Chapter 2

PRAYER STRUCTURE

At their simplest, prayers are just talking to the gods. You think about them, and you talk. But the gods are different from us. Talking to them is, therefore, different from talking to people. You can show this by using a different style of speech when addressing them. Just as you have set aside time and space for this sacred conversation, you set aside your normal way of speech to make your prayers special.

Because prayer is communication with a divine being, and because Pagans are polytheistic, Pagan prayers must identify the being to whom they are addressed. Whether the gods need this or not is not the question. If you reach out to deities, it is only polite to call them by name. No sense starting out on the wrong foot.

Identifying Your Gods

The gods you recognize help to define the universe as you see it. Do you recognize a deity of government? The name of this deity can tell you a lot about what you think of government. Most people don't know that the Roman god Mars was not just a god of war but was also connected with agriculture. The Romans saw a connection there, and by calling on Mars, they recognized that connection. Even if the gods don't need to be identified exactly, it is a good thing for you to do so.

Gods don't have to be identified by name; they can frequently be identified by title or function. The hearth goddess Brigid may be addressed, for instance, as “Lady of Fire.” Dionysos may be called “You who watch over our vines, who flow with the sap.” Isis might be called “You in whose wings we find safety.” Just as good thank-you notes do not have to start with the words “thank you,” so a prayer does not have to start with the name of the deity. You might start with something like, “I who stand before you, I who come into your presence, I who am your worshiper, call out to you, Mitra.” The name should come relatively early in the prayer, however. No sense building up too much suspense.

In most cases, though, it is best to start with the deity's name or a title. This is good both for you and for the deity. For you, it serves to focus your intent. For the deity, it serves to bring you to his or her attention. There is no sense making all the deities listen to all our prayers on the off chance that they might be involved. They are not unlimited, even if they are vastly greater than we are.

Deities are frequently named more than once in a prayer, although not usually by the same name. Repeating the same name can make the prayer tedious and one-dimensional. Moreover, you risk getting only a partial understanding of a deity if you use only one means of identification. Divine beings are far more complicated than that. It is more effective to give your deities titles that describe their attributes or relate myths associated with them. For instance, Apollo might be addressed in this way: “Sweet-songed Apollo, hear me. I come before you, Lord of the Bow, whose arrows bring healing. I ask that you help me, Leto's son: heal my own child.”

Some ancient prayers are essentially long lists of such titles. Such lists are very useful for calling or praising a deity. They can become boring, but boredom can be a good thing; it can turn off your mind and release your spirit. Besides, when a prayer works, and the presence of the deity becomes obvious, it quickly stops being boring. The piling up of title after title can build to a level of ecstasy, as the person praying becomes more and more aware of the deity's power and presence. A tension is created as each title reveals a new piece of the deity's identity, until the tension is released, and the prayer goes on its way, an arrow loosed from the bow of your words.

The defining of a deity may also be done through relating myths. A god is what he does and what he has done. Mentioning these myths not only honors him by telling of his wondrous deeds, it also prepares him for the sort of request (if any) that is to follow. A prayer to Indra might begin, “Wielder of the vajra, slayer of Vtra.” This calls upon Indra as the keeper of the thunderbolt, the vajra, both the symbol and the means of operation of his power. Describing him as “slayer of Vtra” defines Indra as the one who killed the great serpent at the beginning of time, removing the obstruction that kept the world from growing. This may hint at what you are about to ask for; perhaps there is some obstruction in your life that you would like removed. If you're praying to praise the god, it becomes something for which he should be honored. If you're praying out of gratitude, it expresses in a metaphor the kind of thing you are thanking him for.

Germanic literature uses an interesting means of relating these myths and titles called “kenning.” In kenning, short descriptions can take the place of names or nouns, expressing a whole myth in a few words. For instance, Thor, who is to kill the wolf Fenrir in the battle at the end of time, would be called “Fenrir's Bane.” This sort of allusion can bring in many myths in a short time, making a prayer multilayered and sending the worshiper's mind soaring outward into the divine realm by filling it with more than it can hold and forcing it to expand into a new spiritual reality.

In fact, it may not even be necessary to use the deity's name. Sometimes a myth or title is enough. There is no other deity who can be described as “Wielder of the vajra, slayer of Vtra” except Indra. Remember, too, that what we think of as the names of the gods are sometimes titles by which they have become commonly known: Cernunnos is “The god with antlers,” Epona is “The horse goddess,” Mitra is “Contract.” Sometimes these names are transparent to the worshiper, and sometimes they were devised so long ago that their meaning has been lost to their worshipers. I doubt that there was any ancient Greek who knew that Zeus meant “Bright Sky.” But I'll bet Zeus knew, and when he was called upon by name, he knew that name was originally a title. Of course, a name and its meaning, expressing a title, may coexist in one prayer. You can mix them together to get something like, “Great Mitra, Lord of Contract.”

