My Spiritual Set Up and Jostling Your Prayers Out of a Rut
Recently, a friend asked me to talk out difficulties she had been having feeling stale in her daily prayer routine. She felt like it was time for a shake up.
"The biggest thing I am trying to figure out is if this is something that can be fixed by switching to different prayers or if I need to rearrange the entire structure."
Before I get into how I answered my friend, I want to say a little bit more about my background. I have three groups of allies whom I work with on a regular basis:
- My deities, who are mostly the planetary intelligences with Apollo substituting for the Sun. Apollo was my first deity, is why I became a pagan, and is the closest relationship I have to a patron. I also occasionally work with Hermes for needs that he can fulfill that Mercury has told me they cannot
- My ancestors, who I tier into three sections of Dead I Knew + Remembered Dead, Jewish Dead Throughout History, and Mesopotamians
- My personal spirits, which has recently undergone developments thanks to Ariana Serpentine's Starlight Work course. When that course goes public, I will certainly be championing it here. Otherwise, I will probably never publicly divulge anything about this group.
I do a prayer routine with all of these groups together every night before bed wherein I usually ask for general protection/guidance for myself and submit specific requests, usually on behalf of other people. I also try to pray to each of them once a week separately, usually with offerings. However, I have ADHD, so the latter happens more whenever I feel like it and I may skip a week or several weeks. Also, because I crave novelty, this section of the blog post is going to be out of date in at least 6 months.
This is all just to illustrate that my prayer routine has a general outline that I follow, but allows plenty of room for the flexibility I need. That's probably the best universal advice I could give to anyone because if you're not providing yourself room to flow and change, your practice may start to feel stagnate and even seem to become less effective. Modern paganism, at least in my point of view, isn't about obligation, but pure faith and the joy that is meant to come with it. You chose it for yourself despite our society's domination by mainstream monotheist religionists and atheists so it gets to be fully your own.
This approach of creativity and play is how I answered my friend's question because that is the bedrock that impacts both the structure and specifics she mentioned.
"Instead of greeting your deities while feeling awkward and apologetic, try metaphorically slapping them on the ass instead. You can try switching to different prayers, but also different ways of communing. With X planet, I use specific songs, visualize their glyph, or just yell their name and shriek what I need. This is a far cry from the prescriptive formula of 'offer incense on their day and hour.'"
To be fair, said planet was very eager to start a relationship with me and showed me how to do some of the techniques (they are not one of the planets traditionally hyper associated with music, which is particularly interesting). And I acknowledge that not every person has such a clear line of communication with their deities or any of their spirits. But the point is, a friendship with another person will always feel unsatisfying if you can't communicate comfortably on your own terms so the same occurs with relationships with spirits.
Additionally, if part of what stumps you is trying to work with a spirit's particular interest or face, integrate that element into your daily routine. Say your hearth prayers while doing dishes. Greet the sun when you wake up in the morning and give thanks to your solar deity of choice. Recite Venus' Orphic Hymn while sitting by the ocean (I live in a beach city so this one is a little more standard for me). For non-deities, you can kiss the photo of your dead grandfather when you pass by it in the morning or thank your personal spirit when you make that tea they recommended.
None of these actions need key focus, just the intention of a little extra effort. Your spirits, as has been shown to me by Apollo, are always with you in the ethereal so you are training that fact into your conscious awareness when you bring them into regular or mundane action. Casual connection is not the enemy nor opposite of sacred and special spiritual relating.
