Latest / Random Heathen Ramblings / Random Heathen Ramblings: S5, EP27 - Loki, And The Congregation Of The Smiling God (feat. Kristofer Älvring)

Transcript

Random Heathen Ramblings: S5, EP27 - Loki, And The Congregation Of The Smiling God (feat. Kristofer Älvring) · Random Heathen Ramblings

• 0:02
  Hello everyone, and welcome to the Random Heathen Ramblings
• 0:04
  podcast where we discuss all sorts of things Germanic Heathen
• 0:08
  related. My name is Jesse and I'm your
• 0:11
  host. Let's get into it.
• 1:20
  All right there, folks. How's everybody doing today?
• 1:23
  Helen, welcome back to the show. I've got a special guest lined
• 1:26
  up for us this week who has reached out to me from the north
• 1:31
  of Sweden or northern Sweden. Not the north of Sweden, but the
• 1:35
  Yeah, the Swedish N His name is Christopher.
• 1:38
  And from the sounds of it, he is a course A or of course A He's a
• 1:45
  modern heathen living in Scandinavia.
• 1:49
  From the sounds of it, he is Scandinavian.
• 1:51
  And so it's going to be interesting to hear his
• 1:54
  perspective. Most of the folks that I've
• 1:57
  spoken to on this show over the years, I've had a few folks from
• 2:02
  like Norway and the Netherlands and believe even Denmark.
• 2:09
  But it's, it's always cool to get the perspective of
• 2:13
  individuals who are practicing these these northern traditions
• 2:19
  in the lands that they kind of came from.
• 2:22
  Obviously, you know, so it's, it's a it's a huge and exciting
• 2:26
  honor for me to have somebody who wanted to be on the show and
• 2:30
  offer their perspective. And another interesting twist or
• 2:33
  perspective that Christopher wanted to sort of insert into
• 2:38
  the show here and talk about is, is, is he puts it in his e-mail.
• 2:41
  He says that he's an observer of the smiling God Loki.
• 2:46
  So if you guys were seeing this on the Patreon site or any of
• 2:51
  the social media platforms that you follow me on, you may have
• 2:56
  seen the the advertisement thumbnail which says smiling
• 3:00
  from Sweden with a sort of AI generated twisted version of of
• 3:05
  of what they what the AI thought Loki would look like.
• 3:09
  And he's got a big old grin on his face, which for a lot of
• 3:13
  folks out here, this show just might not be your cup of tea.
• 3:17
  I know I don't really lean into the Loki thing much, at least
• 3:20
  not in my practices. So it doesn't, it doesn't come
• 3:23
  through in a lot of the, you know, conversations and, and
• 3:27
  topics and whatnot that I, you know, tend to get into.
• 3:32
  But that's OK because it ain't about me.
• 3:34
  It's about heathenry. And obviously, you know, Loki
• 3:37
  appears in the lore and the Ed is, you know what I mean?
• 3:42
  So there's, there's something to be said and there's something to
• 3:45
  be talked about. So I'm interested to hear what
• 3:47
  this, you know, the, the smiling God, why we or why they, at
• 3:53
  least in Sweden, have this observation or this, you know,
• 3:59
  dedication to this figure in the lore.
• 4:02
  So before we get started, if you guys don't mind, if you're new
• 4:06
  to the channel, if you're new to the to the podcast, I should say
• 4:08
  here first of all, thank you very much for tuning in and
• 4:11
  listening. We try to put out new episodes
• 4:15
  every Thursday on all your audio platforms.
• 4:17
  So wherever you're listening to this on, hope you enjoy For
• 4:21
  those of you that have returned, welcome back.
• 4:23
  Thank you for your continued support and a very special
• 4:25
  thanks to those folks who are watching this on the Patreon
• 4:29
  page of Midgard Musings Patreon page, which if you are listening
• 4:33
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• 4:38
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• 4:41
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• 4:46
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• 4:49
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• 4:55
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• 4:57
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• 5:00
  then not do it again, you can do that.
• 5:02
  But it's patreon.com/midgard Musings.
• 5:06
  And if you're listening to this, there's a link tree link that'll
• 5:09
  be noted in the show notes of the of the show, like every
• 5:12
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• 5:15
  stuff. Everywhere that you can find me
• 5:17
  and support me, it's there, including the Patreon link.
• 5:19
  So go to that link tree link that you see and check out all
• 5:23
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• 5:24
  socials. There's merchandise through
• 5:26
  spring become a Patreon, Patreon donations, anything, any which
• 5:30
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• 5:33
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• 5:39
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• 5:42
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  So there's all the housekeeping stuff.
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  Do be sure to check it out and show your support.
• 5:49
  And without further ado, let's go ahead and welcome in
• 5:51
  Christopher, a modern heathen in northern Sweden, smiling from
• 5:56
  Sweden. We're going to be talking about
• 5:58
  that and his observation of the smiling God Loki.
• 6:03
  Let's get into it. All right, folks, here we are
• 6:08
  joined for the first time on the show, a resident Swede.
• 6:12
  His name is Christopher, and he is a heathen who lives in the
• 6:14
  northern Sweden, as I understand.
• 6:17
  So welcome to the show, Christopher.
• 6:18
  Thanks for joining us today. Thank you.
• 6:21
  Thank you for having me. Yeah, it's great.
• 6:24
  I mentioned early before you came on how excited I am to have
• 6:28
  somebody on the show who, you know, lives in the part of the
• 6:32
  world where heathenry once was vibrant, you know, and I'm
• 6:39
  excited to get it to hear from you.
• 6:40
  A lot of the folks that I talked to on a regular basis are, are
• 6:43
  based in America. So we are, you know, American
• 6:46
  heathens. And so it's going to be really
• 6:48
  fun, I think to, to get a, the perspective of somebody who
• 6:52
  practices this, this religion, this faith, this folk way in, in
• 6:57
  one of the lands that it was so vibrant in at one time.
• 7:00
  So, and you know, I, I, I, I did, we, we have been talking a
• 7:06
  little bit before we, we started the show.
• 7:09
  I think the listeners that that are listening to this and the,
• 7:13
  and the people that watch this on, on, on Patreon are going to
• 7:17
  hopefully enjoy the accent. All right, the Swedish accent,
• 7:20
  which it still comes through, but you, you, you know, for,
• 7:23
  for, for not being a native English speaker, I think it,
• 7:26
  it's great. You have a very good command of
• 7:29
  the English language, so. Yeah, and and feel free to to
• 7:33
  ask if I express myself in a strange way or use words the
• 7:36
  wrong way, because English is not my first language, it's
• 7:39
  Swedish. Yeah, no, I think it's great.
• 7:42
  And if we have questions, we'll definitely bring them up there.
• 7:44
  And I think, I think I'll be just fine though.
• 7:48
  So if you don't mind, would you let us?
• 7:52
  I, I, you know, don't know that much about you other than what
• 7:54
  you sent me in the e-mail. And so I know that you're
• 7:57
  heathen and you're from Sweden, of course and, and, but how long
• 8:01
  have you been heathen? Has it has it been like your
• 8:04
  whole life or did you discover it half?
• 8:07
  No. So first of all I was born in
• 8:10
  the South of Sweden in a in a country called or in a small
• 8:14
  village called Viedeslav and Viedeslav is the wind is
• 8:20
  clearing. I think this is a good
• 8:21
  translation from from old like Norse like language.
• 8:25
  And it was a a Viking king basically.
• 8:28
  And he left behind him a few pillars of rock where people
• 8:32
  ever since he went away, has been gathering to to celebrate
• 8:39
  the coming of the spring. But the the country was also
• 8:44
  very Christian and and conservative.
• 8:47
  So there is a church community and there are these cultural
• 8:52
  heritage centres, they kind of marked the spots of what used to
• 8:57
  be heathen country or heathen cult sites.
• 9:00
  So kind of a way for the church to control those expressions and
• 9:05
  kind of make sure that they are so young interesting for young
• 9:09
  people as possible. And, and that's kind of the
• 9:14
  context of, of how you grow up in Sweden when I was a child and
• 9:20
  I suppose even now, and that the church has a, a kind of subtle
• 9:26
  but strong presence during these holidays.
• 9:30
  So celebration of the spring is one of the, the really important
• 9:35
  heathen practices that that is very common in Sweden and also
• 9:39
  ridiculed. I mean, we, we put on, put up
• 9:42
  this cross or this, it looks like a cross, but it's obviously
• 9:47
  not a cross. It's a fallow symbol celebrating
• 9:50
  Freya or Freya and we are dancing around it.
