How I met Baldr

I want to write about Baldr. This is probably going to be short, and hopefully not too sweet. But really, the chances, they are slim. Because I’ll admit it, I have a huge, huge Deity-crush… on Baldr.

I met Baldr a couple of months ago, when I was meditating and doing journey work with Loki. It was a surprise; when Loki came, He was not alone. There was another presence with Him, something that was quite distinctly not Loki. It didn’t take me long to figure out that the other presence was Baldr. I don’t even know when or how it started, but it just made sense that Baldr should be there.

Now, regarding Baldr, what “the lore” says is full of contradiction, of non-indigenous influence… and what modern heathens and pagans say is full of (post-)monotheistic bias, or conversely but equally unhelpfully, tinted by those exact dualistic thinking patterns that colour Loki as the villain to Baldr’s innocence. And there’s going to be a time to deal with all of this, but not today. This post is about gnosis.

Baldr is radiant — it’s not some white, dazzling light sort of radiance.  I will perhaps always think of dark gold and deepest midnight blue as Baldr’s colours.

Baldr is very different from Loki. I love Loki with all my heart, and I truly find Him beautiful beyond my capacity to put into words; but Baldr is almost too much. We worshippers of Loki say that Loki unites opposites, as the Being of the middle, the miðjungr. We see Him playful one moment, and serious the next; harsh one, and gentle the next; cynical and affectionate. We see Him mad with never-ending, all-encompassing pain and elated with the world. We see gut-wrenching fear. Serenity. Ruthlessness. Regret. Whatever Loki is, He is with everything He has, every fibre of His vast Being. It is intoxicating.

The funniest thing is how Baldr is all these things, too. But with Him, it’s all there, at any given moment.  This doesn’t make sense, because of course it is all present in Loki, too. But perhaps what makes all the difference is how They show Themselves. With Loki, it seems that there is nothing but what He shows at any given moment — just that single-minded smile He flashes. You look at Baldr, and you can see all of it. He is huge, and He shows it.

But He is not perfect. Whoever says that Baldr is perfect has never actually encountered Him. Baldr is scared. And so very fucking courageous. He knows He lives on borrowed time, and please point me to a mortal who cannot relate to that? Do you think Baldr always makes the right decisions? Do you not think He struggles? You can worship perfection, but you won’t be worshipping Baldr, that’s for sure.

It was Loki who introduced us, and at first it was just a moment of presence, of recognition, and of realisation that these two — Loki and Baldr — share something profound. When I saw Them together, I felt Their togetherness as something strong and raw; there were hard edges interlocked, great warmth, and also an alignment of direction, intent, of purpose and understanding.

It is so difficult to even put it into words, because it lasted only a couple of moments. There is much that I have not said, and a lot that I’ve said clumsily about those moments. I don’t know how to explain what went on. What I know is that after that first encounter, I kept returning to Baldr in my thoughts. Of course, I had concerned myself with Him before — more than most Lokean Heathens do, perhaps. During all the time that I knew Loki, He had subtly… yes, subtly!.. nudged me towards an understanding of Himself that naturally led to Him introducing me to Baldr.

Yet, you can perhaps imagine how weirded out I was at first. This was… Baldr getting along with Loki just fine. And Loki being unhelpfully supportive (if there is anyone who can be unhelpfully supportive, it’s Loki). They’re Gods, and just because some story about Them implies that They should, by rights, hate each other’s guts, doesn’t mean that in fact they do hate each other’s guts. I know all this, of course, but it’s still not the same thing to know it and to be caught in the middle of it happening. Or not happening, rather. So, I asked Them for some kind of confirmation that I wasn’t getting it completely wrong. And in the truly subtle (this time, it is sarcasm!) fashion of the Norse pantheon, I got it, mind reeling in disbelief and elation at the same time.

It made me feel ever more drawn to Baldr, of all People. Loki was amused by my Deity-crush and probably even more so by how super-cautious I became.

I have relationships with other Gods, and relationships with Goddesses — but those are less personal, as a rule. I have had my interactions with Odin, and while I had been reluctant there, too, my relationship with Odin never developed beyond a certain level, into anything close. I admit that I feel relieved about that.

Baldr, however… I began to feel connected to Him, began to feel a compulsion to worship and blót Him. It upset and changed some of my spiritual workings, and I began to fear what it meant; I began to worry, wanting to reassert the status quo with Loki — who never budged, but of course never indulged either, until I had worked my own way through (at which point He did indulge, oh boy did He ever).

In all the time I had known Loki, there had only ever been Him, in a way. I had come to think that there is no God or Goddess who could touch me even a fraction as deeply as Loki does. And then Baldr happened, and He did so, effortlessly.

I’m happy, and you, dear readers, are probably going to hear more about Baldr in the future.