To Walk a Pagan Path: Practical Spirituality for Every Day (10 page)

purification before sitting down at the word processor. Pre-

paring a meal? Wash off the miasma from your hands before

you begin cutting and stirring.

BLESSING THE MEAL

Speaking of food, if you sit down to three square meals a day

(and you should) you have three more opportunities to bring

your spirituality into your daily life. Very often today people approach their food almost as an afterthought, with no real

awareness of what they are eating, how it was prepared or

where it came from. Later in this book we will look deeper

into how you can reclaim your connection with the food that

sustains you, but as a first step why not acknowledge each

meal with gratitude?

Who will you express your gratitude to, and how? A sim-

ple verse will come more easily to the lips than a lengthy or

extemporaneous prayer. You may prefer to say something

thoughtful and very specific at a formal feast, such as the

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American celebration of Thanksgiving, but for daily practice

the prayer should be undemanding. It can be as uncompli-

cated as the traditional Christian children’s prayer, “God is

great, God is good, and we thank him for our food.”

Indeed, this prayer can be readily adapted to polytheis-

tic worship by changing the wording from singular to plural.

“The gods are great, the gods are good, and we thank them

for our food.”

I use an adaptation of a prayer directed to the sun and

the earth. My version addresses these as sentient beings: as

Sunne, goddess of the sun, and Herthe, goddess of the earth.

Herthe, who gives to us this food

Sunne, who makes it ripe and good

Sunne above, Herthe below

My loving thanks to you I show

Of course when I am out at a restaurant, I do not stand

up, wave my arms in the air and loudly chant this prayer. In

a public setting it is only civil to consider the sensibilities of others. I am not at all apologetic about my beliefs and practices (why should I be?), but those beliefs do not require me

to act like an oaf. When a display of personal belief would

be inconsiderate, every Pagan path has at least a few symbols

that can be faintly traced on the table or over a dish before

eating. Nobody will have due cause to take offense if your

gesture is subtle. My preference is the symbol of Thunor’s

hammer, marked like this:

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An Irish Pagan might trace the image of a Brigid’s cross.

A Wiccan can trace the pentagram. As with everything else

in your personal practice, the symbol should be a reflection

of your own spirituality.

NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP

Thus began the bedtime prayer I was taught to recite as a

child. One line of the prayer mentioned that I might “die

before I wake”, which was a real possibility, but was never-

theless more than a little creepy for my pre-school imagi-

nation. My parents were monotheists, as were their parents

before them, so the prayer was directed to the Biblical god.

But just because a practice or tradition is Christian does not

mean that it is not also Pagan.

Like morning, the moments before you go to sleep are a

good time to connect with and express your spirituality, but

there are differences. In the morning many of us are barely

coherent, and the events of the day have yet to unfold. This

is why a brief, prepared prayer often works better. The eve-

ning, though, is a time to reflect on what took place during

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the day. There will inevitably be specific things to give thanks for, or to ask for guidance about. A memorized prayer might

be suitable for a small child, but I have found that extempo-

raneous prayer is usually more appropriate in the evening.

Mentally list everything good that happened to you over the

course of the day.

If you cannot think of any good events, you probably

need to dig deeper. It is highly unlikely that you are among

the very few people who never have anything good happen

to them. In my experience, the majority of those who feel

that way do so because they take the good things in their lives for granted. Friends, family, your health, a source of income

(even if this is modest), your home: these are all things to

be thankful for. Today’s Pagans
all
enjoy the blessings of the 21st century. Compared to most of our forebears we live in

luxury. We have light and, in the winter, heat at the touch of

a switch. Food is readily available at the nearest supermarket

regardless of any local drought or pestilence. These are won-

derful blessings.

Happy people are those who notice that their cups are,

indeed, half full. By reflecting on the good things that have

happened throughout the day, and then giving thanks for

those blessings, you can join the ranks of the happy people.

Conversely, a prayer before going to bed is also a good

time to acknowledge the half empty portion of your cup.

Look back on the day’s challenges, and on the mistakes you

made, and ask for guidance. Who exactly you ask guidance

from is your own choice. You might seek guidance from a

god or goddess who you have a personal connection with,

but you may as easily ask your ancestors for advice. Put a

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sprig of rosemary under your pillow so you will remember

any guidance they give you during the night when you awak-

en the following morning.

Since evening is a time for reflection, the bedtime prayer

is also a good place in the day to offer prayers for those in

need. These will usually, probably, be the people of your own

tribe, whether you call this an inhíred or a coven or a kin-

dred, but you may of course pray for anyone. Praying for

others in the evening is another way of acknowledging your

own blessings. It is more difficult to throw yourself a little pity party after you have offered a prayer for those confront-ing truly difficult challenges in their lives.

Children can be encouraged to think of others by hav-

ing them send “moon wishes” in the evening before going

to bed. After tucking your child into bed, ask who he or she

would like to send moon wishes to. You may need to prompt

a very young child with several suggestions, but children very

quickly catch on and enjoy this, naming siblings and other

relatives, as well as school friends, who they would like to

bless. After the child has named all who would receive the

moon blessings, the list of names can be followed with a

prayer such as this:

Mona who shines his light on me,

On field and meadow, on hill and tree,

Mona who shines so bright above,

Bless the folk I know and love.