• 9:54
  But the, the, the choice of music and the choice of songs,
• 9:58
  etcetera are basically for children and this kind of this
• 10:01
  childish thing about it. And that way you don't really
• 10:08
  take it seriously. It's, it's kind of goes under
• 10:10
  the radar. It's, it's not something that
• 10:12
  you will base your life on. And there's always this presence
• 10:18
  of Christian Church where, where there's this interpretation of,
• 10:21
  of how it might be a cross rather than the fallow symbol
• 10:25
  and things like this. So, so that's the background.
• 10:28
  So when, when I grew up, I was an atheist and, and my father
• 10:33
  was a Christian, a Freeman's Mason even.
• 10:37
  And I, I think I, I had this keen interest in natural
• 10:44
  science, science and mathematics.
• 10:46
  That's always guided me. So that's why I chose the
• 10:49
  atheist part. But having parents which are
• 10:52
  very Christian and living in this Christian area makes you
• 10:56
  kind of wonder what if I should try that.
• 10:59
  So I was actually, when I in my, my late teens and, and as a
• 11:04
  young man, I tried to be a Christian and really explored
• 11:10
  the theme and what you could believe in and what people
• 11:12
  believed in, etcetera. And it didn't really stick with
• 11:16
  me. I, I had, I had heart very
• 11:20
  severe doubts about the, the narrative about the omnipotent
• 11:23
  God and things like this that just didn't work.
• 11:27
  And then I went back to being atheist, but felt that there was
• 11:32
  something missing, sort of spirituality or things, bad
• 11:41
  things happen in life. And, and you can have
• 11:42
  existential, existential anxieties and, and you can be
• 11:46
  challenged in all kinds of ways, like how much of a man are you,
• 11:51
  etcetera. And, and you, you won't find the
• 11:54
  answer in mathematics and natural science.
• 11:57
  And you need to turn to some kind of philosophy about how the
• 12:01
  world is, is meant to be for you.
• 12:05
  So I went back to religion and contemplated previously
• 12:09
  religious experiences with the new keen eye and pieces of the
• 12:15
  puzzle started to assemble. So I've been a heathen for
• 12:19
  perhaps 15 or 16 years, but I, I haven't been open about it until
• 12:27
  I started to feel confident about the narrative, confident
• 12:31
  about that the things that I believe in made sense in the
• 12:35
  modern world. And that it was something that I
• 12:38
  could lean on in times where things were not right, where
• 12:44
  things were working against me. And that's where I ended up
• 12:48
  today with the Congregation of the Smiling God, which takes
• 12:54
  perhaps a, a bit of A twist for, for someone who's not used to
• 13:01
  these tales and these religions, But the, the Congregation of the
• 13:05
  Smiling God, our observers of Loki, who is one of the gods of,
• 13:12
  of the Norse myth. And it's a, it's a post Ragnarok
• 13:20
  religion. So we we base our narrative, our
• 13:24
  faith on the, the idea that Ragnarok has already happened
• 13:32
  and we're living in the God that, or in the world that was
• 13:36
  created after it. And this is contrast also to
• 13:40
  Christianity or, or a lot of the other large religions who are
• 13:44
  waiting for oblivion or waiting for the destruction of the
• 13:47
  world. And our take is more that this
• 13:52
  is the world that is given to us and we can use the power of the
• 13:58
  gods to make the best of it. And it's a theme of kind of
• 14:05
  optimistic thinking that the paradise is ahead and it it's
• 14:10
  just waiting there for us to, to, to make the best of it,
• 14:14
  basically. Perhaps I'm getting ahead of
• 14:17
  myself here, no? No, no, I think I think you're
• 14:20
  carrying the story really well, just getting your background and
• 14:23
  then you know where you've kind of landed on this congregation
• 14:27
  of the smiling God. I didn't realize that it sounds
• 14:30
  like a very like sort of niche category in Heathenry.
• 14:36
  Would that be, would that be accurate 'cause, you know, most
• 14:39
  of most modern heathens that I speak to include all of the gods
• 14:45
  in there to some degree. You know, they, they, they, they
• 14:48
  have a place for all of the, the Acer and the Vanier gods in
• 14:53
  their practice. Maybe some differently.
• 14:56
  You know, it's there. There's really no, I think
• 14:57
  universal approach to it. You know, some people may have a
• 15:00
  more of an affinity to Thor or to Tier or Odin or whatever,
• 15:07
  even Loki. You know, some folks still these
• 15:10
  these days like to really focus on the mythos behind Loki's
• 15:15
  place in the, in the, in the mythology, you know?
• 15:21
  Yeah, and I should clarify that, that this is not the
• 15:25
  monotheistic religion. All the other gods exist in
• 15:29
  their aspects and and Loki is by no means an omnipotent God.
• 15:34
  It's just that the congregation is specialized in observing
• 15:37
  Loki. So that that's that's the
• 15:43
  interest, the focus of of the congregation.
• 15:47
  It absolutely embrace the idea of the other gods.
• 15:51
  And some, some of the gods are very close, like Freya or Frey.
• 15:59
  And and yeah, it's, it's just a, an aspect of the, the Arsa faith
• 16:08
  as as in its whole chosen this perspective, it's the
• 16:15
  perspective of Loki. It's the entrance into faith, as
• 16:22
  Loki would interpret it. And that's interesting.
• 16:28
  One thing I did want to say, and we'll get into the Loki thing
• 16:31
  more. I'm sure like you've mentioned
• 16:34
  several times that, you know, Freya, Frey and Freya get a
• 16:38
  particular focus like you, you, you talked about what I, I got
• 16:42
  to think of is, is like the maypole that, or maybe that's
• 16:46
  like the wrong terminology for it in Sweden.
• 16:48
  But the thing you dance around to, to bring to welcome like the
• 16:53
  spring or the summer, the very phallic, as you said that that's
• 16:59
  a huge acknowledgement or nod to, to, to to Frayer cults,
• 17:04
  right? Because he's always depicted as
• 17:05
  having a large erect penis, the fertility aspect.
• 17:10
  And he was very traditionally like he was very important for
• 17:14
  the Swedes. He was like a, a principal deity
• 17:17
  in your, in your culture, right? So.
• 17:20
  Yeah. I mean, I mean, in a sense we,
• 17:23
  we have the same persona in most other cultures.
• 17:27
  Sex and sexuality and reproductions are really central
• 17:31
  for all religions in some sense. Controlling that is, is, is how
• 17:36
  you control people basically. So, so it's, it's very
• 17:40
  important. And yeah, Fray is kind of the
• 17:45
  God of the seed, which is, is more than sexuality.
• 17:49
  It's it's a deeper aspect as well.
• 17:51
  And, and Freya is like goddess of love, but love is also many,
• 17:55
  many different faces. It's can be the glue that binds
• 17:59
  people together, but it can also be the treachery and deceit.
• 18:06
  So in in that sense, the the complexity of these gods are
• 18:12
  akin to Loki in in who is also a very complex character.
• 18:19
  Yep, yeah, No, it's interesting. You said, you know, the God of
• 18:22
  the seed, right? Fray in Frayer is in it.
• 18:26
  It's the name itself is just a title, right?
• 18:29
  It means Lord, his name is ING, which I think is is is it goes
• 18:35
  back to like the saga of the England's, the England gas saga
• 18:38
  where the kings of Sweden, you know, trace their it's their
• 18:44
  descendants of of ING, right? In the in the in the, the saga,
• 18:49
  at least in the story so. Yeah, I should, I should
• 18:52
  clarify, I'm, I'm by no means an expert in these sagas.
• 18:56
  And though we, we, we read them obviously and we, we try to lean
• 19:01
  on them as as much as possible. The, the most inspiration we get
• 19:07
  is from Swedish culture and Swedish modern culture as it
• 19:11
  looks in and it acts today. But I'm I'm sure what you say
• 19:16
  is, is correct. And there there's a lot of these
• 19:20
  themes, but capturing what is Swedish, what, what is the
• 19:24
  Swedish culture. And that is a is a very complex
• 19:26
  things. And, and while, while this story
• 19:29
  that you're telling now is, is certainly one aspect of it, a
• 19:34
  lot of Swedes would disagree, but, but certainly those parts
• 19:41
  which are Christian, for example, so, so, but there are,
• 19:46
  there are our historical facts that that you need to kind of
• 19:50
  relate, relate to. A lot of people thought this, a
• 19:53
  lot of people did that because we, we measured that.
• 19:56
  We read it in the books, we read it on the ruins, etcetera.
• 19:59
  So it must have had some bearing on, on what people believed on.
• 20:04
  And that's important to reflect, it's important to integrate in
• 20:08
  your story. But that's that's kind of the
• 20:13
  the relationship I had to these things.
