Prayer Resources Roundup
Jul. 24th, 2022 11:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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sanepolytheismOn last week's Magic Monday, I asked for resources on developing prayer as a spiritual practice, and many folks were kind enough to share a wide variety of books, websites, and more. Below is a collection of what was shared, organized by topic. I hope it might be helpful if you're asking "how do I do this prayer thing, anyway?"
I was pleasantly surprised at how helpful some of these resources were, since much of my exposure to the modern polytheist world has been filtered through authors who view prayer as "something monotheists do", and I was afraid I was going to have to entirely adapt Christian material (see below for some of that). Luckily, that attitude is less common than it once was, and is especially uncommon amongst Magic Monday regulars, so there's a lot of good stuff below!
Though I am coming at this as a polytheist, and this group is, in fact, Sane Polytheism, for the past thousand-plus years, spirituality in the west has been Christian, so many of the resources we have to work with are as well. I also explicitly asked about the Rosary, because I've had the intuition that it's a practice worth analyzing for application in a polytheist context (for one approach, see Galina Krasskova's "Retooling the Rosary" above). What I have found helpful in reading through Christian sources is to ask a) what is common in my beliefs and theirs, and b) what is any one part of belief/prayer/practice doing functionally? For example, when praying the Rosary, you open with the Apostle's Creed. Functionally, this is a statement of core belief about how the world works and the most important religious beliefs, so if you were trying to craft a similar prayer in your own tradition, you might open with a statement about how your tradition believes the world works, or if belief is less important in your tradition, a statement of actions or intentions.
samchevre recommended the section from the Catechism of the Council of Trent "On Prayer":
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_catechism_of_the_Council_of_Trent/Part_4. Having skimmed it so far, I find it a helpful and serious look at the role prayer ought to play in a normal, but pious person's life. For the Rosary specifically, samchevre recommended The Secret of the Rosary by St Louis de Montfort: https://www.ecatholic2000.com/montfort/rosary/rosary.shtml He especially recommended the Novena to Mary, Undoer of Knots, especially if combined with planetary hours, as a borderline magical/religious practice for solving problems.
emmanuelg recommended The Practice of the Presence of God which collects some of the discursive meditations of Brother Lawrence, a Christian monk who lived in the 1600's: https://d2y1pz2y630308.cloudfront.net/15471/documents/2016/10/Brother%20Lawrence-The%20Practice%20of%20the%20Presence%20of%20God.pdf. I haven't checked this one more than a skim yet, but it looks like a good example of what discursive meditations/contemplative prayers can look like.
methylethyl recommended looking into Orthodox sources for contemplative prayer, such as the "Jesus prayer," "Orthodox meditation," and "way of the pilgrim" and the book The Jesus Prayer by Frederica Matthews-Green.
Princess Cute Kitten pointed me to ewtn.com, the website for a global Catholic television network. I've only poked around a little bit, but it looks like they have lots of multimedia resources for things Catholic. Especially helpful if you're looking for recordings
So, while I am still working my way through the materials above, as well as seeking help from the Gods I pray to, I thought I would highlight a few threads that many of the sources above share:
Polytheist Prayer & Worship Resources
I was pleasantly surprised at how helpful some of these resources were, since much of my exposure to the modern polytheist world has been filtered through authors who view prayer as "something monotheists do", and I was afraid I was going to have to entirely adapt Christian material (see below for some of that). Luckily, that attitude is less common than it once was, and is especially uncommon amongst Magic Monday regulars, so there's a lot of good stuff below!
- JMG recommended A Book of Pagan Prayer by Ceisiwr Serith and Pagan Prayer Beads by himself and his wife. I've found both helpful for examples and general discussion, even if I haven't used many of the specific prayers included. Pagan Prayer Beads is, if anything, even more useful as an introduction to beading as a craft. Before I checked out the actual prayers included, I used it to help me make a bracelet to be used with Rune Poems for the Elder Futhark.
- This was not actually a response to my question on Magic Monday, but reading this post by joshuarout is part of what led me to ask for further resources: https://joshuarout.dreamwidth.org/322.html. It's a collection of quotes by JMG on the topic of prayer, and it was helpful to get his point of view summed up in one place.
