Saturday, February 13, 2010

Getting in Touch with the Gods

All to often, we have an inspiring meeting with the Divine, with the Gods, in ritual, on a special day, and get smashed out of it during the grey, dull days of everyday work that follow. One antidote to that is to spend a short, special moment every day where we can meet with our Gods. That can be quite informal and spontaneous, but what I propose today is to create a five-minute ritual that is easy to perform every day. It should be a ritual that is easy to perform and that is fitting for you and your Gods. In the following paragraphs, I will give you an idea for potential elements for such a ritual.

- Preparation: Do something to prepare yourself for the fact that you are entering into a sacred moment. One possibility would be to wash your hands and face, symbolically washing away your daily stress. Another possibility would be to change into special clothes, remove your shoes or wear a special item like a scarf or a piece of jewellery. Just do not make it too complex.
In addition to all the above: take some deep, calm breaths and let your mind come to rest.
- Offering: Give an offering to your Gods. The nature of that offering can very greatly, from libations to incense to food to dancing for them, or singing, or a lot of other things. It will also depend, of course, on the nature of the Gods the offering is meant for, so it would be a good idea to do some research.
- Sing a chant, or a song that helps you to feel a connection to the deities. There are a number of well-known chants, and you can find a lot of them on the net, for example here or here. Of course, you can also write your own. Whatever you choose, sing it yourself, do not just play it back.
- Think up a ritual gesture of blessing. An elaborate example of what I mean is the fivefold kiss. Create something simple that can be used as a self-blessing.
- Talk to your Gods. Speak of the things you want to speak about, but listen for their comments and answers.
- Meditate on a symbol of your Gods. That can be either a stature or picture of the God, or a symbol, such as a cat for Bastet, or lightning for Zeus.
- Calm yourself and listen. After some deep breaths, just calm your mind and let your thoughts go. Pay them no attention. Just... listen.
- Completion: A final part is necessary to close the ritual. One possibility is to stand up an thank the Gods for their presence. What works best for me is if there is a connection to the opening part of the ritual, so that the two parts frame the whole ritual. So if you started by putting on special clothing, end by removing it. If you started with lighting a candle, snuff it now.

Do not make your ritual overly complex, or include too many elements. Instead, keep it short and simple. You want to be able to do it every day.

Now, here is an example of what I often do:
For preparation, I sit down cross-legged in front of my altar and calm my mind by taking some deep breaths. Then, I light a short stick of incense. I give the incense to the Gods as an offering, drawing a spiral with it and speaking: “Lord and Lady, thanks for your presence. I offer this incense for your pleasure.” before placing it in a bowl of sand.
The next part varies. Most of the time, I do a short meditation, either on a symbol, or just trying to be calm and listen, or a chant. For closure, I stand up and use a gesture Dianne Sylvan described in (I think) “The Circle Within”: tracing a pentagram over yourself, linking the edges to the elements and the Gods.

The possibilities for such a ritual are huge. Experiment with it, and try different ideas, until you find something that works for you.

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