• 20:16
  OK. Yeah, I like how you say, you
• 20:18
  know, relate to them, integrate them.
• 20:20
  It's not so much, it doesn't sound like at least that it's so
• 20:24
  much of we have to like do it the way that that was done on in
• 20:29
  those old days or whatever. It's more of like a reference
• 20:32
  point. It's it's part of the entire
• 20:34
  mix, the complex. Yeah, yeah, like.
• 20:39
  Of being sweet. The tool for interpretating the
• 20:42
  culture tool for interpretating the, the, the answers to very
• 20:47
  complex questions that you in turn need to understand in order
• 20:50
  to ask. So yeah, I think you need to be
• 20:55
  very soft when talking about these things.
• 21:00
  Not say that this is the way it is or this is not the way it is,
• 21:03
  but you kind of realize that it, it's a, a story that needs to
• 21:07
  fit the context and, and, and it, it should also not only fit
• 21:15
  the context, but it should also do something good.
• 21:18
  Like why would I waste my time believing in a complex religion
• 21:23
  with complex stories if it didn't do any good for me, if I
• 21:27
  didn't feel good about it? So I think I think that's an
• 21:31
  important part. You, you, you have to be able to
• 21:34
  feel good about what you believe in.
• 21:36
  Sure. Yeah, I know.
• 21:38
  You know, I've seen here in America the way people pick up
• 21:43
  on this, you know, Heathenry, the religion of Northern
• 21:47
  European peoples and Germanic peoples and Scandinavian
• 21:50
  peoples. And it, you know, so much of
• 21:54
  these, these, these traditions, these customs and are based
• 21:58
  around the cultures of the countries where they are from.
• 22:04
  I've said many times that, you know, to, to, to say that, you
• 22:06
  know, one way of, of doing Heathenry is, is the same for
• 22:09
  everybody would be inaccurate. It's incorrect.
• 22:12
  Because, for example, you know, the culture and the ways and the
• 22:16
  customs of the way that, you know, the Swedes are doing
• 22:20
  things are probably going to be different than Norwegians or
• 22:23
  Icelanders or any other such country.
• 22:26
  And even further South in, you know, continental Europe where,
• 22:30
  you know, people that have more of a Saxon lineage or, or, or
• 22:36
  ancestry or, or something like that, right.
• 22:37
  Those customs, those cultures are going to be different.
• 22:40
  Sure, there might be very variables and, and then there's
• 22:43
  nuance that could say, yeah, sure, you know, it's, it's all,
• 22:47
  you know, very similar or there's, but there's definitely
• 22:50
  certain things that in Sweden, you know, people in, in other
• 22:53
  countries wouldn't do 'cause it's not going to connect to
• 22:56
  them as it, as it, as it does for you in Sweden.
• 22:59
  And that's what I've seen here in, in like you're in America is
• 23:03
  people are, are starting to realize that more they're,
• 23:06
  they're, they're trying to find and, and learn things that are,
• 23:09
  that are fitting the American landscape without taking away
• 23:13
  from the European roots that it comes from, you know, but, but
• 23:20
  sort of planting the seed, but tailoring the growth to fit more
• 23:23
  of the American customs or the, the customs of the, the part of
• 23:27
  America that they're in. You know, like say I live in a
• 23:29
  state, you know, in the South and then there's people that do
• 23:33
  this heathen thing and they live in the north or the West or such
• 23:37
  places, you know, So they, I think that's important too.
• 23:41
  And it goes back to what you were saying about being not so
• 23:46
  rigid with the the old stories, but kind of as I think you
• 23:50
  mentioned, like you said, like soft but soft in the sense of
• 23:56
  fluid, you know, like being a bit more.
• 23:58
  I mean it needs to have some integrity.
• 24:01
  I, I mean the, the countryside I live lived in or live in now is,
• 24:05
  is full of these names like Odin's Lambda, which means the
• 24:09
  land of Odin or, or the Torres Holt which is the forest of, of
• 24:14
  Thor. So people have put a lot of
• 24:19
  meaning and invested a lot of ideas in these existing things
• 24:24
  that are anchored in history, and ignoring them would be a bad
• 24:28
  choice, but also getting stuck with them would also be bad
• 24:32
  because the context of how they were interpreted changed a lot.
• 24:38
  I mean that the whole idea of having many gods is to provide
• 24:42
  the freedom to pick the aspect or the entrance that you need in
• 24:48
  order to understand your world. So tell me a little bit more
• 24:54
  about this, the Congregation of the Smiling God, how it started,
• 24:59
  what it, you know, what was the inspiration of this and, and,
• 25:02
  and what it, it looks like in a practical form today?
• 25:06
  Is it just, you know, an online sort of community?
• 25:10
  Is it a physical like grassroots, the establishment of
• 25:14
  people that get together? Could you, could you tell us a
• 25:16
  little bit more about about that?
• 25:18
  Yeah, so I'm, I'm a programmer and I do with artificial
• 25:22
  intelligence and a lot of my friends are program assistant.
• 25:25
  Well, and, and when I was young, I was kind of into the hacker
• 25:29
  scene and it was popular to use these symbols like the eye of
• 25:36
  Odeon or Loki for some clever Trojan, etcetera.
• 25:41
  So the narrative was always there and people kind of
• 25:44
  connected and, and talked that way.
• 25:47
  And then it turned out that the quite a few people are, are so
• 25:52
  attracted by these stories and, and have these roots that they,
• 25:55
  they kind of group together and they start talking about
• 25:59
  Heathenry and, and, and existential issues based on, on,
• 26:04
  on these stories that they are familiar with and that they kind
• 26:07
  of see all around them. And that's how we, we started
• 26:11
  basically the congregation and it was basically a few people
• 26:16
  interested in programming and hacking and talking about these
• 26:19
  stories. And then it kind of of stuck
• 26:22
  that way. And then other people with was
• 26:26
  not that much into computers, got into it with more
• 26:28
  philosophical or political aspects of it.
• 26:33
  I, I myself is very engaged in the movement of the Pirate
• 26:38
  Party, which also takes a new new grip on politics.
• 26:45
  And a lot of these ideas and, and the ways that we approach
• 26:48
  politics kind of gets woven into that narrative as well.
• 26:55
  So the congregation has gone through different phases where
• 27:02
  it was called different things and where people not necessarily
• 27:06
  would call themselves heathens, but they would have like this
• 27:09
  narrative. And for me taking the step to
• 27:13
  making it congregation is in a sense something that I was able
• 27:19
  to do because I started feel feeling confidence in that I
• 27:23
  could carry a religious narrative and not only pretend
• 27:29
  that I did. And that's kind of how it it
• 27:35
  came to be. And as it is now, I mean the,
• 27:39
  the we still have very strict privacy rules.
• 27:44
  And so we don't expose the members.
• 27:49
  And that's yeah, that's because it's people with religious,
• 27:57
  strong religious belief can be hard or there can be conflicts
• 28:04
  which are very nasty. So we rather like to keep a low
• 28:10
  profile than the kind of smear it in other people's faces.
• 28:17
  That being said, in the last years, I I felt that perhaps
• 28:20
  there needs to be more voices about this.
• 28:23
  Perhaps Christianity shouldn't be unchallenged, especially if
• 28:29
  if they're going to behave as Nazis against Islam or other
• 28:34
  religions. Perhaps there should be some
• 28:37
  voice that says that your guests here, this land is not yours, it
• 28:46
  belongs to all the gods, and that the compromise is the
• 28:51
  liberal, tolerant society that we that we see.
• 28:58
  Interesting. Do do you see a a pretty strong
• 29:02
  shared belief or or response from from native Swedes about
• 29:10
  that that this is not, you know, the land of, of the Christian
• 29:16
  God or this or that that it's this is the land of our old
• 29:19
  gods. Do you see, do you see that
• 29:22
  being something that is pretty active with with more people in
• 29:26
  in the country there or or not so much I.
• 29:29
  Think these are serious matters and and is it's not something
• 29:36
  that people announce. We have a strong vocal Christian
• 29:46
  group in in Sweden and there are church bells every week running
• 29:52
  that you can listen to that kind of reminds us that the king is
• 29:56
  Christian and this is a Christian country, etcetera.
• 29:59
  Yeah, yeah. And if you are challenging that,
• 30:05
  though it's uncomfortable and you can't really force people to
• 30:11
  voice their opinions or or you, you kind of will have to respect
• 30:15
  them to be. Yeah.
• 30:19
  More careful about that. Yeah, I, I definitely understand
• 30:22
  that, you know, every place is different and this, you know,
• 30:28
  one of the beauties of, of America is, is that, you know,
• 30:30
  we have a, a pretty diverse cultural mixing pot of things
• 30:37
  going on. Some, some, some places of the
• 30:41
  country are, are more progressive than others.
