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Posts Tagged ‘liturgy practicum 1’

Blessings before Meals

Posted in General Things, Liturgy Journal 1, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Since I’m *STILL* getting hits from a post I did almost two years ago on non-denominational/non-religious grace for meals (specifically Thanksgiving, but also applicable elsewhere), I thought I’d give a little update with two more that I’ve worked on or found recently.

These are both pagan friendly, and use ADF’s cosmology (in that they invoke the Three Kindreds), but they’re simple enough to work for everyday mealtimes.

I’m working on memorizing one or the other (I vacillate between the two day to day) to add to my Liturgy Practicum journal.

This one comes from Jackson Kelly Cole, and is called Kindreds Grace:

By the mysteries of the High Ones,
Through the knowledge of the Old Ones,
From the bounty of the Green Ones,
This is our Feast.
May it keep hale and hearty all who eat it.
May it sustain and nourish all who share it.
May all who gather here feel welcome and wanted.

And this second one is modified from a pagan (read: Wiccan) grace from the November 1964 issue of Pentagram Magazine. It has the advantage of being in rhyme, which makes it somewhat easier to memorize. I have modified it to include references to the Three Kindred and the Earth Mother and be a bit less duotheistic (though I still balk a little at “chiefs of all creation”, I haven’t found a good replacement for that line). If people want, I can republish the original as well.

Answer us, O Ancient Ones;
Provender and power are Thine!
Hear and answer, joyous Green Ones;
Grant us laughter, wit, and wine.
Descend on us, O Thou of blessings,
Come among us, make us glad;
Since Thou art chiefs of all creation,
Why, oh why should we be sad?
Beam on us, O Shining Ones,
Banish heavy hearted hate!
Accept our gifts, O Greatest Mother;
Let cheerful brightness be our fate.
So be it!

So there you have it. Two more mealtime blessings for people to use in their home devotional practices that are pagan friendly. I’ll have to work on some more that are truly non-religious (these are clearly Neopagan), but I am sure there are some good, shorter, everyday meal blessings out there.

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Liturgy Practicum: Week of June 9, 2014

Posted in Initiate's Path, Liturgy Journal 1, tagged , , , , , , on June 14, 2014| 4 Comments »

I fleshed out my morning devotional this week to be something like a miniature core order. I have used a prayer that Rev. Mike Dangler shared on Facebook (it’s actually a song, but I am using it without music for now), as well as some of the bits from Ceisiwr Serith’s A Simplified Version of ADF Ritual. This ritual is clearly designed to be done at my home altar, but I have a copy of it saved on my phone for use at work. I am working on getting a tiny hallows (mint-tin altar setup) that I can use for these situations. I am not sure how I’d do the offerings when I’m not at my altar, but ideally I’ll be dragging my butt out of bed 5 minutes earlier in order to do this ritual before I leave the house. That happened most mornings this week.

It only takes about 3 minutes, which is perfect for me for a morning ritual.

Here is the current format:

(Three breaths to center self)

The earth is below me, the heavens above me,
The flame lights the way! (Light candle)

The earth is below me, the heavens above me,
The well flows within! (Fill/touch well)

The earth is below me, the heavens above me,
The tree spans the world! (Bless tree)

Let us pray with a good fire! (Light incense)

I make offering to the gods.
May their power be with me this day. (Make offering)

I make offering to the ancestors.
May their wisdom be with me this day. (Make offering)

I make offering to the nature spirits.
May their blessing be with me this day. (Make offering)

The waters support and surround us
The land extends about us
The sky stretches out above us
At the center burns a living flame
May all the kindreds bless us.
May our worship be true
May our actions be just
May our love be pure
Blessings and honor and worship to the holy ones.

(Three breaths to center self)
(Extinguish candle)

I feel like it’s still unfinished at this point in time. I’m not sure what I need to add, but it feels like there needs to be one more closing statement, perhaps something to mirror the Fire/Well/Tree imagery from the opening. It certainly works as a mini-ritual though, and I like all the various parts.