- hwistle recommended Kaye Boesme's work, both her blog, https://kallisti.blog/, and a guidebook on how to worship gods from a Platonist point of view, including chapters on prayer and ritual: https://kayeofswords.github.io/soulsinnerstatues/
- Rhydlyd recommended When a Pagan Prays: Exploring Prayer in Druidry and Beyond by Nimue Brown, but a few other commenters (Sister Crow and anonymous) said that they found it's depiction of her thinking when she was an atheist to be at least frustrating, and at most actively off-putting in its impiety, so approach with caution, I suppose. Rhydlyd also recommended Cerridwen: Celtic Goddess of Inspiration by Kristoffer Hughes. I haven't personally checked out either yet
- Sister Crow recommended Galina Krasskova's Heathen reworking of the Rosary: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/pantheon/2010/05/retooling-the-rosary/. Krasskova's goal was to keep as much of the spirit of the Rosary as possible without actually praying to Christian figures. I have found it a useful model, but fair warning, the actual layout and presentation of this article is a bit hard to follow.
- Ottergirl and neptunesdolphins both recommended Raven Kaldera's prayer beads, who can either craft them to prayers of your own creation, or provide prayers. Kaldera has some, erm, colorful beliefs and practices, and so is seen as controversial by some folks. I have found some of his co-authored books very helpful and haven't totally made up my mind on how to feel about some of the controversial stuff, but both of these commenters have found his prayer beads lovely and helpful.
Christian Prayer & Worship Resources
Though I am coming at this as a polytheist, and this group is, in fact, Sane Polytheism, for the past thousand-plus years, spirituality in the west has been Christian, so many of the resources we have to work with are as well. I also explicitly asked about the Rosary, because I've had the intuition that it's a practice worth analyzing for application in a polytheist context (for one approach, see Galina Krasskova's "Retooling the Rosary" above). What I have found helpful in reading through Christian sources is to ask a) what is common in my beliefs and theirs, and b) what is any one part of belief/prayer/practice doing functionally? For example, when praying the Rosary, you open with the Apostle's Creed. Functionally, this is a statement of core belief about how the world works and the most important religious beliefs, so if you were trying to craft a similar prayer in your own tradition, you might open with a statement about how your tradition believes the world works, or if belief is less important in your tradition, a statement of actions or intentions.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_catechism_of_the_Council_of_Trent/Part_4. Having skimmed it so far, I find it a helpful and serious look at the role prayer ought to play in a normal, but pious person's life. For the Rosary specifically, samchevre recommended The Secret of the Rosary by St Louis de Montfort: https://www.ecatholic2000.com/montfort/rosary/rosary.shtml He especially recommended the Novena to Mary, Undoer of Knots, especially if combined with planetary hours, as a borderline magical/religious practice for solving problems.
emmanuelg recommended The Practice of the Presence of God which collects some of the discursive meditations of Brother Lawrence, a Christian monk who lived in the 1600's: https://d2y1pz2y630308.cloudfront.net/15471/documents/2016/10/Brother%20Lawrence-The%20Practice%20of%20the%20Presence%20of%20God.pdf. I haven't checked this one more than a skim yet, but it looks like a good example of what discursive meditations/contemplative prayers can look like.methylethyl recommended looking into Orthodox sources for contemplative prayer, such as the "Jesus prayer," "Orthodox meditation," and "way of the pilgrim" and the book The Jesus Prayer by Frederica Matthews-Green.Some Short Takeaways
So, while I am still working my way through the materials above, as well as seeking help from the Gods I pray to, I thought I would highlight a few threads that many of the sources above share:
- Prayer is about aligning yourself with the divine: From my own experience and reading these and other sources, I think that the single thing prayer is most for is to get your mind and spirit in tune with the divine. That's why there's value in at-least daily prayer, and in finding lots of opportunities to pray for other reasons (like at meals, wake up, going to bed, and so forth).
- Prayer is a Conversation: We often think of prayer as one-way - I say a prayer to a God/Gods, but it's far more helpful when you also listen for responses. Whatever you end up doing to address the divine, make sure you're also leaving space to listen for the responses you might get.
- Prayer Should Not Be About Getting What You Want: JMG likes to compare the "gimme, gimme" kind of prayers to treating the Gods like a vending machine. This is not such a good idea. The Gods are independent, sentient people with their own personalities, goals, and point of view, only way bigger than any one of us, so "give me a BMW" is not really a helpful way to interact. A phrase of JMG's that I've found helpful in my prayers is to add "nonetheless, your will, not mine, be done". That being said, I do currently think there is some place for asking for things in prayer - the difference is both in what you ask for and the attitude with which you do it. For me, it is helpful to ask to be more like the kind of person I'm trying to be, and to gratefully recognize what comes from the Gods by asking for it in prayer - for example, saying some kind of prayer over a meal before eating it might both offer thanks for what is there to eat and ask for the nourishment and happiness I hope the meal will bring.
