There’s a bit of backstory involved in this, so I will try to catch everyone up.
Around Halloween, a Wyoming collegiate atheist organization decided it would be HI-larious to pull a prank create an art installation of tombstones of all the Gods that have “died” (meaning, ceased having an active cultus), with the a punchline of “What makes you think Jehovah or Allah isn’t next?”
I guess these “scholastic” atheists have somehow never seen the word “Pagan” before, or maybe they couldn’t get laid by one so they don’t count? They recognize Christianity and Islam as being “alive”. So, anyway, a bunch of Pagans got pissed. Some more than others. There are a ton of essays about this on the web, so you’re left to do your own homework if you really want to dive down that rabbit hole.
In a move I found touching, Sannion and Galina, the hosts of Wyrd Ways Radio, decided to use their January 1st show to read aloud prayers and poems written for as many of the Gods from the graveyard as they could get submissions for. I got that familiar tap on the back of the head immediately, and it wasn’t at all subtle:
Del, look at that gravestone. It says “Loki”, but it’s a picture of Tom Hiddleston and it says I was in that movie. Can you set them straight for me?
I took this to mean that He wanted me to write a poem that very clearly stated that Marvel!Loki is a modern epithet of Odin’s Trickster, and nothing we purists can do will change that now. I took a long time meditating how to pay homage to this supervillain with antennae that has, for better or worse, led so many to an ancient Norse Deity. (And that’s why I got a little miffed when, on the show, they read a prayer for “Loki” after my submission, completely missing the point that I was worried was overly played and too heavy handed, but I guess I failed in the other direction!)
Anyway, without further grumbly cane-shaking (at both the atheists and my failure to be more obvious), here is what I submitted.
A Prayer Poem For The Incarnation of Loki
As Interpreted By Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby
for the God Graveyard Prayer Project on Wyrd Ways Radio
We yearn from the darkness of memory
With the aetherial company of others forgotten
Wisps of energy pushing and pulling
Wyrd of Words, Phrases, Epithets,
Wanting nothing more than recognition,
Worship, Sacrifice, even if it is merely
Whispered into the ear of a
Writer, an Artist, a Colorist, a Penciler.
Ignition,
Inspiration,
Integration
Into an existing world of
Idols, those whose tales
Inform and excite,
Incite young and old to
Intone the names forgotten.
Alive!
Awareness seeded into a culture,
Anewed cultus, thirsty for each new
Adaptation of stories so mangled,
Addled by monks,
Amorphous oral interpretations
Altered moral allegories
Anti-hero becomes villain
Amended for a new age
(And to sell more comic books.)
Tales, even brand new ones
Trigger our collective consciousness
To recall that name –
That Other mien,
Then begin a quest
Take a cultural image, face, name
Trace back to its roots
Thirst for Mimir’s Well
The truest meaning of “source material”.
Ignition,
Inspiration,
Integration
Into an existing world of
Idols, those whose tales
Inform and excite,
Incite young and old to
Intone the names forgotten.
Inform a new generation
Induct a new cultus
Introduce Old Gods
Imminent Gods.
My God is
Merely Amused by a
Movie or Graphic Novel, not Insulted.
Muses work in the
Milleu they know best.
Monks write tomes,
Motion Picture People
Make Scripts, Super Heroes.
Modern tomes hold new bridges to old
Mythologies waiting to be found.
All Hail the Father of Many Faces!
All Hail the God of Modernity!
All Hail The Jotun Guide that Shows Man The Way to Yggdrasil!
All Hail the Comic Book Villain who Laughs At His Own Depiction!
All Hail the God Bigger Than Any One Tale Can Hold!
All Hail Marvel Loki!
All Hail Marvel Loki!
Hail Loki!
Hail Loki!
Sex, Gods, and Rock Stars 