I direct the moon wish prayer to Mona, the Saxon sover-

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the words to reflect your own spiritual path. All you need to

do is change the name of the moon deity, and perhaps the

gender if your path perceives the moon as a feminine spirit.

An eclectic Pagan (someone who does not follow a specific

path, but instead borrows from different cultures) could even

direct this in a more generic way, saying “Moon that shines

its light on me”, and so on.

DAILY OFFERINGS

So far we have looked at events that are part of your daily

routine—awakening, bathing, meals and bedtime—and these

are only a few examples chosen from those activities we all

share. I am sure that you can think of other daily events,

unique to your own routine and lifestyle, that can be sacral-

ized in ways similar to what has been described here. When

we evoke the sacred in our normal activities our lifestyles

become holistic, and every day is transformed into a spiritu-

al experience.

Beyond this, there are actions we can take to extend this

experience even further into our lives. Wicca’s fundamen-

tal tenets are embodied in the “Charge of the Goddess”,

an inspirational text attributed to both Gerald Gardner and

Doreen Valiente, in which worshippers are called upon to

meet “once in the month, and better it be when the moon is

full”. But this is
minimal
participation; nowhere in the short text does it say that Wiccans cannot or should not “dance,

sing, feast, make music and love” at other times of the

month. Whatever path you follow, you do not need to wait

for a special phase of the moon, a sabbat or a high day to

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honor the spirit realm. You are a spiritual being every day of

the year!

One way to acknowledge the spirit realm on a daily basis

is to make an offering to your house elves. Many Pagan cul-

tures traditionally prayed and gave offerings to household

spirits. The Saxons called these spirits
cofgodas
. The Romans called them
lares
. European folklore abounds with tales of small, fairy-like beings helping those mortals who show

them honor and respect.

From those same tales we know that house elves usually

appreciate offerings of either milk or baked goods, or both.

I pour a few ounces of milk into a cup in the evening and set

this on the mantel over the fireplace. In the morning I pour

whatever is left (house elves drink surprisingly little) down

the drain. This is for an ordinary daily offering. If the gift to the house elves is part of a more extensive ritual, the milk is more likely to be left overnight on our household altar. Further, the offering is sometimes a food or drink other than

milk, although milk is my usual choice for a daily offering.

If you intend to do this every day, keep it brief. The words

you speak, if you say anything at all, can be as simple as,

“Know that you are remembered by me and my household.”

That, in fact, is exactly what I say when I leave the offering

for our house elves.

Some people have told me that their house elves like

whiskey, ale or another non-dairy beverage; these are usually

alcoholic. If you sense that your own house elves would like

something besides milk or cake, try other things. Folklore

warns us that the one thing you should never give them is

clothing. The story of the Shoemaker and the Elves, re-told

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with a variety of different titles over the years, can be traced back at least as far as the early 1800’s when it was published

by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, but elements of the tale are

undoubtedly much older. In the Grimm version, a poor shoe-

maker and his wife find their fortunes begin to change for the

better when a pair of elves begin secretly assembling shoes in

the shop late at night. To thank the elves, the shoemaker and

his wife make two small shirts, two vests, two pairs of pants

and two small pairs of shoes, and then leave these out as gifts for their benefactors. The elves are delighted when they find

the gifts, which they immediately put on. Then they dance

out the door and are never seen again.

That’s gratitude for you.

Why the elves left after being gifted with clothing is never

explained, and any hypothesis can be no more than specula-

tion. The point is that you should probably stick to foods and

beverages when giving offerings to your own house elves.

Another approach to daily offerings, again depending on

your spiritual focus, is offerings to your ancestors. Reverence for the ancestors is very important to many Pagans. Other

Pagans have a difficult time with the idea of honoring their

ancestors, usually because they have had a falling out with a

parent or grandparent who has passed on, but this should be

irrelevant because you have never actually met—in life—the

majority of your personal ancestors. The dictionary defines

ancestor as a forebear more remote than a grandparent; in

other words, a
distant
forbear. So if you have a deceased grandfather who once treated you shamefully, keep in mind

that he probably had to explain his behavior to his own great

grandmother when she met him Over There.

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One nice thing about ancestral spirits is that they are pre-

disposed to care about your well being. You, after all, are

their legacy to this world. Because of this predisposition,

your offering can be almost anything you choose. As a daily

offering, however, it needs to be relatively simple. The value

is in the consistency of the offering rather than the worth of

the gift on any particular day. A daily offering to one’s ancestors can be a bit of incense or a small libation of wine or

beer. As with an offering to your house elves, the words you

speak when giving a daily offering to your ancestors should

be brief.

Can you do both? Absolutely! I like to give an offering

of incense to my ancestors in the mid-morning. There is no

profound reason for this; it just fits my schedule well. Then