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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in offering

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

 

A worshiper crowns a standing stone with a wreath of flowers.

A worshiper sets a pewter unicorn on top of a standing stone.

Which of these two is the worthy offering?

Here's how you determine worthiness: focus. Does the offering enhance, or does it detract? To rephrase: what do you see first?

When you approach the standing stone crowned with the wreath, you see the standing stone. In fact, your appreciation of said stone is enhanced by knowing that someone else has venerated the Stone by giving it a gift.

When, however, you approach the standing stone with the unicorn statue sitting on top, you don't even see the standing stone. Because the human eye is drawn to the anomalous, what you see first is the unicorn. The stupid little geegaw has reduced the Stone to mere platform.

The wreath stays.

The unicorn, though, has got to go.

(The lone exception to the rule against setting something on top of a standing stone that I know of: When you sacrifice to a standing stone, it is acceptable to leave the severed head of the sacrificed animal on top of the Stone. This, by tradition, is counted as an enhancement, if a terrible one.)

It's the heart of pagan worship to treat the icon as you would treat a person. To crown someone with flowers is an act of honoring.

To put a pewter unicorn on someone's head is not even to be thought of.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    So mote it be.
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    Pour a jar of mint tea over the stone. Step back two paces and set down the jar, bow twice, clap twice, bow once again. Say: "Th
Minoan Peak Sanctuaries: Pilgrimage and Offerings

Imagine climbing halfway up a mountain to a plaza in front of a small building just so you could make an offering - to ask a deity for aid or healing, or perhaps to give thanks for what the deity has already done for you. This is something the Minoans did on a regular basis, making pilgrimages up the mountainsides to the four dozen or so peak sanctuaries that were in operation before the Thera eruption (a number that dropped dramatically by 2/3 to 3/4 after the eruption, for complicated reasons).

The photo (CC BY 4.0) at the top of this post comes from the peak sanctuary at Petsofas on the far eastern end of Crete. This fascinating artifact appears to be a model building in the shape of doubled sacred horns, with more small sacred horns over the central doorway. This piece was probably not a pilgrim's offering, but may have been part of the sacred paraphernalia that had a permanent home in the building at the peak sanctuary. Maybe it was used during rituals of some sort.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
In a Pinch Prosperity Spell

Cinnamon, which you probably have a plentitude of in your kitchen cabinet, is a major source of prosperity and can even bring it about in a hurry. Thursdays are named for Jupiter, or Jove, originally Thor of Norse mythology, who represents joviality, expansion, and all things abundant. Here is a Jupiterian Thursday spell that will bring excellent opportunities your way.

Gather both cinnamon sticks and the powdered kind and place on your altar. On a Thursday, light incense, preferably cinnamon, and walk through your house, wafting the delightfully sweet smoke in every room. Light two altar candlesone brown and one green. Gather flowers, preferably yellow ones, such as daisies and adorn your altar with them. Stand in front of your natural altar and consider the wonderful, full life you are going to enjoy. Pour the cinnamon spice and sticks into a bowl and pray aloud:

This humble spice I offer to the gods who provide all.
I am grateful for all I receive, no matter how small.
Now, I find I am in need,
Blessings shall come now with great speed.
As above, so below,
The wisdom of the world shall freely flow.
To perfect possibility, I surrender.
And so it is.
Blessed be to all.
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  • Colleen DuVall
    Colleen DuVall says #
    This sounds lovely! I deeply appreciate any spell using cinnamon.

Posted by on in Paths Blogs

A few days after our Ostara ritual, I finally looked for my stevia-sweetened apple cake to have for breakfast. It was nowhere to be found. I looked in the fridge, multiple times. In the freezer. In the pantry. More puzzling, the pan it was baked it was also missing. Had I eaten it and didn't remember? I looked to see if the pan was put away where my glass pans go. And where they don't go.

I posted about it, messaged people. Looked again. No square glass pan full of my first try at a sugarless version of mom's apple cake, which had turned out quite well. I pouted, and looked again. Checked my messages. My brother suggested making a sacrifice to the faeries.

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Did the 500-Year Old Whiteleaved Oak Burn Because of a Pagan Offering?

Lighting a candle to a tree. Dear Gods.

How could anyone be so stupid?

In England's Malvern Hills, the 500-year old Whiteleaved Oak has gone up in flames. Charred tea-lights were found at its base.

Dear Gods. How could anyone be so stupid?

Tea-lights are despicable anyway, and never a worthy offering. Ask yourself: what kind of offering leaves garbage behind?

Hear, O Pagandom:

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Voto X

For [god/goddess], because he/she heard my cry.”

 

What would you be willing to give in order to get rid of the Troll-in-Chief?

The ex-voto—the vowed or votive offering—is a fine example of a spiritual technology inherited from the ancestors but sorely underutilized today.

Here's how it works. You're hoping for outcome X. So you make a vow to Deity Y: If you will bring about Outcome X, I will, in return, give you Z.

I will:

Sacrifice a fine bull.

Commission a statue of you.

Throw that beautiful boar's-head torc into the Mississippi.

It's a contingency vow. If X, then Z. No X, no Z.

If it all sounds just a little transactional, bear in mind that this practice is firmly grounded in our divine pagan gifting economy: Do ut des, a gift for a gift.

Be warned: if Deity Y comes through for you, do not fail to follow up with Z. Do not. There are lots of stories about those who didn't*, and—believe me—you don't want to hear any of them, much less become one. As Alexander the Great always used to say, It doesn't pay to be stingy with the gods.

Why do I bring this up now? Well, as you may have heard, there's an election coming up.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Does Electric Incense “Count”?

Who would expect to be confronted with a theological conundrum upon walking into a supermarket? Welcome to the Wonderful World of Paganism.

I've gone over to my neighborhood Asian market to pick up some tofu. (At a buck-fifteen per cake, it's still the best deal in town.) Just inside the door, in his little shrine on the floor, sits Weng Shen the Door God. Flanked by electric candles, he scowls as good door-wards do. Before him burns a bowl of electric incense.

The porcelain bowl filled with gravel looks just like a real incense bowl, if you ignore the electric cord that runs through a hole at the back of the shrine. Even the “sticks” of incense—I assume that they're plastic—could almost pass for the real thing, if it weren't for those uniform glowing red electric tips.

So here's the conundrum. Is a symbolic offering still an offering? Does electric incense “count”?

I suppose that the answer to this question depends upon what you mean by “count.”

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