- Both Structured and Free-form Prayer are Helpful: From what I can tell so far, there are distinct benefits to both structured/formal/repetitive prayers and free-form "just talking" prayers. Composed prayers that are the same every time can be poetic, bring you back to the same thoughts and feelings every time, and are easy to make habitual. Free-form prayers, on the other hand, can be sincere, spontaneous, and responsive to what's going on in your life today.
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Date: 2022-07-25 03:07 pm (UTC)I'd say, "Thoroughly informative" would be a massive understatement with regard to this resource guide. Good on including the Christian parts too, as we all know there's quite a few Christians in the Ecosophia community.
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Date: 2022-07-25 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-25 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-26 02:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-26 04:40 pm (UTC)I'd forgotten to mention my favorite prayer books. Both are by Hester Butler-Ehle: "Fieldstones: new shoots from stony soil" is an anthology of prayers to the Celtic gods (Irish, Welsh, and Gaulish), and "Hearth and Field: a Heathen prayer book" is self-explanatory (it opens with a nice litany of the Aesir and Vanir). She's also written two for the Greek Gods, which I have not seen.
Devotionals are being published for a number of pagan deities--here's a Goodreads list: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/75052.Pagan_Devotionals . Asphodel Press and Neos Alexandria's Bibliotheca Alexandrina have each put out several. Moon Books has a line called "Pagan Portals," which includes introductions to various deities; they may not be intended as devotionals but can be used as such, and usually have some prayers or rituals for the God in question. Others are self-published on Lulu, Createspace, etc. I own two devotionals for Thor: the one from The Troth is scholarly, dry, and IIRC has a grand total of 2 prayers (although the ritual section is good), the other is self-published with atrocious grammar that is physically painful for me to read, but is beautifully heartfelt and includes many fine prayers.
As you say, one still has to dig for information about pagan prayer--and contend with other people's religious trauma while doing so--but it's wonderful to see the devotional resources growing, compared to the mid-1980s when I started!
--Sister Crow
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Date: 2022-07-26 06:07 pm (UTC)I) On the rosary and its retooling: For my part, I used the guide "How to Pray the Rosary" from the Rosary Center & Confraternity to help me make sense of Galina's retooling. It looks to me like part of the confusion stemmed from a copy/paste error where the numbering got changed up, combined with a certain lack of helpful repetition that is common when folks try to write instructions where a lot of their knowledge is implicit (they no longer remember what parts were confusing).
Here's how I summarized it to make it clearer to myself, maybe helpful to some others. Unless otherwise noted, all prayers are given in the article:
1. Open with Raven Kaldera's "Prayer of Service"
2. Say Sophie Reich's adaptation of an Enochian prayer
3. Say Galina Krasskova's "Bind Myself to Holy Powers" prayer three times
4. Say Sigrdrifa's prayer (from the Sigrdrifumal in the Poetic Edda, sometimes spelled Sigdrifa)
5. For each set of ten prayer beads (if using a Christian rosary), say the following:
5a. The Lord and Lady Prayer once at the beginning of the group of ten
5b. Hail to the Gods and Goddesses Prayer once for each bead (so, 10 times total)
6. Repeat the steps 5a and 5b for each set of ten beads (there are 5 on a Christian set of rosary beads)
7. Sigrdrifa's Prayer
II) I've seen her prayer cards, but haven't done much but read a few of the prayers on them and admire some of the art. Is there much to their use besides just looking at the image while you recite the prayer?
III) Thank you for sharing these! I think I stumbled on "Hearth and Field" while doing some research, and it's on my to-read list!
IV) Thanks for sharing these as well! My experience with devotionals has been somewhat similar - very mixed bag in terms of quality, but I'm glad to see more people taking this kind of practice seriously and sharing what they come up with to help others.
Cheers,
Jeff
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Date: 2022-07-27 04:55 pm (UTC)Well, I use them on my shrines when I don't have statues of the deities. I use them for meditation. I found a prayer-card wallet and use that to carry particular cards with me on particular days as spiritual foci. For some deities these are the only images that are readily available, so people incorporate them into devotional craft/artwork of their own, such as mini-shrines or votive candle glasses. I originally bought them just for the prayers, but I'm also pretty visual and like to have sacred imagery around me in my daily life.
--Sister Crow
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Date: 2022-07-27 08:14 pm (UTC)Cheers,
Jeff
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Date: 2022-08-05 09:16 pm (UTC)