Subtitle: Your UPG is probably totally legit, and here’s why.
I am no expert here, this is all from my gut and from listening to a lot of folks discussing UPG. My personal bias is this: I believe in coming from the lore we have and extrapolating out UPG from there based on reading, personal practice, and journalistic writing analyzing those base texts when accessible. That bias stated, let’s continue.
PART ONE: Polytheism in Norse revival practices.
I feel like I constantly hear people saying things like, Loki came to me, but that opened the door, and now I’ve got Odin (or Sigyn or Angrboda or whomever). Or,Freyja came to me, but now I also have felt needlings from Freyr and/or Njordr. This concept that when we access this pantheon with intention, the relatives of our access point come a-knocking. I feel that most people have experienced this, from what I have read, so I am not going to dwell too much on this point, as it’s mostly a base concept for where I’m going with it.
What all this boils down to, for me, is “Relationships are important in Norse practices.”
PART TWO: Relationship schematics within personal practice.
I am using myself as an example here, but because of the aforementioned, I feel these things are hopefully understandable and/or relatable. Hel came to me first and I have always been hers. But the more I spent time with her, the more it was important for me to understand her in relation to her father; her in relation to her mother; her in relation to her siblings. So, again as an example, Hel brought me to Wolf and Tyr. Hel also brought me to Loki, who brought me to Sigyn and Angrboda. These are not my only ‘connections,’ but again, examples.
But it’s interesting: personally speaking, my relationship with Hel is incredibly intimate—at times feeling like an actual part of her; at times feeling like she’s my mother; at times feeling like a best friend. She is my mother literally in some aspects, so I put this up to a very intimate familial relationship. How I see her is how I would have the knowledge of the kind of person if you had a really solid, supportive, mother relationship. I see her very up close and personal, for lack of better terms. However.
My relationships with Loki is more like a grandfather. He drops in for visits “on holiday” (not literally, I’m speaking about frequency in a perceived ‘standard family dynamic™’) and so does Angrboda. My knowings of Loki are simply not as intimate as someone who has a personal relationship with Loki that is as intimate as mine with Hel. I may know Loki likes coffee, but I don’t know the things he would only tell his closest confidantes—because I’m not one. That doesn’t make me less valuable: it just makes our relationships different.
What this boils down to, for me, is “Just as different people in our lives see different pieces of us— just as who we are to our friends may not be the same as who we are to our distant cousins, or to our grandfathers, or whatever ‘normal’ or ‘fucked up’ dynamic exists—just as that is true for us,” so too is it true for the gods with whom we work.”
PART THREE: How this applies to the multiplicity of UPG.
I want to point this out not to have a ‘who’s the best devotee’-off—That completely misses my point. My point is that if we can acknowledge that our best friend may know that “you only drink coffee when you’re missing your girlfriend,” your grandfather probably doesn’t know that. That doesn’t make your best friend ‘more valuable’ than your grandfather. Each relationship is important.
Not saying you can’t bring those relationships closer or more emotionally intimate, but the degrees of intimacy vary, and with that, information dissemination. So it would follow that while I personally have the ‘grandfather’ level of intimacy with Loki, I probably have different UPG than someone who has a father or best friend level intimacy with him. He is showing us two different faces. This does not make him inauthentic: the moon is still the whole moon, no matter which phase of it in the night sky we are perceiving. The moon is still the moon.
So while there is a base person—for example, if you were to say, Loki is actually someone who would never lie, never think outside the box, and you experience him as the upstanding moral citizen who loves rainbows and the status quo, I’m going to say that’s poor UPG inasmuch as it directly contradicts the only known information we have about him. However, if you tell me that Loki speaks to you of fire while he speaks to me of electricity, I see how these things can co-exist without either one being wrong at all.
The one does not invalidate the other; just different phases of the same moon.
PART FOUR: Complications and lessons.