• 30:43
  You know, for example, like I live in a, a portion of the
• 30:47
  country which is dominantly Christian.
• 30:50
  It's it's referred to as the Bible belt.
• 30:53
  You know, because you've got so many states in a line that, you
• 30:59
  know, every corner of downtown that you turn, there's going to
• 31:02
  be a church there. Most of your community outreach
• 31:07
  programs, a lot of your like recovery programs, outreach
• 31:14
  programs, like they're all rooted and based in the church
• 31:17
  or some Christian denomination of sorts.
• 31:20
  And I've talked to so many, like, I've talked to like other
• 31:22
  heathens and, and, and stuff around here.
• 31:24
  And, and it, I think it's one of the, one of the challenges that,
• 31:28
  you know, non traditional religions like Heathenry and,
• 31:30
  and other forms of paganism run into the challenges that, you
• 31:34
  know, so much of the way we want to connect with people and
• 31:39
  organize the, the connection, the things that we think are
• 31:43
  good and want to do. I think a lot of people just see
• 31:47
  it as like, that's a bit too Christian for me.
• 31:49
  You know, like you've got this church or you have this quote
• 31:52
  congregation or you have this thing.
• 31:54
  And I got that name just reminds me too much of the Christianity
• 31:57
  that I don't want anything to do with.
• 31:59
  And so they prefer to stay private.
• 32:01
  They prefer to stay kind of like, you know, behind the
• 32:05
  curtain doing their thing and and respect that.
• 32:08
  You know, it's, it's a tough, like you say, it's a challenge.
• 32:12
  It's it's tough to to be heathen, to be Pagan.
• 32:16
  Publicly, I wouldn't say it's, it's tough.
• 32:19
  I mean, we, we do have freedom of speech obviously in Sweden
• 32:23
  and and if you're an atheist, that's no problem.
• 32:27
  It's just that, that when you express another religion than
• 32:30
  Christianity, then it becomes a problem.
• 32:33
  And I as a, as a atheist, you, you can you, you're very
• 32:40
  protected in, in Sweden, for example.
• 32:43
  Also, I, I want to make sure that, that you understand that
• 32:50
  I'm not against Christianity as, as a ideology.
• 32:53
  I think there's a lot of positive things in, in
• 32:56
  Christianity too, and a lot of things that should be copied
• 33:00
  into the as well. It's, it's a specific expression
• 33:06
  of Christianity that I, I don't like and which we've been seeing
• 33:11
  the last few years, which kind of moulds a false narrative and
• 33:17
  doesn't acknowledge the fact that this is a country of older
• 33:21
  gods that were were here before. Yeah, and that's a good point
• 33:27
  too. I know I get new listeners and
• 33:28
  viewers from time to time and you know, so for folks that or
• 33:32
  maybe new to the show and you know, realize, yes, this is a
• 33:35
  heathen podcast, but I also never have spoken I'll of of
• 33:42
  Christians. I grew up, you know, in a
• 33:45
  Christian, non denominational Christian environment.
• 33:48
  My parents were both devout in their beliefs and and my
• 33:55
  upbringing was based around a Christian worldview.
• 34:00
  I know a lot of good people who just so happened to be
• 34:03
  Christian. So I have nothing I'll to say
• 34:04
  about, you know, Christianity even as a whole.
• 34:08
  But like you say, just the certain, there's certain
• 34:10
  aspects, certain things, the way certain attention is garnered
• 34:15
  by, you know, certain acts and and whatnot, it tends to leave a
• 34:19
  sour taste in a lot of people's mouths.
• 34:21
  And yeah, just to be clear, you know, we're not trying to say
• 34:24
  that, you know, the acts of one group or one subset or whatever
• 34:28
  of of a group of Christians is, is isn't, isn't any way a way of
• 34:33
  declaring that's how the entirety of it is it?
• 34:35
  It's kind of the same as like when we see bad things being
• 34:38
  misappropriated that, you know, that are that are heathen
• 34:43
  symbols, right? The Thor's hammer, the the sun
• 34:47
  wheel, the, the various symbols of our faith that are sacred to
• 34:51
  us. And then, you know, if they get
• 34:52
  misappropriated by these jerks that do terrible things, and
• 34:56
  it's like, oh, well, if you're wearing that symbol or if you
• 34:58
  have that thing with you, then you're automatically lumped into
• 35:01
  that category. And it's not that way either.
• 35:04
  No, no, absolutely. Yeah.
• 35:08
  That that's, that's a good way of phrasing it, yes, but but
• 35:11
  going back to your question, what, what is it that that it
• 35:14
  means to be part of the congregation in in this context?
• 35:18
  I think that there are some, some, most of the time it
• 35:23
  doesn't show at all. There's no difference.
• 35:26
  We're secular people, we live secular life and we, we, we kind
• 35:30
  of fit into the, the context of being Swedes.
• 35:33
  But there are some aspects like how do you celebrate Christmas,
• 35:36
  for example, What symbols do you use?
• 35:40
  How do you gather people around cozy hearth and and talk about
• 35:46
  stories when you're not a Christian and, and there is
• 35:50
  Christmas. So obviously we pick different
• 35:53
  stories. We have a different way of
• 35:55
  looking at that. Like in, in this case, it's,
• 35:59
  it's the midwinter fest and we are celebrating stories,
• 36:07
  basically the winter stories that the, the Lord of
• 36:11
  storytelling is providing. And in his rebirth when Loki was
• 36:18
  set free or broke free from the, the shackles in, in Helheim and,
• 36:25
  and brought Ragnarok to the gods.
• 36:27
  And that's, that's an event which corresponds to Easter.
• 36:32
  So, so that's, that's one thing that we are are celebrating.
• 36:35
  And he then became the, the God of storytelling because he
• 36:41
  changed the story, right? And the framing of the narrative
• 36:47
  is that he, he used his trickery, being the, the God of
• 36:50
  mischief. He used his trickery to trick
• 36:54
  the norm of the present Verdandi to kind of drop a thread and,
• 36:59
  and make a mess of the weave. And the only way to to make it
• 37:04
  right again was to, to, to change the weave, to change the
• 37:08
  story. This introduced a very
• 37:11
  interesting philosophical aspects to the faith with I,
• 37:15
  which I think is is notable. And that is that things that has
• 37:20
  happened can be rewritten and it it changes our our view of time
• 37:28
  and obviously of our our presence in that we've because
• 37:34
  it can be be changed. The threads can be pulled,
• 37:38
  things can be rearranged. I've and I Yeah, no.
• 37:45
  I'm sorry to go ahead. And, and I think that's a
• 37:49
  significant part of how we address some of the existential
• 37:54
  issues of this world as well, and how we consolidate the idea
• 37:59
  of the supernatural entities work, working among us and, and
• 38:03
  how they behave and affect us. It's also a kind of convenient
• 38:08
  story to kind of integrate into the modern world.
• 38:11
  And I think this is something that that Christianity, for
• 38:15
  example, or Islam or Hinduism doesn't have.
• 38:19
  And that we have the, the story of Igdrasil as this network
• 38:25
  between realms, which is a, which is a story on a picture
• 38:30
  which really fits into the world of Internet and, and world of,
• 38:35
  of complex quantum physics and, and things like this.
• 38:38
  That that really makes it a story to help us with such
• 38:43
  existential issues. How, how would you explain your
• 38:48
  existence when natural scientists, natural science and
• 38:54
  mathematics become so mysterious that they kind of run around in
• 38:58
  circles around your own story about how the world was created?
• 39:02
  And that's, that's something that we, we escaped because we
• 39:05
  have a, a richer context. We have have more tools to kind
• 39:10
  of address those things. Yeah, it's almost like, you
• 39:14
  know, it's, it's like it's almost come full circle in the
• 39:18
  sense that, you know, back when people weren't as, you know,
• 39:24
  the, the, the mathematics, the science weren't as advanced back
• 39:29
  then. So you had these stories that
• 39:31
  we're told to explain the unexplainable.
• 39:36
  And then eventually when people became, you know, advanced in,
• 39:39
  in modern science and mathematics and everything
• 39:41
  became a bit more advanced. It, it, it's like, it, it, it
• 39:47
  confirmed the stories. It explained in detail how the
• 39:51
  stories were true, you know, or or gave a a richer context to
• 39:55
  it. I.
• 39:56
  Would I wouldn't use words as true, but but there are two
• 40:00
  certainly for for addressing these things like.
• 40:03
  Yeah, yeah, maybe that was a bad word to, to, to use for it.
