I have been trying sporadically to get into praying to Pagan deities for some time. I started with Ceisiwr Serith’s A Book of Pagan Prayer, which is excellent. I have also occasionally practised lectio divina. Pagan prayer does not assume that we are the passive recipients of favours from the deities; nor that Pagan deities are all-powerful or rulers of the universe. Pagan prayer is about an encounter with deities.
Being a fairly lazy person, and not that great at keeping in touch with people (except on Facebook), I am not that great at maintaining a spiritual practice. Therefore, any practice that I engage in has to be simple, with no barriers to engaging in it, no effort to set it up, and of variable length.
However, John Beckett’s recent posts about building connections with deities and deepening your practice have galvanised me to try to do something.
Contemplative prayer is a practice that is fairly simple to understand, but which may take a lifetime to master. The person doing the prayer sits quietly, usually upright on a chair, and often uses a prayer word to focus the mind. When thoughts arise, don’t follow the train of thought, just let it go, and refocus on the prayer word (or your breath, if you are not using a prayer word).
In contemplative prayer, we descend into the depths of the psyche, and encounter the collective unconscious, and thereby the formless depths of the divine realms. Contemplative prayer is not solely an internal experience; it is an encounter with the divine that transcends the individual (note that I am referring to epistemological transcendence, the experience of something greater than oneself, and not ontological transcendence, which is the idea of something existing outside the universe).
I learnt a lot about contemplative prayer from reading two excellent books from the Christian tradition: Into the Silent Land and A Sunlit Absence. The first book (Into the Silent Land) deals with the stages of contemplative prayer and how one can deepen one’s practice. The second book (A Sunlit Absence) deals with the pitfalls and difficulties of contemplative prayer (boredom, distraction, feelings of dryness, lack of a sense of divine presence). Both are written entirely in the context of the Christian tradition, so as a Pagan and a polytheist, I needed to “translate in my head” as I went along. Nevertheless, these are outstanding books which explore the techniques and mental states of contemplative prayer in great detail.
In Pagan contemplative prayer, the focus of the practice might be the name of a virtue that you wish to cultivate; the spirit of a place you wish to connect with; the name of a deity whom you worship; an image or statue of a deity; a rune or a Tarot card; or a mandala. Focusing on an external image may make you reliant on the external image for maintaining your focus, but it can be useful, especially if the image is seen as a gateway or window onto the Otherworld, rather than merely an image. The point of contemplative prayer is not necessarily to ask for anything, but just to enjoy the presence of the deity you are communing with. You can, however, combine it with other forms of prayer if you wish.
My personal practice is to sit quietly, saying the name of the deity I wish to commune with, and maybe adding a few words in praise of their deeds, attributes, or qualities. I then recite their name, saying it once on the in-breath and once on the out-breath. I find I need to spend at least five minutes, preferably ten or fifteen, to really experience the presence of the deity. I usually try to commune with at least two deities (the patron deities of Wicca, and some of the deities with whom I have a personal connection).