Loki as an "Instrument" of Fate
I understand Loki as an “instrument of fate” in the sense Sayers (2016) describes. This understanding is based on an event in my life in which I experienced what felt like an influencing force within the weave of fate, and which I now understand and can describe in relation to Loki. The event in question concerns a time when I had tentative plans to visit a gay bar on a Friday evening, but because I had a headache I decided to stay home. Then it was as though something began pulling at me. I would not say that I felt controlled, but I experienced an inexplicable motivation that outweighed the headache. I was close to turning back several times on my way to the bus, but ended up going to the bar after all, where I met the man who is now the love of my life. Even now, I sometimes find it unsettling to consider how differently my life might have unfolded if I had turned back home that evening.
Even before reading Sayers’ article, through personal experience, my own interpretation of myth, and UPG, I had come to understand Loki as closely connected to fate. I understand the Norns as those who weave fate, while Loki interacts with the threads. I also found it striking that Sayers uses the expression “dirty work,” because that is the exact same phrase I myself have used, though I had thought of it as the Norns’ “dirty work” rather than the gods’.
I do not understand fate as a single predetermined line, but rather as a weave of conditions, in which some knots are more significant than others. That I and my partner were meant to meet may have been such a knot, and when I came close to missing it, I interpret this as a moment in which Loki may have stepped in. In this case, I understand that influence as positive, though I do not assume that such interventions are always benign, since they may also take difficult or disruptive forms. Even in this instance, what I understand as a positive intervention also disrupted an earlier life pattern and required significant reorientation.
These conclusions have emerged through reflection on lived experience, personal gnosis, and my own interpretation of myth, all of which led me to understand Loki not as fate itself, but as a force that may act within decisive knots in the weave of fate. This interpretation makes the most sense to me because it allows me to hold together both free will and larger patterns of meaning, while also resonating with how I have experienced Loki in my own practice.
Sources
Sayers, W. (2016) ‘Norse “Loki” as Praxonym’, Journal of Literary Onomastics, 5(1).