A Grove of Ashes and Aspens

Now Playing: The Ghosting by Elvenking

So as a baseline, most pagans will generally agree that gender is weird. I mean, just look at the average pagan gathering, each one I’ve ever seen has been two berries short of a fruit basket. But what does that actually mean in terms of our experiences and UPGs with various deities?

Drawing on my own experience here, I have three deities that I primarily work with, those being Loki, Bragi, and Cernunnos. (Strange mix, I know, but it works, I promise.) Bragi is pretty standard as far as gender goes in my experience, being the very average wife guy. But what about the other two?

Loki is probably the better known case of gender fuckery in the realm of pagan deities. They are quite the character, putting it simply. Most will know of their nature as a trickster from various books and TV shows that include a depiction of Loki, and though there is the understanding that it is all fictional, not everyone will have the familiarity with the myths that many Heathens and scholars will have to understand how far these depictions can diverge from the myths. (I would like to make it clear here that I think having depictions of deities in books and shows and shit is not something I’m against. I’d rather just have the understanding out there that these depictions are fictional and creative liberties are almost always taken to some extent, which is a topic for another time.) Marvel’s depiction of Loki is probably the most generally well known understanding of the deity, being in one of the most popular both comic book and film franchises of recent years. (One minor gripe I do have with this is that they made him Thor’s adoptive brother, when in the myths, he’s Odin’s blood brother, but oh well. Creative liberties and all that.) Marvel has, as of a few years ago, confirmed that Loki is genderfluid in the show, which as far as representation is concerned, is very cool, and also has some level of basis in myth.

But how does this relate to my practice? Well, Loki has been known in modern Heathen circles to keep up the gender fuckery, with some Heathens using various sets of pronouns for the deity. The way Loki tends to show up in my own UPGs tends to vary gender wise, and I will vary my pronoun usage accordingly. Recently, the deity has been appearing very neutrally to me, so I’ve been using primarily neutral pronouns, with the occasional masculine pronoun. Loki has appeared in a feminine form to me in the past though, and in instances where they present as so, I will use (and have used) feminine pronouns, though it was interesting to essentially see the feminine form of a specific singer with the way the bastard has chosen to appear to me.

But what about Cernunnos? That’s a tricky instance, because there is far less of a precedent for them playing around with gender fuckery. (And, in all fairness, the gender fuckery is a lot more chill here.) I tend to get vibes somewhere between masculine and neutral for them, with a preference towards neutral terms, but with occasional preference for masculine terms. Now, to my knowledge, there is no precedent in the myths for this, but mythic literalism is also not something I care for in any serious capacity.

Now, other people will absolutely have other experiences with these deities. Gender is weird, especially in paganism where deities and spirits are concerned. These are just a couple examples from my own practice, and there are about as many examples of gender being weird with deities as there are pagans. (Ask ten pagans a question and you’ll get eleven answers.) If Loki uses only one set of pronouns for some people, but then wants fluid pronoun use from others, then it really be like that sometimes.