I need to be careful and remember that this practice has to be built over time. I can easily see myself letting this morning ritual get longer and longer, until it’s no longer really something I can fit into my weekday mornings. Which defeats the purpose of having a regular devotional practice. It has to be doable/attainable to become habit. It’s really easy for me to throw myself into 40 new practices all at once, and then burn out and stop doing all of them. I’m trying with this to start slowly, with just a morning devotional/ritual, and we’ll see where I feel like I can add other bits of ritual practice into my day/week.

I should also mention that I do a regular devotional practice to my female ancestors, particularly when I clean the kitchen (which happens every few days). It feels right to honor them then, at my “hearth” (stove), so I light a candle or some incense and say a small impromptu prayer. Perhaps eventually I’ll write up a set prayer for this specific practice.

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Murphy’s Law of Wells

Posted in General Things, Liturgy Journal 1, tagged , , , , , on June 12, 2014| Leave a Comment »

If:

  • You are already close to running late
  • Your well didn’t get water in it yesterday because you forgot to fill the cup
  • You do your devotional at 5:30 am before caffeine
  • You are trying to establish a regular practice but still get to work on time
  • Your well is a beautiful wooden bowl made of pieced woods in different colors that was a gift you can never replace

Then:

  • Your wooden well will have cracked along a seam in the bottom from having water left in it the last time you did ritual
  • You will not notice this until half the well has emptied out the crack in the bottom, soaking the entire top of your altar
  • You will be out of paper towels in your altar room, and will have to make a mad dash to the kitchen to get some
  • Your old ceramic well will be full of wine corks, which have no other place to go, so you will have to leave them in a pile on the counter
  • When you empty your old well, it will be full of cork dust, so you will need to wash it

And then:

  • By the time you finally get back to your devotional, you will have forgotten what steps you did and have to start over
  • Making you at least 10 minutes late getting out the door

 

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Liturgy Practicum: Week of June 2, 2014

Posted in Initiate's Path, Liturgy Journal 1, tagged , , , , , , on June 10, 2014| Leave a Comment »

My first week of this practice went fairly slowly. I am experimenting with how I want to set up my daily practice. Since I’m not in a position where I can do sunrise and sunset devotionals (I am in the car during the sunrise, and I am in bed before the sun sets right now), I am going to start a morning devotional that I can do either before I leave for work or once I get to my desk. Since I’m in the office at 6:45, and my nearest coworker doesn’t arrive until 7:30, I have a little time there where I can do the work.

Obviously I can’t light candles or incense at my desk, so the ideal place for something like this will be at home before I leave, but my brain is fighting getting up any earlier than I already do (5:15 is pretty darn early).

For this week, all I have been doing is saying Ceisiwr Serith’s prayer (start small and build, right?):

The waters support and surround us
The land extends about us
The sky stretches out above us
At the center burns a living flame
May all the kindreds bless us
May our worship be true
May our actions be just
May our love be pure
Blessings and honor and worship to the holy ones

It’s nothing fancy, but it at least gets me taking some deep, centering breaths and placing myself in a good mindset to start the day. (I’ve tried saying this in the car at sunrise, but since I can’t see the sun actually rising it didn’t work too well.)

This week I also participated in the Druid Moon Cast, a monthly ADF ritual that takes place via Google Hangouts. While I don’t participate in these every month, I do them fairly regularly, and really enjoy doing them. They are a take on the idea that the 6th night of the moon was sacred to the Druids, so it is fairly fitting that we do ritual at that time. This ritual was done using Nick Egelhoff’s Telepresence Liturgy Script, which makes several references to the (quite outstanding) technology that we’re using to do these rituals. This script is customizable to different hearth cultures (or an open hearth), and this month we honored the various bodies of water that are in our different locations.

(Also, since I’m writing this as an overview of what I did LAST week, I can say that I’ve already found a prayer to add to this for Fire/Well/Tree that Rev. Mike Dangler shared on Facebook this morning. I’ll write more about that next week.)

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