• 40:06
  But yeah, like the, I don't know just how, how ancient
• 40:10
  civilizations would describe things because that's the that's
• 40:14
  all they knew on how to describe it.
• 40:16
  And then science and all these stuff came later on as like,
• 40:19
  yeah, that's they, they were actually, they were right.
• 40:21
  They were correct, you know. Yeah, In a sense, yes, I, I do
• 40:28
  believe that people in the past were more stupid than we are
• 40:31
  today, but that the way that they embraced existential
• 40:37
  questions were as competent as we are today.
• 40:42
  And we kind of lost that practice.
• 40:45
  We lost the practice of sitting around the hearth and talking
• 40:48
  about our existential issues. We kind of get fed a lot of
• 40:52
  information, but we don't have any outlet for it.
• 40:55
  We don't have any traditions or rituals for processing these
• 41:00
  complex feelings that these complex narratives give rise to.
• 41:04
  And thus we become victims to them.
• 41:07
  Victims to the stories become MPCS in our in our own lives
• 41:11
  instead of the main character. And that's what the Lord of
• 41:15
  Stories wants to help us with, to become the main character in
• 41:19
  our own story. Yeah, you, you said, you said
• 41:23
  something interesting that I keyed in on earlier about
• 41:26
  rewriting or re weaving the threads, you know, being the,
• 41:30
  the, the catalyst of change. I think Loki gets seen as that a
• 41:38
  lot because he has like in the stories, right?
• 41:42
  He, he's always known for doing something that kind of creates a
• 41:47
  mess, but the mess becomes the thing that incites the change
• 41:51
  that was necessary to begin with.
• 41:53
  So it's kind of a dirty way of going about it, but it's an
• 41:58
  effective way of going about it. You know, it's like push the
• 42:00
  dominoes down and, and create this whole series of events
• 42:04
  that, well, when, when, when the dust settles, it's, well, look
• 42:08
  what we have now. Yeah.
• 42:09
  Yeah, sometimes you need to go backward, backwards, one step in
• 42:13
  order to go forwards too. And Loki, being a master of
• 42:18
  keys, finds a way to unlock progress in the sense.
• 42:25
  I did have a question about that with with respect to like how
• 42:29
  you and this, this congregation of a smiling God have have made
• 42:35
  Loki such a key figure, an important figure.
• 42:37
  Have you seen examples where Loki gets, you know, he, he gets
• 42:44
  demonized, obviously, but how he gets left out of practices, like
• 42:51
  heathen practices because of the specific thing that like he was
• 42:56
  the reason why Balder gets, you know, gets killed and, and
• 43:01
  Ragnarok is incited. The reason I'm asking is because
• 43:05
  I've, you know, I, I'm, I'm always interested to hear
• 43:08
  people's take on it. There's I, I've, I've heard it
• 43:10
  from two different ways. You know, they, they like, yeah,
• 43:12
  you know, Loki does what he's done and that's great.
• 43:16
  But ultimately he's a kinslayer and he's a, he's a this and he's
• 43:19
  a that. And that's why we don't want to
• 43:20
  have anything to do with Loki anymore because of that.
• 43:24
  Have you seen similar approaches?
• 43:28
  Have you seen similar? We are always fed with this
• 43:31
  dualistic perspectives, right? There's a good and there is an
• 43:35
  evil, but he even them isn't that simple.
• 43:40
  We don't have an up or and down. We we have relevance and we have
• 43:44
  different paradises and different Hells.
• 43:48
  And obviously there is a lot of of dimensions here.
• 43:54
  So it's natural for people who are just trained in in there
• 43:57
  being a good narrative and a bad narrative to kind of categorize
• 44:01
  people into good and bad. And once you're in, in the good,
• 44:05
  you want to kind of distance yourself from all the bad, but
• 44:09
  that's not really how it works. And I, I don't believe that Loki
• 44:18
  killed the gods because I don't think that the gods can be
• 44:21
  killed. Also, I I think that because of
• 44:26
  this time related aspect of our faith, Odin is also referred as
• 44:36
  the sleeping God that he was basically stuck in Ragnarok the
• 44:42
  moment he dropped his eye in the world of Nima.
• 44:48
  And he's at this moment hanging from the branch of Igdrasil,
• 44:52
  which is, I mean, it's a metaphorical construct, but
• 44:56
  watching what could have happened and what he sees is his
• 45:01
  own death kind of get drawn to this picture.
• 45:06
  And he can't get out of it because it's the most important
• 45:08
  thing there is, right? The way you're going to die.
• 45:12
  So all his energy is about figuring out how do I get away
• 45:16
  from this? And one way to to look at this
• 45:20
  story is that Loki finds him the way Loki finds him, the way to
• 45:26
  get out of the end of things and survive and take the heritage of
• 45:33
  Odin with him. This is how Odin survives his
• 45:37
  own death because of the other side of Ragnarok.
• 45:41
  Odin is the sleeping guard and Loki is the Lord of stories.
• 45:47
  So it's not that they die, they transition.
• 45:51
  Transition. Yeah, they change.
• 45:53
  Yeah, yeah. And in a sense, that's that's a
• 45:57
  death. It's a death of a narrative, but
• 45:59
  it's not the elimination of that narrative.
• 46:01
  Mm Hmm. Yeah, yeah, that's the, you
• 46:07
  know, shared a very similar approach is that, yeah, death is
• 46:10
  not the end. It's just the next level or a
• 46:14
  new level. You know, it's it's you say the
• 46:19
  transition. You know, it's not a hard stop
• 46:21
  of ending of existence. It's now you've there's a
• 46:24
  different form of existence that comes and that can only come by
• 46:29
  the shedding of this, you know, ethereal body.
• 46:32
  This this the the lich. You know the the outer shell.
• 46:37
  You know exactly, which also fits really good in in, in in
• 46:42
  modern narratives when we're talking about brain uploading
• 46:45
  and separating the spirit from the body, etcetera.
• 46:48
  So there's there's a lot of interesting things that you can
• 46:52
  use with these narratives and that connect to these gods.
• 46:56
  Yeah, You know, I was talking to a fellow recently who's, he's a,
• 47:03
  he's an American heathen, but he's, he's his family's a
• 47:06
  Norwegian. But he has a very interesting,
• 47:10
  like we, we, we sit sometimes and when given the chance, you
• 47:12
  know, we'll have discussions that go hours long.
• 47:16
  But like the death in the afterlife, you know, the, the,
• 47:19
  the conceptual world views of the Norse people of, of what
• 47:24
  happens when you die, you know, and now it's not, it's not so
• 47:28
  dualistic. It's again, it doesn't, it's
• 47:30
  not. Well, your body's dead and your
• 47:33
  soul goes one place or the other.
• 47:35
  It's, there's, there's so many different parts of the self that
• 47:39
  make up us. And yeah, the lich, the body has
• 47:43
  an expiration date on it. But the rest of us, you know,
• 47:46
  the, our, our hammer, our, our Haninga and our Filia and, and,
• 47:51
  and the huger and all these various soul complex parts
• 47:54
  dissipate and kind of disperse and go and exist in other, in
• 47:59
  other ways. So we never truly die in that
• 48:02
  sense. And it goes back to like what
• 48:03
  you were saying is there's, there's an end to something, but
• 48:07
  it doesn't mean it's the end of all things because it's, we're
• 48:10
  escaping that part of our, our life, our existence.
• 48:14
  And it allows us to get into the next level, the next stage of
• 48:19
  it. Exactly.
• 48:21
  And, and these spirits that you're talking about, they, they
• 48:25
  are fragments of culture and the kind of, yeah, shape, shape that
• 48:34
  entire culture, so to speak, the pieces of the puzzle.
• 48:38
  Yeah. So it's really interesting how
• 48:41
  much, you know, Loki plays a key, you know, a key factor in,
• 48:47
  in things like this. And I feel like it, I haven't
• 48:53
  talked to anybody about Loki to this degree.
• 48:56
  And, and in this way, it's usually always, you know, they,
• 48:59
  they, they key in on like one or two things about him, you know,
• 49:02
  how he's, you know, gender fluid or he's a trickster or he's, you
• 49:06
  know, kind of like the, the, the shit stirrer, you know, or
• 49:12
  whatever of the gods. It doesn't really go beyond more
• 49:15
  than that. And I feel like it's a bit of a
• 49:16
  disservice or an injustice to limit ourselves in thinking that
• 49:20
  way. And, and, and it's great to get
• 49:22
  a chance to like explore the complexities of Loki.
• 49:25
  And I really liked the, the God of storytelling, the the
• 49:29
  storyteller component or aspect and how he kind of is that
• 49:35
  presence of unlocking that very important cultural tradition.
