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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in temple offering
When the Temple Priest or Priestess Goes on Vacation, Then What?

Every day, in temples far and wide across Pagandom, offerings are made, and prayers go up, for the well-being of pagan peoples everywhere. The Lore would have it that, indeed, the very well-being of our People depends on these prayers and offerings, and everyone agrees that, once the making of prayers and offerings has begun, it is bad to discontinue them.

So what happens when the priest or priestess goes on vacation?

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Life, Food, Beauty

As keeper of the coven temple, it's my responsibility to make the daily offerings and to pray for the well-being of pagan peoples everywhere.

The prayers are simple:

May the people have life.

So mote it be.

May the people have food.

So mote it be.

May the people have beauty.

So mote it be.

 

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    So mote it be.
  • Ian Phanes
    Ian Phanes says #
    O firstborn, bring us to harmony. O naturekin, sustain our lives. O ancestors, guide our paths. O immortals, bless our world. O ou

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Every Shrine Needs a Keeper

Every shrine needs a keeper.

Shrines are busy places. Someone needs to sweep away the ash, compost the wilted flowers, remove the food offerings before they go bad.

In a timely manner, mind you, but not too soon. Part of the joy of shrines—part of the encounter that takes place there—is the evidence of the worship of others.

Another part of the keeper's job is to decide. Not all offerings are, shall we say, worthy.

The plastic, the cutesy, the distracting: they've served their purpose. (The worth of the offering is in the making.) Off with them to the favissa. (The Romans had a name for everything.)

After all, they've been given: they belong to a god now. Worthy or not, they still need to be treated with respect.

That's why there's a special pit for sacred garbage.

You can be a shrine-keeper, too.

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The Divine Economy

If I had to characterize Kirk S. Thomas' Sacred Gifts: Reciprocity and the Gods in only two words, it would be: “accessibly profound.”

Don't be put off—as I initially was—by his bantering tone, hyper-colloquial diction, or home-spun analogies. This book speaks as an incisive work of contemporary pagan scholarship and philosophy, and (best of all) points the way forward for future pagan thought.

There can be no relationship without communication. How, then, do we communicate with the gods?

In Sacred Gifts, Thomas answers this question elegantly and authoritatively by beginning with a careful examination of ancestral precedent. From these specifics, he deduces the general principles of the divine economy.

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Lunisol

Unlike the ancestors, modern pagans for the most part have little experience of temple worship. Here's an important bit of lore on the topic from someone who has been making twice-daily temple offerings for nearly 30 years.

"A gift for a gift” is the main theory underlying the practice of the temple offering. One brings the offering to the deity in the deity's place, and offers it. Some offerings—flowers, incense, and lights, say—remain with the god. (They then become sacred, something that belongs to a god.) Others—generally food offerings—are then returned to the worshiper, the god having partaken of his portion. This sharing of the sacred with the god constitutes a deeply intimate form of communion.

There's another difference between food offerings and non-food offerings. Generally food offerings are laid on the altar before the god for the duration of the offering, while the non-food offerings are “waved” before the god in offering as part of the worship.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    The Sun Calls sure do have a primal quality to them that speaks directly to the deeps. I'm glad they spoke to you too. Here's the
  • David Dashifen Kees
    David Dashifen Kees says #
    Excellent! This feels like it'll be something that I can fit into my own work. I appreciate that you shared it and I've apprecia

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