Then, to add just one more piece to this mix, there is also the question of the faces of our gods. Are you seeing Odin the Wanderer? Odin the Frenzy? Odin the Poet? Odin the most intimidating gunslinger this side of Texas person on Asgard? That also, I think, would change your UPG. I think this is how, for example, Raven Kaldera can say he has an incredibly intimate relationship with Hel as well, but a lot of my UPG does not match his. Reading what he has written, however, it seems he has seen a lot of what I call the Hel Hailstorm aspect, or the face of her that deals in ordeals.
As an alternate example, for me, (using myself specifically again), when I’m giving offerings to Hel As Herself Wholly, I have a set of go-tos (roses, hematite, bones, etc). However, if I want to talk to her in her aspect as someone who deals with ancestor veneration and memoriams, I’m thinking juniper and magpies. When I am thinking of honouring not just her death side but also her living flesh, there’s hummingbirds and rose quartz. I have the intimacy to see all of these sides of her; perhaps some people will only see some, and not all, of the sides.
All of these are simultaneously true.
PART FIVE: Overlap and ‘validation.’
But at the end of the day, someone having different UPG than you means very little. Your relationship with your deities is yours and you are your own spiritual authority. You can pry my association of amethyst and Sigyn from my cold dead hands (and citrine with Loki and so ametrine with Logyn), though I know not many people share that, and I’ve made peace with that.
It’s exciting to find overlap—to me, that just shows me that the relationship I have with Hel is similar to the relationship the other person has with Hel. I was pleasantly surprised with lavenderwrath and I shared so much (though not all) UPG, and bedaelia too. This does not make us more correct, it means that we have seen the same ‘moon phase’ and have the same or a similar intimacy level with her.
It is exhausting to keep that level of intimacy with so many deities—which is precisely why I also keep hearing that people tend to practice around one and branch out honouring in varying degrees other deities that relate to their main deity. I don’t think there is anything wrong withnot having an intense level of intimacy with everyone you honour. There is no way I could dedicate the same intimacy I give to Hel also to Freyr and to Loki and to Skadi. I just can’t.
For me, this is not a shortcoming. For me, it lets me know that someone who who has a closer intimacy to Skadi may have more or different insight. I might be inclined to listen to them ‘first’ and see what resonates for me out of respect and acknowledgement of their experience, but if it doesn’t resonate, I just hold with the fact that that was not the face of the god meant for me to see or the relationship that god desired of me. And frankly, I think that’s beautiful. It makes us all a family tree here on earth, both part of their family and to each other.
And in a strange way, I’m wondering if that is exactly what the gods are asking us to create as we revive this dead religion.
Many people have asked me publicly and privately about how to develop a relationship with the gods. I cannot speak for everyone, but I can certainly give you tips that worked for me.
1. Learn how the gods communicate. There are many ways the gods can communicate with us, and developing the “ear” to hear them is both difficult and important. Some examples are:
Divination - runes, Tarot cards, etc.
Animals - if the gods are associated with an animal (like Anansi with spiders or Ishtar with lions), you might start to see them (or images of them). Pay attention to what they’re doing, but don’t be convinced that every bird or everystray cat is trying to tell you something. Use your discernment.
Weather - like animals, if the gods are associated with a particular kind of weather (Thor with thunderstorms, for example), those might be a good time to reach out to them.
New cravings/interests - you’ve never liked cinnamon before, but now you really want it… but you don’t want to eat it either. What gives? Put it on an altar and see who responds.
Other people - Sometimes the gods use us as mouthpieces, so listen up for when someone says something profound that you don’t expect. Maybe they aren’t the one holding the strings just then.
2. Listen. Once you start paying attention to these things, the gods will communicate more. But you can’t just hear what you want to hear; just because you really want a relationship with Freyja doesn’t mean that she’s going to talk to you just yet. This is okay. Don’t judge what you hear, just hear it.
3. Show that you’re listening. When you realize you suddenly love Mr. Ibis from American Gods and can’t figure out why, reread that part of the story. Or look him up, do some research. Show them that you hear them. In the “godphone” metaphor, it’s you picking up the phone when they call so you can start a dialogue.