• 49:44
  We've lost it in modern times. It's not very present in at
• 49:48
  least not what I've seen. I'm starting to see a little bit
• 49:51
  more of it come to light here in America.
• 49:54
  But yeah, like the the storytelling aspect, you know,
• 50:00
  sitting around that hearth fire and telling stories, It's it's a
• 50:03
  tradition that's almost been lost.
• 50:06
  Yeah, and I mean, I mean, it also implies a lot of of
• 50:10
  tolerance, right, That everything is just stories and
• 50:15
  and there are must separate the stories, what we're saying and
• 50:18
  what we're we're talking about from what matters to you and
• 50:23
  what you want to accomplish. And also the ability to see
• 50:26
  yourself in your own story as the main character to kind of
• 50:29
  reflect on. If someone read my story, what
• 50:34
  would they think about me? How how how would I want it to
• 50:37
  end? What feelings would I want to
• 50:41
  convey if someone read my story? And I think this is an extremely
• 50:46
  important self regulating aspects of of the practical
• 50:52
  meaning of the religion of the smiling God that you you reflect
• 50:58
  on yourself as the main character of your story and how
• 51:02
  that would be read from other people's views.
• 51:07
  So how has how has your story, if I could ask, like, you know,
• 51:12
  how how is your story going? What kind of?
• 51:16
  Story it's has a lot of tops and bottoms etcetera, but I I hope
• 51:22
  that when people read about it, they will find someone who is
• 51:24
  honest, who is, who wants to do good and and who did his best
• 51:33
  basically. Do you share so with, you know,
• 51:38
  the congregation of the smiling God?
• 51:40
  Do you guys or does this group have a like sort of grassroots
• 51:44
  home base? Do you?
• 51:46
  Do you share physical space with others that that subscribe to
• 51:52
  this or observe this particular view on thing good?
• 51:55
  Question so we, we have this parties and and meetings and
• 52:01
  there are some of the sacraments of the Congregation require you
• 52:05
  to meet, but this is a very our society today is, is, is based
• 52:15
  on Internet connections and connections like this.
• 52:19
  And so we perhaps don't meet as often as we should and, and we
• 52:24
  are very sometimes you just prefer the couch and, and not
• 52:29
  meeting people. And I excused that by saying
• 52:32
  that Loki is also an expression of individualism.
• 52:36
  But it's absolutely something that that we are bad at, that we
• 52:41
  should do more to to to actually meet.
• 52:46
  But it happens that are are at least the early turns where
• 52:50
  people meet them and get together.
• 52:55
  So it happens. Yeah, we, I, I see the same
• 52:59
  thing here. You know, we have a lot of
• 53:04
  people that are, are, are great about, you know, getting into a
• 53:08
  chat or engaging on a, on a, on a online, you know, discord
• 53:13
  server or Facebook group or any such thing, you know, And then
• 53:17
  when you like plan a plan a, an in person event, you know, we're
• 53:22
  going to meet at, you know, this, this this restaurant or
• 53:25
  we're going to be at this park or, you know, whatever.
• 53:29
  It's like it's crickets, you know, like they everybody be
• 53:34
  there in the in the chat rooms or in the online groups.
• 53:37
  But then when it's like, Hey, let's get together and hang out,
• 53:40
  you know, let's be together as people, right, The the turn out
• 53:45
  always does. Doesn't it's not as big as as
• 53:48
  you were were hoping it to be? No, it's, it's true and it's
• 53:52
  sad. And I guess in the sense we are
• 53:55
  all cowards when it comes to those things and perhaps a bit
• 53:59
  too comfortable with our own bubbles.
• 54:02
  That's a challenge and something we should all work together to
• 54:07
  to fix, I think. And if you look at, at the
• 54:13
  Christian Church, they're really good at producing music and
• 54:16
  creating these events where you can be a passive participant,
• 54:21
  but still meet. And I think people of, of our
• 54:27
  faith should also do the same. We should finance people to, to
• 54:31
  do music that kind of celebrates our, our way of thinking and,
• 54:36
  and the old gods and, and creating these passive events,
• 54:39
  which kind of bridge the gap. I'm.
• 54:43
  Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, there.
• 54:48
  Are many of these things that we could, could work to, to make
• 54:51
  that smoother, a smoother experience?
• 54:54
  Because it's very awkward to get to one of these blutes.
• 54:57
  But I've been invited to this room and I, I need to go like
• 55:00
  200 kilometers to turn out to some blute and I have no idea
• 55:03
  what I'm going to do. And I never met these people
• 55:05
  before. So I also get to get chicken and
• 55:08
  feel that perhaps these are just very weird people with weird
• 55:12
  religious ideas that they can't relate to.
• 55:15
  So there's this natural barrier, but I think shows like yours are
• 55:22
  really great at bridging this gap because of of the vibe.
• 55:27
  I mean, this is a natural conversation.
• 55:30
  People feel comfortable when they are listening to it.
• 55:33
  It's kind of a ending up in someone's living room and and
• 55:38
  kind of just relaxing and saying hi and bye and see you later.
• 55:46
  Yeah, I never thought of it that way, that it's, you know, a, a,
• 55:50
  a gap that we're bridging with those people that made me feel a
• 55:54
  bit isolated or just unsure. I crave the in person
• 55:59
  interactions quite often because I feel that especially, you
• 56:05
  know, seeing the world through my heathenry, right?
• 56:10
  As as a heathen of almost a decade myself, I, I can't
• 56:15
  experience certain things without other people in person.
• 56:19
  You know, I can't experience those Frith bonds.
• 56:22
  I can't get the emotional connection through ritual.
• 56:24
  I can't do anything like those types of things by just, you
• 56:31
  know, chatting over, you know, over, you know, a Facebook group
• 56:36
  or a chest or a messenger chat or, or or whatever.
• 56:40
  Right, it's a. It's a filter.
• 56:42
  Yeah, yeah. But it's also, you know, having
• 56:45
  conversations with people in this way, I sometimes forget,
• 56:51
  you know, how much this type of thing gets absorbed.
• 56:59
  It's not just about me and and you or me and the other guests.
• 57:02
  And it is in the moment. But then once it's out there, it
• 57:05
  becomes like, hey, come sit around our hearth fire a little.
• 57:09
  You know what I mean? Our virtual hearth fire, right?
• 57:12
  You know, it's a good invitation to a conversation that, you
• 57:16
  know, they can be a they can be a part of and they can, they can
• 57:21
  learn some things from and we learn from each other.
• 57:23
  And yeah, it's a bigger. It's bigger than I even realized
• 57:28
  sometimes. And the act of being exposed
• 57:31
  face to face is also important for certain sacraments.
• 57:34
  You, you can't really get into the, the important part of faith
• 57:39
  is, is everything is, is virtualized the second time you
• 57:43
  need to kind of be in the dirt in order to experience it.
• 57:48
  And, and in in our congregation, we even have an event for that's
• 57:51
  that mean it's been summer eve where you are exposed.
• 57:55
  So, so it's, it's in a very important part of, of creating
• 58:00
  something real. Yeah, yeah, you have to, you
• 58:05
  have to, like you say, put your, put your feet in the dirt, put
• 58:08
  your ass in the grass, as they sometimes say, you know, like
• 58:11
  there has to be that. There has to be that.
• 58:14
  And yeah, we talked earlier or we, we, we mentioned earlier
• 58:20
  about the, the changing of the web or the weaving, like re
• 58:27
  rewriting the storyline, rewriting it.
• 58:30
  That also takes doing of things that you can't just sit back and
• 58:33
  wait for it to happen or watch it like you got to get out there
• 58:36
  and do it. And we are weavers of our own
• 58:40
  weird, you know, like we are the the shape shifters.
• 58:45
  We can. We can rewrite our stories.
• 58:48
  Well, well, the norms would would disagree, but but we can
• 58:51
  certainly try to trick them. Oh, I see what you're saying in
• 58:55
  the in, in the sense that it's we're influencers maybe more
• 58:58
  than the actual weavers. Yeah, I, I, I would say we can
• 59:02
  observe Loki, but but if we don't, then the norms will
• 59:06
  decide. Interesting.
• 59:10
  Now do you see the norms as a, you know, just the three Norns
• 59:15
  as mentioned, like in the Valuspa or wherever the earth
• 59:19
  Redundi and Scrooge? Or do you see them as a sort of
• 59:24
  metaphor of past, present, future and that the Norn near or
• 59:29
  Norns exist for everybody in like their own family lines like
• 59:34
  each person has each family has a Norn that writes that family's
• 59:39
  story. Do you have a like do you have
• 59:41
  AI think? I think they are are a global
• 59:45
  power that that weaves the, the, the weave of fate, but that they
• 59:52
  that it can be affected. And so it's it's, it's a global
• 59:58
  power of integrating everything that can be integrated.
