tw: eldritch horror, I guess?
Loki, The Void of Chaos and Ginnungagap - an Personal Gnosis Reflection
As I mentioned here before, one of the very common forms I see Loki is... Void. More specifically, an Eldritch Form of Void - Darkness, too many eyes and teeth, limbs twisting and turning where they should not, the perpetual feeling of drowning and being swallowed whole. His voice echoes from everywhere and the pure energy is so that you truly feel like nothing else exists except... Him.
We also know that, to me, Loki is a primordial god. The pure force of Chaos itself - like the titan Cháos would be to the Hellenic, and the nothingness before the Big Bang would be on a scientific level. He just... is.
So it got me thinking, right? There's many, many associations that could be seen as Loki on the Eddas and Sagas, even if the names are different or most modern interpretations see as different beings - Lopt, for once, or the primordial Jotunn, Logi as the pure energy or fire - existing even before than Odin himself. But, what if we went further back? Loki is a shape shifter and, as I see it, it seems all that happens in the Sagas is all going according to his plan. He could change things, intervene... Odin himself respects him as someone powerful as to be both feared and respected - and we all know blood pacts aren't common there. If Odin did a blood pact with Loki, it was for something. Loki, as the entity Loki that is seen in the Sagas is indeed son of Laufey and Fárbauti - but what if that's just what he presents to be on that particular "reality"(for the lack of a better word)?
Let's talk about Ginnungagap!
First of all, the word itself means "yawning void"
If we take the Voluspá, when the Völva is telling Odin about the creation of the Universe and the Nine worlds, in one of the translations it goes like this:
"There was in times of old, where Ymir dwelt,
nor sand nor sea, nor gelid waves;
earth existed not, nor heaven above, '
twas a chaotic chasm, and grass nowhere."
As someone who's English is not a first language, nor second, I had to go look what chasm meant, and well, it's void. A void of pure chaos. Sounds familiar? Yep.
I do firmly believe Loki exists before all else, being in his full essence, the pure creation energy of chaos known as Ginnungagap. Of course, His energy is divided - a bit here as Logi, a bit there as Lopt, a bit everywhere as Loki as we know it, but it's all the same.
I, in my own Gnosis, believe Loki is The Primordial Force of Creation and Destruction and everything is on his plan, somehow, even if he himself doesn't know it yet. All changes, all moves, all lives and dies and gets reborn. It's chaotic, pure and powerful. As is everything.
I feel so blessed to be part of this force, so whole when I am in His presence - as I am nothing and part of everything all at once. Praised be the Void, holy be the Chaos.