Mordgud, Who Bars My Way
by Ljot Lokadis
Writing an essay like this one is always kind of dangerous,
because I think that whenever we speak about or write about experiences of the
gods through times of genuine pain and suffering, it can plant a desire in the
reader to deeply suffer (not "perform ordeal work", but actually
suffer) in order to meet a deity. That is explicitly NOT my intent
here. Please do not engage in self-harm behaviors (distinct from healthy,
sane ordeal work) or suicide attempts in order to contact Mordgud or any other
wight, or to see if They’ll rush to your aid. Do not hesitate to seek the
gods out if you are suffering, but don’t put yourself in harm’s way.
This is not some kind of safe cozy CYA legal disclaimer, but instead a
statement of real sincere concern. No one should go through what I went
through, if it can be helped. - LL
As soon as I met the gods, what had been a low-grade sort of malaise in my life
started to fester into a deep depression. (Before you worry: With
the help of time, immense amounts of psychospiritual self-work, the gods, and
an analyst, I’m doing a lot better -- not completely out of the woods yet, but
better.)
I know people who handle their depression very well, and I wish I were one of
those people. My depressions are deep dank putrefactions I can’t find my
way out of. I don’t just fail to eat right, or fail to sleep right, or
fail to go to work. I do myself harm, and eventually my episodes of
depression culminate in suicide attempts.
They’ve done this six times, by my count. It’s very routine, by
now. I get a bee in my proverbial bonnet, and the gods make contact with
me and instruct me that I am in no way, shape, or form allowed to follow
through with this. I inform Them precisely where They can shove it – I
love Them dearly, even then, but my pain is too great for me to care -- and
proceed to remove all removable marks of spiritual devotion on my person, and
either shroud up my shrines or turn them to the wall.
A few days later I’m sitting there with a loaded gun. Or I’m standing at
the tracks with the train approaching. Or I’ve got the window open and
I’m looking down 13 storeys. Or I have 20 grams of Tylenol neatly lined
up on my kitchen counter.
There are no gods in that moment to tell me no; my spiritual senses are all
numb. There is no one there to stop me, and that hurts very, very much.
What hits me, instead, is wyrd. Everything feels very real,
suddenly; my skin prickles, my eyes sting, colors are brighter and suddenly my
senses quite literally return. I am aware that I am standing on a massive
cusp, a pivotal moment that can’t be erased if I make the decision that I want
to. It is easy to talk about wyrd in abstractions or theory – just as it
is easy to think of death as abstract pretty notions rather than down-and-dirty
physiological processes. But even if death couldn’t scare me off, wyrd
hits hard, and Something stops me.
I put the pills or the gun away, or I shut the window, or I feint away from the
oncoming train at the last minute. I make an appointment with a
therapist. I make some phone calls to friends and loved ones. In a
few weeks when my shame’s worn off I unveil my shrines and I apologize. (They take me back – grudgingly – bitterly. They always have, and I am
grateful to return home to divine service.)
Every time it’s a different way, but the same result. In my more
miserable moments, this is just another source of despair: I try so hard,
and I can’t even do this right. Nothing works. Every method
fails. Why do I fail?
* * *
Mordgud was not there from the start. She’s a late addition to my life,
only in the last six months or so, but an important one. It was the
prayer on Raven’s Northern Tradition beads that brought Her to my attention at
all:
In the name of Mordgud, guardian of the gate,
May my barriers of darkness open at the touch of my hand.
And I knew that I would end up working with Her. It was obvious.
There was a pull there.
It took me years to finally reach out, though. I had been doing
journeying for years and years and I finally fared forth to see Her, at Loki’s
behest one night, while I was sane and healthy.
A lot of the gods, as I know Them, will happily traipse around the Nine Worlds
and meet me most anywhere. Not Mordgud. There is only one place
where I can find Her, and that is on the Hel-Road – at Her tower, or
intercepting me on the path.
She is very straightforward, as well. Many gods, even the ones for whom I ache
with love, will yank my chain a little and lead me in circles until I come
to an answer myself – sometimes for years. Again: not
Mordgud. She tells me what to do and tells me why. Even if it’s
mysterious to others, it’s clear to me and Her. There are very few
exceptions to the rules She gives me, and if there are She delineates them
clearly and stays in close contact about what I can or should do and what I
can’t.
