A while back I got a very nice e-mail about a poem I wrote in college. The poem itself is nothing special. While re-reading the Norse myths, I was intrigued by Loki's wife. Loki, at the end, is the greatest villian in Norse myth. Before that, though, he was a strong part of the pantheon, the necessary trickster god. And he had a wife and children.
You might say, what kind of woman would marry Loki? Well, there was only one consistent attribute that Sigyn is given in all the myths. "Faithful". Sigyn is faithful to Loki. Hang about, I thought, we're talking about the god of mischief here, why is she so faithful to him?!? After thinking about her, and her role in the latter part of the myths, it occurred to me that she's more than just faithful.
See, after Loki used trickery to kill Balder (and further trickery to make sure he stayed dead), he gave a nice speech about the other gods that exposed all their hypocrisy and human-like weaknesses. Enraged, the Norse Pantheon hunted Loki and his sons down, and used one son to kill the other, then tied Loki in a cave with the entrails of his own son (eeeuuuwww!). Tying up Loki wasn't enough, though. The Norse gods then suspended a serpent dripping venom over Loki's face as a torture. When the venom drips into his face, the pain is so great that Loki shudders causing earthquakes. In order to prevent that, Sigyn holds up a wooden bowl over Loki's face, collecting the poison. Every once in awhile she has to dump it, and there are earthquakes when she does. Eventually, due to the pain, Loki will break free, and Ragnarok will start. (For a good introduction to the Norse myths, check out The Norse Myths by Kevin Crossley-Holland. Once you've been introduced, use the book's bibliography to find even more stuff.)
Sigyn is protecting the world from Loki. She's got this wooden bowl, and she's stopping earthquakes with it. And, if that weren't enough, she's also holding off the apocalypse by keeping Loki from the intense pain that will break him free. One woman, doing all that. Yeah, she's a Norse goddess, but she's got to be one of the most underrated people in all of mythology. She's literally holding Ragnarok in her hands.
So I wrote the poem. The biggest problem with it is the introduction. The Norse myths just aren't well enough known for the poem to make sense without some sort of explanation. I suppose that should have told me that I picked a poor topic for a poem, but my poetry has always been for myself first, and that's who I was writing this one for. This is a story about a woman who has the weight of the world on her shoulders, but does her job. She persists. She makes it through. She is, despite her poor choice of husband, to be admired.
I put the poem in my collection, posted it with the rest when I learned HTML, and forgot about it (mostly). Until I got the very nice e-mail.
The e-mail was from a self-proclaimed Loki worshipper, asking permission to reprint the poem.
My first thought was How on Midgard would anyone be nuts enough to worship LOKI of all the Norse gods?!??? And my second thought was Somebody likes that poem! Cool! I seem to recall responding fairly quickly with a "Sure, just keep my name and the copyright notice with the poem." I don't recall asking why this person was insane enough to worship the Norse god of chaos and evil. I also allowed that, if the audience was familiar with the Norse myths, he could drop the clumsy introduction in his reposting of the poem.
I got back what I recall was an incredible dissertation on my poetry, including the intro itself, that simply blew me away. This guy had found things in my poem that I don't recall trying to state consciously (although I'll admit I could have been putting some of those ideas in subconsciously). I was bowled over by the enthusiasm and joy which my humble little effort had brought, and I know I must have replied in some completely inadequate way to his thoughts. I was reminded of a movie I once saw, you might recognize this, in which a rich guy goes back to college and hires Kurt Vonnegut Jr to write his paper on Kurt Vonnegut Jr's books. The teacher was unimpressed with the paper, and the poor writer was fired. This was how I felt at the moment. My poem was being taken in a completely different direction, and I couldn't keep up. Would I even want to keep up? It obviously brought some sort of joy to someone, and that is a good thing. Who am I to want to stop a good thing?
Coming back down to earth, I was thinking about this incident yesterday when I was going through my links on Site Meter. I was very amused that someone had done a Google Search on "Laura Gjovaag" and I started looking through the links, mostly enjoying them. There's even some pictures of me out there that I didn't realize existed. When I got down to the end of the 100 links I had Google show me, I found a link to a blog that... well, let's say this guy ripped me apart. He made fun of my Aquaman website, implied that I'm some sort of freak for liking Aquaman, and insulted me up one side and down the other. All for my harmless hobby. Think about it. This guy took out the time to rip me to shreds and stomp on the pieces because he thinks my hobby is lame. I got myself worked up into a self-righteous fury. How DARE he say that I'm pathetic when he's the one wasting time insulting someone because of their hobby. I was going to post some truly nasty comments about it when suddenly the memory of the Loki worshippers popped into my head.
Wow, I can sure get worked up over someone thinking I'm insane to like Aquaman, I thought, but think about how I mentally put down the Loki folks when I got that note. True, I didn't post about them and publicly make fun of them, but I sure thought it. After reading about them I understand their stance a little better, something I didn't bother to do when first confronted with the fact that there are people out there who worship Loki.
So my perspective is shifted a little. The Loki folks know that people are going to think them insane. They understand why some undereducated people will consider them little better than Satanists. And frankly, they've got it a lot worse than me. They actually worship Loki... I'm just a fan of Aquaman, a hobbyist. I take Aquaman a lot less seriously than they take Loki.
And, when it comes right down to it, the blogger picking on me because of my Aquaman fandom is simply misdirected. I've been working on that website for over seven years. There's a lot of garbage on it, and there's a lot to laugh at. Because, when you get right down to it, Aquaman is funny. And the history of Aquaman is pretty amusing too. What that guy failed to note is that I KNOW that. He pokes fun at me as if I take all the Aquaman stuff completely seriously, and live my life by the Aquaman code, and spend all my waking hours thinking only about Aquaman. I don't. I do have a lot of emotional baggage invested in that website, and reading someone's gleeful insults at my work is not easy nor comfortable. I won't pretend that it doesn't bother me. But it's hardly the end of the world. And, in this particular case, the guy actually checked out quite a bit of my website. Heh, who's wasting time now?
At the core of it, I've got it easy. Aquaman is a hobby, not a lifestyle, and that's easy to defend. Yeah, he's an easy target for people who don't have the imagination or skill to poke fun at better-liked hobbies, but that just comes with the territory. They consider me lame for liking Aquaman, fine... I can't think of anything much more pathetic in the world of on-line flaming than someone who wastes their creative efforts making fun of Aquaman and his fans.
And so it goes. My poem is still out there, as are the Loki folks. My Aquaman website is out there, as are the hateful insults to it and me. The internet world grows bigger every year, and more folks will join and add their intelligence and stupidity to the whole messy lot. It's a strange virtual world we live in. The rules haven't been worked out all the way. But when I can read the thoughts of a guy in Baghdad thinking about William Gibson, or get a note from a guy in Brazil who also likes Aquaman... I'm thinking it's a good thing. Who am I to want to stop a good thing?
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