• 1:00:04
  Interesting, but in the. Sense it doesn't exclude your
• 1:00:10
  perspective either, because Loki preaches that you're the main
• 1:00:13
  character in your story and you should take responsibility for
• 1:00:16
  it, but but it would require you to do some trickery.
• 1:00:21
  Right, Yeah, yeah, some tomfoolery.
• 1:00:25
  It's interesting too. Like, you know, I think one of
• 1:00:29
  the beautiful things about Heathenry to me is, is, is how,
• 1:00:36
  you know, fallible the gods are like, they're not perfect.
• 1:00:39
  They, they have aspects or qualities that in a, in a, in a
• 1:00:45
  very like dualistic mindset is, well, that's inherently bad.
• 1:00:50
  That's inherently good. The things that they may do,
• 1:00:53
  even, you know, Odin, the chief of the gods, you know, has
• 1:00:56
  things about, like you read about in some of the stories
• 1:00:58
  that are like, I don't know, man, that sounds pretty.
• 1:01:01
  That sounds pretty sketch. You know, it doesn't sound like
• 1:01:03
  a good thing, but when you get out of that mindset and realize
• 1:01:08
  that you know good and right and wrong and good and evil, right
• 1:01:10
  and wrong, like it was situational.
• 1:01:13
  It was, of course, the stories written at a time when things
• 1:01:17
  were a bit different anyways, socially speaking and culturally
• 1:01:20
  speaking. But you get an understanding and
• 1:01:22
  a realization that it wasn't such a one or the other
• 1:01:27
  dualistic approach. It was, well, what's good for
• 1:01:31
  the moment? What's going to make you know or
• 1:01:34
  what you know? I I think that that very
• 1:01:39
  important part of that religion is violence and our how we
• 1:01:46
  relate to violence. And in the Congregation of the
• 1:01:51
  Smiling God, we kind of weave the narrative that Loki was
• 1:01:56
  tired of the violence and that's why he sought this transition.
• 1:02:00
  But the transition was of course very violent.
• 1:02:04
  But if you look at Thor and Odin, they are, they're very
• 1:02:10
  violent gods. And the narrative of the Viking
• 1:02:14
  and as he takes what he wants is a very violent narrative.
• 1:02:19
  And we've been distanced from the, the narrative of, of
• 1:02:23
  violence to the point that we can all agree that there should
• 1:02:26
  be absolutely no violence. But somehow the police and the
• 1:02:29
  military are important and we, we have very hard time of
• 1:02:35
  consolidating how we can both be violent and doing, defending
• 1:02:41
  ourselves so against, I mean, predators or or capturing
• 1:02:44
  animals or or killing people who wants to kill you with the fact
• 1:02:50
  that we all want to be these peace loving people who never
• 1:02:54
  hurt anyone. And it just doesn't fit
• 1:02:57
  together. And somehow this is very
• 1:03:01
  convenient for the, for anyone, a king who rules you and that
• 1:03:05
  all the people that he rules are passive, that they never do
• 1:03:09
  violence because violence is wrong.
• 1:03:12
  And I'm not saying that violence is good in any way, but I'm
• 1:03:15
  saying that there is a narrative that demands that you had some
• 1:03:19
  kind of relation to violence and that you understand what it
• 1:03:24
  means to be a warrior and what it means to to we have such
• 1:03:31
  terrible force. And I think this is what the
• 1:03:34
  gods, when we're talking about them in terms of bad and good,
• 1:03:38
  try to communicate to us. But some of that message has
• 1:03:43
  been lost, of course, so we need to reinterpret it.
• 1:03:47
  Yeah, or I wonder if again, the, the way the stories were written
• 1:03:53
  at the time, you know, how, how stories can change overtime,
• 1:04:01
  whether by design or whether by accident, right.
• 1:04:04
  Like how much of the, the context of things gets missed or
• 1:04:09
  skewed at a particular time and then it gets rewritten to fit
• 1:04:14
  the narrative at the time, right.
• 1:04:16
  The, the, the, the approach, the agenda or whatever, 'cause you
• 1:04:19
  know, we know, you know, who writes the, who writes the
• 1:04:22
  stories and who keeps the record of the, the big important
• 1:04:25
  things. It's, you know, a lot of people
• 1:04:27
  would say that it's, you know, politically driven or, you know,
• 1:04:30
  whatever, you know, Like the, the, the, you, the stories that
• 1:04:33
  we hear are the versions of that story that were preserved
• 1:04:36
  because of the thing that was happening at the time or
• 1:04:40
  whatever, you know. Yeah.
• 1:04:42
  And I, I think there's also things that never change or
• 1:04:46
  hasn't changed so far, and that is that we are predators and
• 1:04:50
  that we are dangerous and that we are inherently violent and we
• 1:04:56
  should not forget it. We should respect it and we
• 1:04:59
  should understand it. And when we are trying to
• 1:05:04
  distance ourselves too far from our nature, we tend to make
• 1:05:07
  terrible mistakes and everyone suffers.
• 1:05:12
  And we need to kind of find that balance and understand the the
• 1:05:20
  reasons for why we can uphold civilization, basically.
• 1:05:25
  And it's not an easy conversation.
• 1:05:27
  And that's why we need these metaphors, these stories within
• 1:05:30
  stories to kind of help us to guide this.
• 1:05:34
  Yeah. It's like there's so many
• 1:05:37
  different ways of saying it, but you know, it's, it's, you know,
• 1:05:43
  a dangerous person isn't the one that's necessarily, you know,
• 1:05:49
  it. We have to be dangerous.
• 1:05:50
  We have to be the capabilities of violence should be there,
• 1:05:53
  right? Having your sword sheath, not
• 1:05:55
  that you're out just swinging it around like a madman and and
• 1:06:00
  wiping everything out in the process, but that you're capable
• 1:06:03
  of doing it when the time comes. It's it's having that.
• 1:06:08
  Yeah, well, even capable of not doing it when when you feel the
• 1:06:12
  time comes. I mean, confident warrior
• 1:06:17
  doesn't necessarily need to draw a sword every time he's
• 1:06:20
  insulted. He knows what he does and what
• 1:06:23
  he can do. So.
• 1:06:25
  So being confident in wielding your sword might also make you
• 1:06:30
  very tolerant because you know where the bound, where the
• 1:06:35
  boundaries are and and losing sight of those boundaries might
• 1:06:39
  make you very scared because you wouldn't want to cross term
• 1:06:43
  unknowingly, right? Right.
• 1:06:47
  Well, I think that's a, that's an interesting observation too.
• 1:06:50
  Is, is how much of are the, how much of these seemingly bad
• 1:06:54
  traits, right. Violence and things, these
• 1:06:57
  actions are triggered by fear in many, in many ways, you know
• 1:07:01
  what I mean? Like it's a response out of
• 1:07:04
  fear. I'm scared, I'm threatened, I'm,
• 1:07:07
  you know, whatever. And so we've become violent in
• 1:07:10
  whether it's physical or, or psychological or whatever, you
• 1:07:14
  know, that's kind of a, a tendency to, to, to, to become
• 1:07:19
  entrapped in, you know, and how much of A, how, how stronger of
• 1:07:25
  a warrior are you to know that you're scared in at the moment,
• 1:07:28
  but not to react out of, with violence, out of that fear
• 1:07:32
  unnecessarily. Yeah, well, prematurely the.
• 1:07:36
  I mean, the story of Loki being captured in in Hillheim with
• 1:07:42
  poison thrown into his eyes is a story of restrain as well.
• 1:07:49
  He's kept up right by Segan, who is literally progress and and
• 1:07:58
  success from you could interpret this.
• 1:08:01
  If you have having a successful work, you can kind of accumulate
• 1:08:05
  a lot of attacks and and wait for the right opportunity.
• 1:08:10
  So that that's one way of looking at the story as well.
• 1:08:13
  So. So it's not patience.
• 1:08:17
  Yeah. So even if you are the good guys
• 1:08:21
  and you need to strike against evil, sometimes you need to be
• 1:08:24
  tolerant and wait for the right opportunity because we're not
• 1:08:29
  fighting to win the war. We're fighting to win the peace
• 1:08:32
  every time. And that's that's something that
• 1:08:37
  needs to be learned. I was going to ask too about
• 1:08:42
  with, you know, Loki being such a central figure in in this, how
• 1:08:47
  much did Segan get involved with like the congregation of the
• 1:08:51
  Smiling God? How much of of Segan's
• 1:08:55
  involvement with the binding of Loki in the stories?
