Wednesday, September 25, 2013

When a Bunch of Lokeans Take a Car Trip to Pagan Pride Day

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Trust the process. It can be said that Lokeans live in a sea of chaos -- and not always a sea that stems from the source himself. So trust the process. That is what I kept trying to tell myself.

Except when the directions tell you to drive all the way back to "Sweet Road" (On Campus, near Culkin Hall) after being on the east side of Oswego already. And we do so anyway, because we are Lokeans and, deity aside, our acceptance of chaos helps us be both late and lost more often than we want to admit. Which is why the consensus was to follow the directions exactly, for fear of the consequences... 

Last Saturday was the annual CNY Pagan Pride Day, and the first one I'd ever been to. With my campus organization, we arranged to carpool in a first-come, first-serve manner, and so it happened that at least three out of four people in that car were Lokean in one manner or the next. A day that started with a wonky GPS and navigational system kept getting seasoned with a little chaos here, and a little more there -- until, looking back on it all, we found humor.

Kris, Candi, Kat and I decided that once we had recovered our sense of direction, it would be beneficial to stop for coffee. It was at the drive-in window at Dunkin Donuts that the next event occurred. Kris's phone rang, and she answered it just as she pulled around to the pick-up window. Her mom had called -- and us, being on the wrong side of the telephone, only got half the story.

"I thought you were camping all weekend!" Kris exclaimed, rolling her eyes with a sigh. Her shoulders slumped, and the poor cashier awkwardly held our food and beverages suspended in mid-air as the telephone conversation continued. "WHAT? No, why would I have the CAT!? I'm out with friends for the day!" And the chattering continued in this fashion, until nothing made any sort of sense. Kris hung up the phone, and finally took our order from the cashier.
"I left my consent sheets on the dining room table mixed in with my job applications, and now everyone's coming home early from camping to find them," she said. The car was silent as we tried to determine what the actual heck she was talking about. We were still stuck on the fact that her parents were home early, and had thought Kris the sort to leave with cat-in-arms on a weekend adventure. It was Pagan Pride Day, after all -- but come on now.

My cellphone GPS beeped every time Kris went even half a mph over the speed limit. As we were nearing the "motorway," -- as the British-sounding computer-generated voice liked to proclaim -- the speed limit changed to a much higher number -- and the GPS didn't realize this until much later. We contented with a loud, judgmental beeping -- wrong as it was to judge poor Kris, magnet of chaos.

It was only at the gas station bathroom down the road from PPD that Candi realized that our saga might just have a pretty funny title. We were given the "Bathroom Stick" by the station attendant, and on this piece of splintery plywood, a ring of keys that unlocked the bathroom, flew like a flag. Kris left the stick on the bathroom sink -- "DON'T LET THE DOOR CLOSE!" she announced -- "I HAVE LEFT THE STICK ON THE SINK. Let's not lock it in there." And of course, the door slowly began to shut as we all scrambled to get there first and keep it open. When all was said and done, it was Candi that said "See? THIS is what happens when Lokeans take a car trip!" and the realization was greeted with hysterical laughter. Yes -- this was the truth.

So the point of this pointless post? Acceptance of chaos does not always or necessarily mean that Loki himself is causing very minor things to happen. Our theory, all of us on that car trip, might be that in our acceptance of chaos, and in the honoring of the Deity that chose us, we can find not only humor, but lessons in even the hardest bout of unfortunate or awkward events. What did any of this teach us? To trust the process. We got to PPD at the time we wanted, and had a wonderful time -- all the while trying not to get lost, take cats with us, forget our paperwork...ect, ect... Probably these were lessons in not being married to a specific, rigid plan. To go with the flow. To trust that what happens will happen -- and to embrace that chaos in which full, colorful lives will thrive. So, our common Deity is Loki. Yes, he brings us some wild chaos. No, we absolutely didn't pick him. But in all things -- car trip included -- we can begin to understand what lessons that energy can teach.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

So much awesome <3 - Kris

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