While it is true that myths can be used to identify a deity, it is also true that a prayer can actually relate a myth. The Homeric Hymns do this; they are, for instance, the main source for our knowledge of the myth of Demeter and Persephone. The telling can be the whole point of the myth, serving as praise, since everyone likes to have their deeds remembered. It can also teach both the person praying and anyone else present something about the deity addressed. Even if the story is known to all present, a good myth reveals something new each time it is told.

Titles can express the many sides of a deity. Most of us learned the job descriptions of the Greek and Roman gods when we were young—Venus was the goddess of love, Mars was the god of war, Mercury was the messenger of the gods. But gods are not that simple. Apollo, for instance, whom most of us learned to identify as the god of the Sun (and then we wondered how Helios could also be the god of the Sun), is god of music, beauty, order, and healing as well. Calling on him under these various areas of expertise rounds him out, makes him more real to us. For instance, a prayer to Apollo can begin, “I pray to the one whose arrows bring health and illness, to Apollo the beautiful one. From your lyre come tunes of harmonious enchantment, and I listen enraptured, sweet-singing Apollo.”

Names, titles, their meanings, myths—you can mix them all together to define the recipient of your prayer more precisely: “Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, Protector of the crafty Odysseus.” With each descriptive element, the deity becomes clearer in your mind, and you become more ready to open yourself to the holy presence.

From the fact that gods are deeply three-dimensional comes one of their most important characteristics: ambiguity. They come to us at times that are neither one time nor another, such as dusk or dawn. They come to us in space that is neither one place nor another, such as tidal regions. And they come to us through actions that are neither one kind nor another, such as holding out our hands—are we giving, receiving, or both?

Thus we arrive at a seeming contradiction. Should you be precise in whom you call, taking care to invoke just the right aspect of your chosen deity? Or should you take care to preserve the ambiguity of the divine beings? There is really no problem here. Prayers have the same primary goal as other forms of communication—accuracy. What exactly are you trying to convey? Do you have one particular goal in mind? Then be precise. Are you interested in experiencing deities in all of their subtleties? Then be ambiguous.

Some deities are more ambiguous than others, of course. Cernunnos may be said to have ambiguity as his very nature, for instance. All gods have something about them that cannot quite be defined, however. If we could define them completely, we would limit them to such an extent that they would no longer be gods.

Prayers may effectively use ambiguity to express the nature of the gods. For instance, “Worthy are you of sacrifice,” may mean either that the deity is worth sacrificing to or worth being sacrificed himself. The Wiccan God may appropriately be addressed in this way. Ambiguity is also useful for economy of language. It is the nature of symbols that they can have more than one meaning, and a prayer in which all of a symbol's meanings are used can be, in essence, several prayers at once.

Finally, the world is not simple. We do not always know the precise meaning of things, especially when the gods are involved. By speaking to our deities in ambiguous language, we remind both them and ourselves of this fact.

Prayer Formats

After naming your deities, mentioning their titles, and linking them with their myths, you can expand your identification by bringing up past favors, given either to you or to others: “Indra who slew the serpent, whose vajra has been ever my aid, who has been my steadfast companion.” This links your identification with what comes next—petition, praise, or thanksgiving.

You should do one last thing before you bring up the purpose of your prayer. You should honor your deity. (Of course, that might be the whole point of the prayer and, if so, good for you.) This is, at the very least, the polite thing to do. It also puts you into a proper relationship with your deity. The gods are more powerful than us—more glorious, possessing more wisdom—and this should be recognized. In my own prayers, I prefer a simple: “I offer you my worship,” or “I do you honor,” or “I praise you, I honor you, I worship you.” If your prayer is one of praise, this pattern can be repeated over and over, building praise upon praise, until an ecstatic state of awareness of the deity is achieved. This can be followed by a period of silent contemplation, ending with a statement of gratitude.

Only after you have identified your deities, described them, linked yourself with them, and done them honor is it time to bring up your own intentions. If your prayer is one of thanksgiving, now is the time to offer your thanks. This is a good time to make an offering, either one promised earlier or one built into the prayer out of sheer gratitude: “I pour out this wine, Asklepios, for you have cured my illness.”