And so with that in mind – and keeping in mind how few gods are straightforward
with me -- I was pretty surprised when I showed up at the gates and Mordgud
informed in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t allowed into Helheim.
What! I thought. What sort of a badass seidhworker am I
supposed to be, if I can’t even go into Helheim! -- as though that’s what
it’s all about, right?
Mordgud coolly informed me that even though this was the first time I’d seen
Her, She had seen me for ages. I had a nasty, nasty habit of loitering at
the gates, even though I wasn’t allowed in yet. To fare forth and visit
Helheim, for me, would be another flirtation with early death. Some
people could take that and come back healthy, but I couldn’t; it would create
in me yearnings that are dangerous. I’m incarnated for a purpose, She
told me, I have work to do, and many gods and wights have put enormous
amounts of effort into making sure that I’m on the path to being an excellent
spirit-worker someday. I have to stick around. And I could try to
off myself, but it would never, ever work, not until I was ready to come
through the gates. She was kind of sick of having to head me off at the
pass all the time, she said, could I please just stay away?
In the interest of keeping me from stumbling onto the Hel-Road accidentally,
She laid down ground rules, lovingly known as taboos, to forbid me certain
activities that aren’t healthy for me. They wouldn’t keep me happy or
sane, necessarily – Mordgud doesn’t deal with happiness or healthiness, just
insides and outs – but they’d keep me from nearing death. If I found
myself suicidal anyway and tried to off myself … well, She’d pick me up by the
scruff of my neck and drag me off the Hel-Road. As She always had. She explained to me that She would be talking to her boss to get the
No-Entering-Helheim rule made official, and She was certain Hela would
agree. (There’s that matter-of-factness again.)
I accepted the taboos – not that I’m sure that I ever had a choice – and I
left. A few hours later I had a crushing final feeling, as one of the
Nine Worlds was sealed off to me by divine fiat.
* * *
It kind of stings (and it feels like an indictment) to be a spirit-worker who
can’t visit Helheim (or, I think, any cosmology’s underworld, without explicit
purpose or direction). But it’s in the name of survival – and surviving,
for me, is an act of discipline. Staying alive is my spiritual work and
my ordeal. Guardians like Mordgud allow safe passage, but they also keep
insides in, and outsides out. I’m an outsider, despite my protracted
attempts to become an insider.
I would be lying if I said that I have been completely upright in following
these taboos. One day, after breaching taboo (the only time I’ve done
it), my hand slipped while working with a blunt instrument at my altar, and
against all probability I cut myself open. I daubed the wound with cloth
and gave the blood to Mordgud, with apologies that She begrudgingly accepted,
although She seemed to think I was awfully stupid for all of this. (I am
looking at the fresh pink scar on my hand now; it matches thin silver
knife-scars on my wrists.) Many people report that Mordgud takes blood
offerings, at least from those who cross the gates. She does not seem to
be particularly interested in that from me, by virtue of the pain I bring
myself already. But at least here, I figured, I could give her this gift
in apology, and acknowledgment that I screwed up.
There is a troubling aspect to this, philosophically and cosmologically.
I fail, repeatedly, due to Mordgud’s care and wyrd’s weave … but others
succeed, or are pulled into Helheim before their work is through. Am I
more beloved? Is my work more important than theirs?
Alternately: Are they more beloved than I am, that they can go where they
please?
I don’t think any of these things are true, at all. I don’t think
Mordgud or Hela chose or didn’t choose me. I think it’s wyrd, plain and
simple. I am here, outside, and they are inside. I cannot fathom
why that is, but so wyrd unfolds, in all its mystery and its pitilessness.
* * *
As I write this I feel myself slowly circling the drain again, as it
were. I’m on the edges of a low-grade depression, the sort where I can
still get out of bed in the morning and go to work and pray and do trancework
and other things. I’m alive, but I’m hurting, and even though I’m here
and I know I’m doing good work, I wish dying were an option – the life-long
attraction-repulsion dance of the perennially suicidal.
Mordgud sees me haunting around the gate, I know. She won’t let me in
until I’m good and ready.