinion you can ask the tarot anything, but here are some ideas for those who don’t know where to start

Love/Relationships:

- What kind of partner would be best for me?

- How will I know when I’ve found the right person?

- Is my heart ready for a relationship?

- Is the person I’m interested in right for me?

- Is there anything I need to know about the person I’m interested in/dating?

- Are there any red flags in my relationships that I’m oblivious to?

- Is the person I love deceiving me in some way?

- What purpose does this relationship serve in my life? 

- How can I build more emotional intimacy between me and my partner?

- How can I attract love into my life?

- What’s the biggest obstacle in my relationships?

- What stops me from getting emotionally vulnerable with my loved ones?

- How can I be more sensitive to my loved ones needs?

Career/Life Path

- How can I become more open to understanding my life’s purpose?

- What would be the result of pursuing the career I have in mind?

- What should I do to figure out which career path is meant for me?

- What obstacles do I need to overcome in order to achieve my goals? 

- Are the goals I’m working toward right for me?

- What can I do right now to better align me with my life’s purpose?

- How can I unlock my hidden talents?

- What skills do I possess that I can utilize to get closer to my goals? 

- What’s the best strategy to advance in my career path?

Feeling Stuck/Depressed/Anxious

- What is the root of my emotional turmoil?

- Why am I still carrying this emotional baggage?

- How can I let go of emotional burdens stopping me from being my best self?

- What is the reason that I feel stuck and directionless right now?

- Where can I find my next new adventure?

- Why does _________ bother me so much?

- What can I focus on to clear my mind of what’s weighing me down?

- What action do I need to take to be more emotionally balanced?

- How can I find what makes me happy?

Relationship Troubles or Break-ups

- What is the root of the problems in my relationship?

- When did these problems start to cause conflict?

- Should I try to stay and work things out or should I just move on?

- Is my relationship causing more harm than good?

- I know this relationship is bad for me but I don’t know how to leave. What should I do?

- What purpose did this relationship and its ending serve in my life?

- What was I able to learn from this experience? 

- How can I ease my mind and let go of my grief?

- Why did this break-up have to happen? 

Spirituality

- How can I become more aligned with my spirituality?

- What purpose does spirituality serve in my life?

- What does my higher power look/feel like?

- What does the universe want me to know right now? 

- How can I open myself up to receive messages from the universe and/or my higher power? 

- How can I gain more awareness of my subconscious mind?

- What’s blocking my intuition?

- How can I become more in tune with the universe’s vibrations?

- How can I find my spiritual purpose in my life?

- What action can I take to strengthen my spirituality?

You!

- What’s something unique about who I am?

- How can I gain more awareness of my identity?

- What best describes my personality?

- What is a trait that others can see in me that I’m oblivious to?

- What kind of hidden talents do I possess?

- How can I unlock my true passion?

- How can I be more confident in my self-expression?

- What’s a good way to learn to express my true emotions? 

- Where do you see me in the future?

There's no right answers because it's honestly more just theory and interpretation, but I think about it sometimes and I want other perspectives

So, when you research Norse paganism and it's afterlife, you get three options (not getting into the idea of multiple soul parts and how they can go to other halls and the main 3 aren't the ONLY options, that's another discussion)

1. Valhalla

2. Fólkvangr

3. Helheim

Everyone knows the rules, you die on a battlefield as a warrior, you get to go with Odin or Freyja to Valhalla or Fólkvangr but if you die of sickness or old age, like most common folk, you get to go to Helheim

Where does that leave people who aren't really soldiers, but they do die fighting? And by that I mean people who die in riots or are killed while protesting? They didn't die of sickness or old age, they died fighting, just not on a battlefield in the traditional sense. What about people who died in like, one on one fights of some sort? It's no battlefield, but again, they went down swinging or weilding some sort of weapon.

But...I am not sure how much of the 'warriors go to Valhalla/Folkvangr, and the rest of you schmucks go to Hel' is a traditionally held belief and how much is a weird hybrid of the modern faux-warrior cult bullshit, the historical Odinic schema that might have been grafted on to older beliefs (1), and the Christian perspective that warped what little survived contact.

If we are going to go with that perspective, I would take it as a 'people who drink life till it's empty are gonna do the same in the after' rather than as a literal injunction to die in a formally declared war.

There is evidence that it may have been thought that most Aesir/Vanir/etc had their own halls or places (2). I have read speculation based on that for a belief that, for example, working class folks maybe end up with Thor, etc, etc.

I would also dispute the commonly held notion of Hel as a place of punishment/shittiness (I'm not saying you said that, just that I see it a lot, even in Heathen writing). After all, if Norse Wesley Crusher Baldr goes there in the stories when he dies, it's probably fine. And, as Lokeans, we are friends of the owner.

But (oh yea, another but) I am also not sure how much of the 'detailed picture of the afterlife' thing is authentic. My sense is that there is sort of a 'you live a good meaningful life so you live a good meaningful life' vibe to the whole endeavor. (3)

If you ask me though, Lokeans probably still end up as wanderers in whatever comes after this. Hell, you got an infinite number of yous in an infinite number of parallel universes. You might as well experience a few of them.

(1) Gunnell, Terry. 2015. Pantheon? What Pantheon? Concepts of a Family of Gods in Pre-Christian Scandinavian Religions. Scripta Islandica 66: 55–76.

(2) Grímnismál in particular seems to say this, and perhaps implies that people end up in many of these.

Whether or not someone was a warrior by trade really has nothing to do with it; it's just that those who enlisted in armies were more likely to find their death on the battlefield. Remember, going to Valhalla, Fólkvangr, etc. were consolation prizes for people who couldn't be reunited with their ancestors in their family burial mounds because they died far from home.

It was only after Scandinavia was Christianized that Valhalla was thought of as a "warrior's paradise" and envisioned as the best possible afterlife. But this is probably not the way the pre-Christian Norse thought about it.

Consider what a "hall" actually is within Norse cosmology. "Halls" represent distinct physical and cognitive environments we experience during our lifetimes: Thor's hall is the faculties and feelings of strength and courage. Frigg's hall is the creative mindset or "zone" we get into with fiber arts and crafting. Odin's hall and Freyja's hall are both environments found on battlefields. Ægir's hall is the sea. Njord's hall is the cabins and decks of ships and the faculties associated with sailing and navigation. Presumably, Skadi's hall is the mountainous wilderness. Loki doesn't have a hall because he personifies play and humor and therefore darts around everyone else's.

Hel's hall represents the state of grief, which is something we commonly experience with the loss of a loved one. This is evident in the fact everything about Helheim symbolizes what being in a state of grief is like—food has no taste, you feel cold and numb, everything's dull and gray, there's no mirth or warmth, etc. Even Hel herself represents this emotion since she's literally half-dead and half-alive. (In English, we might use the phrase "feeling dead inside" to describe the sensation.)

While Helheim is part of Norse cosmology for certain, I think its depiction as "the underworld" is a post-Christianized literary device more than anything. Sure, Snorri claims it's where the average person went, but Snorri intentionally uses claims as a way lie to Christian readers about Norse cosmology, while he preserves the cosmology's true nature within allegories. And the allegory of Helheim is that it's a place where the living tend to go as a result of grief.

Viking-age graves suggest that the Norse people believed they'd do in death the same things they did in life. It's probably safe to assume they thought the average person would spend their afterlives reunited with their loved ones doing what they enjoyed in life.

I like this response a lot, thank you!

I especially enjoy the idea of "you go in death where you lived in life" because I know a few people irl who have shared that perspective with me as an in general belief system, and I've half adopted it for myself