If the offering is in payment of a vow, that should be mentioned. A touching statement of faith from ancient times comes from the Roman practice of vowing to set up an altar when a prayer is answered. Hundreds of these have survived, each inscribed with a prayer of thanks, such as, “[Name] dedicates this to [deity's name] willingly and deservingly in fulfillment of a vow.” In fact, if your prayer asks for something, it is a good idea to either offer something at its end or promise something upon the receipt of that which is asked. A gift demands a gift.

Exactly what gift to give will vary with the deity. An appropriate offering for a storm god like Indra might be an axe, either actual or in miniature. Offerings can be based on your deity's culture; Roman gods like wine. If you can't decide what to give, stick to the basics: bread and a drink.

This is the standard structure of prayers to Indo-European deities, those of most of the cultures from Europe to India, and it is a good one to use in general. Other cultures have other traditional structures. Typical Egyptian prayers, for instance, are structured like this (Redford 2003, 313–4):

First is praise, often with many titles: “Isis, throne of kings, mother of gods and men, whose name was praised in Egypt and Rome.”

Then comes a description of the one praying, often self-deprecating. “I who am poor in goods, and weak in power, and in need of aid, pray to you.”

Next, a mention of a specific transgression, especially if it is seen as having caused the problem the prayer is about. “I, who in my weakness have violated the commands of heaven.”

Then follows the request, especially in terms of the violation. “I who am weak from transgressing the holy way, who have become ill from my transgression, ask for healing from the disease I suffer.”

Now comes a promise of future praise, especially in a public way. “I who have prayed to you will make your power well-known to those I encounter.”

Finally would come a description of the request as if already granted. “I say this, I who have been healed by you, Isis, queen of heaven.”

So we have:

Isis, throne of kings, mother of gods and men, whose name was praised in Egypt and Rome,

I, who am poor in goods, and weak in power, and in need of aid, pray to you,

I, who in my weakness have violated the commands of heaven,

I, who am weak from transgressing the holy way, who have become ill from my transgression, ask for healing from the disease I suffer.

I who have prayed to you will make your power well-known to those I encounter.

I say this, I who have been healed by you, by Isis, queen of heaven.

Another structure, to the kami, beings or things of numinous power, is found in Shintoism (Nelson 1996, 108–13):

A call to those present. “You who have gathered here to pray to these kami on this day, hear me.”

A statement of purpose. “I pray that all might be made as pure as it is proper to be, as it is proper to do.”

An historical precedent, expressed as a myth. “As it was indeed pure when the land was made. It was then that Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto formed it. Then the spear was dipped in the sea, stirred it into foam; then from the foam came the land, pure and shining.”

The reason the prayer is required. “Yet we have done impure deeds. We have broken divine laws. We have violated familial obligations. We have supported the wrong.”

A description of what is to be done. “When these are done, the people pour out sake, they dance in the ancient way to please the kami. Best of all things, and before these things, they purify themselves, washing in pure water. They wash the hands which offer, they wash the mouth that prays.”

Next the way the kami will respond. “With our purification of ourselves, the kami will be inspired to purify perfectly. With the performance of proper rites, the kami will be inspired to purify all. Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mokito will impart the purity of the new land to each and to all, for now and for the future.”

Finally, an end. “This is what I say today.”

And so:

You who have gathered here to pray to these kami on this day, hear me.

I pray that all might be made as pure as it is proper to be, as it is proper to do.

As it was indeed pure when the land was made. It was then that Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto formed it. Then the spear was dipped in the sea, stirred it into foam; then from the foam came the land, pure and shining.

Yet we have done impure deeds. We have broken divine laws. We have violated familial obligations. We have supported the wrong.

When these are done, the people pour out sake, they dance in the ancient way to please the kami. Best of all things, and before these things, they purify themselves, washing in pure water. They wash the hands which offer, they wash the mouth that prays.

With our purification of ourselves, the kami will be inspired to purify perfectly. With the performance of proper rites, the kami will be inspired to purify all. Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mokito will impart the purity of the new land to each and to all, for now and for the future.

This is what I say today.

There are other formats. One I use a lot is to go from the mundane to the sacred. First, I describe the situation—the season has changed, I am sick, I lack inspiration. I then bring to mind a deity or an aspect of divine reality with which this might be linked by myth, function, or imagery. This gives the situation sacred meaning; I link the present with the eternal. In a sense it's like a haiku.

This is enough for praise or for observance of an occasion. For petitions, once I have connected the situation with a deity, I have gained contact with someone from whom I can ask a favor, so I add a line or two expressing that.

