Devotional routine.

[blindwebster]

For those of you who perform regular devotions of any kind, by what reasoning or methodology did you arrive at your routine? How often do you make offerings/devotions and why? Do you approach your gods individually, consecutively, in groups? I ask because I have trouble staying consistent/deciding on a specific approach myself.

Comments

[wire_mother]

Looking back, I feel like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now: "I don't see any 'method' at all."

Pretty much I add devotions as I feel the need for them, drawing inspiration from traditional sources like Carmina Gadelica and such, or as needed according to the particular esoteric program I am following (if that applies, as it does currently and hopefully for the foreseeable future).

[tanrinia]

I try to do so daily, morning and evening I personally use the ADF-style of ritual adapted for individual use. My spouse and I also try to do weekly family devotions on Sunday night, but as it's a new habit, we aren't quite so good about it yet.

In my daily devotions I honor the earth first, then three family of kindreds (ancestors, land/home spirits, and then deities), and then I have a different specific deity each day that I honor. For our weekly hearth/family devotional we do the same thing essentially, but then we specifically honor those we consider patrons of our home (Brigid, Thor) after the three kindreds.

[blindwebster]

Hmm, I wonder how many CRs secretly turn to ADF material? That's two of you now, heheh. (And thank you for replying.)

[gilla1982]

I would say that Richard Bradley's The Passage of Arms is a must-read where he explores votive hoards and deposits and explores the thinking behind them. Also JD Hill's Ritual and Rubbish In the Iron Age of Wessex.

Apart from that I think a lot can be learnt from early Graeco-Roman religious observance as a lot of what we know seems to be comparable to religion at the time across Western Europe. Seneca the Roman philospher of the 1st century wrote on Roman religion:

If you have ever come upon a dense grove of ancient trees rising to an unusual height and blocking the sight of the sky with the shade of branch upon branch, the loftiness of the forest, the solitude of the place, and the marvel of such thick and unbroken shadow out in the open generate belief in a divine presence. And any cave where the rocks have been eaten away deep into the mountain it supports, not made by human but hands but hollowed out into a vast expanse by natural forces, will suggest to your spirit some need for religious observance. We venerate the sources

[blindwebster]

This is beautiful stuff. Thank you!

[ogam]

Reasoning and methodology: I ask 1) Who & What do I want to focus on? 2) What do my religious communities (Inis Glas, ADF, Brigid's Irregulars) already offer in their rituals? 3) What else do I need or want to include? 4) How can I make the words fit the actual season/day/time of day when I am using them? I do not pretend that what I am doing mirrors what the ancients did (much less the same order

[blindwebster]

Thanks for going into such detail. (And apologies for the lateness of my reply.) I recently dreamed up a "deities of the week" schema myself, so it's funny you should mention that.

I haven't really experimented with greeting the sun each day, or the new moon...maybe it's time to try it out. Do you venerate the earth, moon and sun as entities in and of themselves?