4.Ask for help if you need it. So some of this stuff isn’t working for you and you’re frustrated—ask for help. It’s okay to say you don’t have an intuition for this stuff right away. I spent the first three years of my practice praying specifically for the ears to hear their messages, even when I got pretty good at it.
5.Give them gifts. There are so many ways to thank a god for their attention, or ask for it, and just like any human, they really love it! You can:
Offer them food they like
Light incense with a scent they like
Light a candle with their colors
Wear a piece of jewelry to honor them
Write to them (especially true for wordy gods and tricksters)
Do divination
Make projects for them (I’ve made key rings, calligraphy, and illumination projects, while my friends have done devotional embroidery or even research papers for their gods).
Collect jokes (if they enjoy jokes of course)
Wear their colors
Talk about them to others
Share tea/alcohol/water with them
Research them and talk about the results of that research
6. Go back to step 1. Go back to listening. Did they like the jewelry you wore today? It’s okay if they didn’t, just ask them what they’d prefer instead. You develop these relationships like any other.
Lokiverse (Mixology:) A story-driven years-long series project of Loki-focused stories, centered on telling the stories of specific, banded together sections of the multiverse; where Loki and his differing relationships throughout their varied (but often somewhat similar) timelines. Each Universe and or Door has it’s own differing turn of events, with one thing in common: something that allows their Universes to interact, and; at times, when needed: support each other.
“ There are times when the faces beyond that particular threshold are all we have, and all we can have. For some of me, I am better family to myself than any other in our own worlds. “
Let me know if you want to be tagged or removed from tags in asks!
Bolded Titles are the links to the fics on AO3.
Condensing the original down because it was getting crazy-long and Extras will be going for a long time to come. Which means if I don’t? It’s only gonna get bigger and crazier. That said I am also doing like I did with the platovember master list/update post and adding Universe/Door numbers and parts where it applies: and a read more cut to this main post specifically so it doesn’t get too stupid long with the updates in the future.
1. Dappled [Vestibule 1: Door/Universe 6] (pt 2 from platovember) - Confused after Hydra’s exposure and surviving the helicarrier crash, Bucky Barnes finds himself company familiar enough to both sides of his mind to keep him wary of his new ‘friend’. Having been the resulting price of failure where Hydra is concerned; his options boil down to staying with Loki: or going it on his own…
3. Kindred [Vestibule 1 Door/Universe 3] (pt 1)- Bruce is among those ‘visiting’ Loki after the Bifrost is repaired, after giving Tony’s paranoia a little nudge to find a way to get a hold of Thor to do so. The conversations are fairly ‘normal’ when more than one of the others are present. Bruce is starting to lose his patience with the lot he brought with him though. Not that he was given much of a choice.
Meanwhile, his personal interactions with the Trickster? Are… almost unsettling in how calming and unfettered they are by comparison to his interactions with others since his accident, questions aside. To the point that, Banner wants getting his answers underway; but isn’t willing to push -too- much rush to them once that’s accomplished…
4. Mixed Signals [Vestibule 1 Universe/Door 1] (pt 2 from platovember) - When stubborn and distrustful, meets stubborn and distrustful? It makes filling in the gaps a difficult thing. Nearly a week after leaving his throne behind to step between Tony Stark and Bucky Barnes: if Loki is actually going to keep good on another of his ass-backwards bets? Tony wants to make good use of it.
Cambridge, Massachusetts : 1990. About to finish his second degree at M.I.T.; Tony’s social life takes a turn he doesn’t expect in finally meeting his declared Brit-imported rival –Loke Falconwrath– face to face: at what to Stark is the worst possible time and party.
Escaping the clutches of the dreaded Maize Fashion Fangirl Pack becomes a combined effort. One that unfortunately would also leave Tony out in the middle of a semi-rural multi-million dollar neighborhood with a half forgotten surprise in his pocket, if not for the annoyingly charming efforts and ride offered from his usually unlikely partner in said escape.. Maybe.