• 1:08:58
  How much does her story get forgotten about when we talk
• 1:09:04
  about Loki? Because she doesn't really get a
• 1:09:05
  lot of mentions in the lore, you know, we know she was there and
• 1:09:11
  she, it's like she, she's not the one that did anything, but
• 1:09:15
  she was linked to Loki. And so she was faithful to him
• 1:09:21
  and, and, and was there to serve a purpose for him when he was
• 1:09:25
  bound, even though she wasn't guilty of doing anything at all.
• 1:09:29
  She just by association, she was there with him and sort of in a
• 1:09:33
  way imprisoned alongside him. Yes.
• 1:09:39
  And how much in a valuable lesson can that be, you know, to
• 1:09:42
  to be faithful and to be committed to your loved ones,
• 1:09:47
  you know, despite what they do and.
• 1:09:49
  And this this creates a very beautiful bridge into Freya and
• 1:09:53
  and our belief on how she helped Loki to escape those shackles.
• 1:10:01
  So, so that's, that's an interesting story construct
• 1:10:08
  which has many stories to be told.
• 1:10:11
  And my my favorite is to to look at her as the love for work, the
• 1:10:19
  love for doing things the correct way, the love for doing
• 1:10:24
  good business, the love for being a nerd and, and have
• 1:10:31
  success in that and, and having the success carry you through
• 1:10:34
  difficult times. Yeah, 'cause when you're
• 1:10:39
  committed to, you know, and when you're committed in your
• 1:10:42
  convictions, like there's, there's some comfort in that.
• 1:10:45
  You know, you're not, you're not so easily shaken or, you know,
• 1:10:49
  by what somebody says or anything.
• 1:10:51
  You know, you're confident in that, in your.
• 1:10:53
  Yeah, it will be. Your shield against the poison
• 1:10:55
  into your eyes, basically. Oh, yeah, So here we go again
• 1:11:00
  with the metaphors, right? A literal literally catching the
• 1:11:03
  poison that the heat from dripping in his eyes.
• 1:11:06
  Metaphorically that. Yeah.
• 1:11:08
  Wow, that's neat. I never thought of it that way
• 1:11:13
  like that. Man.
• 1:11:16
  How can people learn more about the congregation of the Smiling
• 1:11:19
  God? Is there any information online
• 1:11:22
  or or a group or anything that people can can find out about
• 1:11:27
  this? So the, the public chapter is in
• 1:11:30
  the north of Sweden in the village where I live currently
• 1:11:34
  in Villa Nina. You can go visit of course.
• 1:11:39
  And also there is a place on Facebook if you search for the
• 1:11:45
  Liam, the Gudon in Swedish. I I can write it in a chat and
• 1:11:48
  you can perhaps put it in somewhere.
• 1:11:51
  Yeah, I think you emailed me a link to a Facebook group, maybe.
• 1:11:55
  If that's it. I don't know if that's the same
• 1:11:57
  one. Yeah, there it is.
• 1:12:02
  Yeah, the Linden Gooden, Sam. The Liam the Gooden Sam food.
• 1:12:07
  OK, OK, yeah, I got. So that's the congregation of
• 1:12:10
  the smiling God basically. And there's an explanation of of
• 1:12:14
  what we do and how we look at things and also reference to the
• 1:12:18
  to the rules of the congregation.
• 1:12:20
  If you want to join it. And there are otherwise, it's
• 1:12:25
  it's a playground you because it's the Lord of storytelling.
• 1:12:30
  You just write the story of whatever you like and it's
• 1:12:34
  considered to be off an offering to the Lord of Storytelling.
• 1:12:39
  Gotcha. Yeah.
• 1:12:40
  And obviously the you know, it's predominantly in Swedish.
• 1:12:43
  So for any non-native Swedish speakers, I guess you know, you
• 1:12:47
  can use whatever translating services that can help you get
• 1:12:52
  the gist of, like the group rules and the about section.
• 1:12:54
  But I think there's also English translations already there too
• 1:12:59
  for for English speakers, right? Yes, yes, we have some English
• 1:13:03
  speakers over there. I mean, so it's public for the
• 1:13:06
  reason of reaching out and and finding this community inspired
• 1:13:10
  by things like Meet God musings. So that's why it's therefore to
• 1:13:16
  kind of make these connections. Awesome.
• 1:13:19
  Well I will definitely be linking that for for people that
• 1:13:22
  want to check it out. It'll be in the show notes of
• 1:13:25
  the audio podcasts as well as the description area for the
• 1:13:31
  Patreon viewers such as yourself and others that like to watch
• 1:13:34
  these shows. So all that information will be
• 1:13:39
  linked for easy access. People can check it out, their
• 1:13:43
  convenience. So yeah, this is great.
• 1:13:47
  Christopher. I appreciate your time today.
• 1:13:49
  I think was there anything else that you know kind of was on
• 1:13:53
  your mind to want to talk about more with regards to this or?
• 1:13:57
  Oh, I, I feel that this is, this is a conversation that you can
• 1:14:00
  talk for hours and hours, but I guess we need to, to put a stop
• 1:14:05
  somewhere. But I'm, I'm really happy that
• 1:14:08
  you wanted to have me here in your show and, and talk about
• 1:14:12
  this. I find it really interesting and
• 1:14:15
  I, it was a very pleasant conversation.
• 1:14:17
  So thank you. Yeah, it was definitely fun for
• 1:14:20
  me as well. Again, there were things about,
• 1:14:24
  you know, really, it really sparked some thought in me about
• 1:14:29
  Loki and just the the whole dynamic, you know, that he plays
• 1:14:33
  and the role that he plays. And hopefully it does the same
• 1:14:36
  for for others as well, especially for those that maybe
• 1:14:40
  have kind of limited or, or imprison their own selves in
• 1:14:45
  the, the thoughts of, of Loki and his involvement.
• 1:14:51
  I've always said that, you know, you can have a way of thinking
• 1:14:56
  and that's fine. And then if your way of thinking
• 1:14:58
  is, is challenged to a point where you realize I need to
• 1:15:02
  rethink my strategy here. I need to rethink things a
• 1:15:04
  little bit. Then that's, you know, we should
• 1:15:06
  be mature and big enough to be like, maybe I was wrong or maybe
• 1:15:10
  not wrong per SE, but just I got a new perspective on on looking
• 1:15:14
  on things. And so I think something like
• 1:15:16
  this for the topic especially really gives some some people
• 1:15:21
  some things to think about. And I appreciate that.
• 1:15:25
  I appreciate you want to come on here and and talk about it.
• 1:15:28
  And like you said, this could be something that could go on for
• 1:15:31
  hours, I'm sure. And maybe maybe we get a Part 2,
• 1:15:35
  you know, follow up episode on this and we can get into some
• 1:15:38
  more philosophical or metaphorical things with with
• 1:15:42
  regards. I would love that, thank you.
• 1:15:44
  Yeah, so kind of like a Part 2 or follow up.
• 1:15:47
  So yeah, we'll definitely consider that.
• 1:15:50
  I'd love to have you back on the show and talk more about it and
• 1:15:53
  expound on it some more. But yeah, for now, I think
• 1:15:57
  we'll, we'll go ahead and, you know, wrap it up if you want to
• 1:16:01
  just hang on here with me for just a moment while I do the,
• 1:16:05
  the, the outro and I'll touch base with you once we start
• 1:16:09
  recording here. So thank you, Christopher, for
• 1:16:11
  being my guest and thank all of you folks for listening and
• 1:16:15
  watching to this episode. Be sure to check out the
• 1:16:18
  Congregation of the smiling God there on Facebook and check it
• 1:16:22
  out. See what you know, if it's
• 1:16:24
  interesting to you and what you want to offer to the group and
• 1:16:27
  be in alignment with the, the group rules so that that that
• 1:16:31
  Facebook group will be LinkedIn, the show notes and description
• 1:16:34
  area of the show. So check it out.
• 1:16:37
  Also, don't forget to check out all the ways that you can
• 1:16:39
  support the podcast. Click the link tree link that's
• 1:16:41
  annotated there as well. Follow me on all the socials if
• 1:16:45
  you want, become a patron on Patreon to see the video
• 1:16:47
  versions. You can buy merchandise through
• 1:16:50
  spring. All of that's there in that link
• 1:16:52
  tree link. So check it out and anything
• 1:16:55
  that fits you, be sure to to follow through with that.
• 1:16:59
  And thank you as always for all of your support.
• 1:17:02
  It's greatly appreciated. So until we talk to each other
• 1:17:05
  again, may the gods continue to notice you, and may your
• 1:17:09
  ancestors smile upon you, and we'll see you in the next one.