The basic idea is the same, though: what deity is prayed to, what the request is, why the deity should respond, what the worshiper will give in return. The order of the elements may vary, and what each consists of may vary, too, but the concepts are found in most prayers.

As you read through the prayers in this book, you'll find that I don't stick to the patterns described here very strictly. I generally use a few lines to set up the prayer, then I describe the situation addressed by the prayer. Only then do I begin to work within this pattern. I do this for a number of reasons.

First, there is not much point in using the pattern over and over. The suggestions given above and a few examples should be enough to enable you to write your own prayers. Second, prayers written in this other way have a built-in sacred space-and-time element. Before getting to the main purpose of the prayer, you define just where and when the prayer is being said. In that way, even if you have not established sacred space or time through ritual, you are nonetheless there. This can be a great help if you are in a situation where a full-fledged introductory ritual cannot be performed. It can even be useful if you do perform an introductory ritual, because that ritual is general. The first few lines of your prayers can then make the time and space more specific, focusing on the actual purpose of your prayer.

Not all prayers, or even all parts of a given prayer, are necessarily expressed in the first person: “I praise you,” “I pray to Sarasvati.” Third person prayers are also common:

Inanna rules over the gods.

She descends to death,

she ascends to life.

Neither death nor life can hold her.

This sort of prayer is great for praise, since you keep yourself out of the prayer, speaking only of the gods, describing them and their great deeds. By remembering them, you grow closer to them. This pleases them. Everyone wins. After speaking in the third person, you can then switch to the more expected format:

The Spirits of the mountain exist in strength.

Their roots are deep in the Earth,

their heads pierce the air and mount to the sky above.

They dance from flat to peak

and, spiraling, descend again.

Good Ones, when I come under your trees and upon

your stones,

guide me.

In this case, you can think of the section spoken in the third person as both calling and praise. The gods come to hear of their deeds, delighting in them as a lord in a hall enjoys hearing his exploits sung before assembled guests. Then, when they have been pleased and are in a good mood, you can feel free to ask them for something. Or you can praise or thank them, shifting from an impersonal account of their greatness into a description of why they mean something to you, or how they have helped you. This sort of prayer recognizes both that the Holy Ones have concerns other than you and that you are concerned with them.

When you finish a prayer, you may feel a need to say something to cap it off—an “amen.” Something seems necessary, if only to keep the prayer from drifting off into nothingness. In public prayer, a firm ending also gives those present who may not have said anything a chance to add their own prayer by assenting to the one that has already been made. This can be shown simply as a drop in your tone of voice. It can also be written into the prayer itself, as in a technique Shakespeare uses that I'll talk about a bit later on.

This is especially useful in group rituals, where it is seen as an affirmation by the group of what has been prayed by a particular person. It can be used as a punctuation point, separating prayers in a ritual. It can be used more than once in a prayer, as if prayer were piled upon prayer. If you do this, though, you will need the final ending phrase to be more emphatic, by saying it more than once, for instance. A final line might be more elaborate, to put a seal on the prayer: “May it be so, may it be so, may it truly be so.”

Those who grew up in a Christian or Wiccan environment might feel that a prayer is unfinished without an “amen” or “so mote it be.” This kind of ending can be in the language of the person praying (e.g., “so be it”) or the language associated with the deity prayed to (e.g., “Bíodh sé amhlaidh” for an Irish deity). Many Wiccans use the Masonic “so mote it be.” Many Pagans use the American Indian “Ho.” Each has its own disadvantage. The first is ponderous, and the second can be seen as “playing Indian.”

How about “amen”? It's Hebrew for “so be it,” and, with the deep associations it has within many of our psyches with prayer, it is a fine ending. The objection will, of course, be made that it is Judeo-Christian. That may be so, but the phrase long ago made its way into our culture in a manner that transcends its original religious meaning. “God,” “deity,” and “heaven” all come from non-Christian roots, yet these words have been enthusiastically embraced by Christians. We can do the same with this lovely little word—amen.

Set Prayers and Spontaneous Prayers

Prayers can be spontaneous, read, or memorized. There is a certain bias among modern Pagans toward spontaneous prayers. We are supposed to be creative and inspired. The feeling is that if we “speak from the heart,” all will be well. To be perfectly frank, though, Pagans aren't more creative than most people, until we have trained ourselves to be. I'm sure we have all suffered through halting performances of rambling spontaneous prayers from people “speaking from the heart.”

This goes with a search for authenticity, for truth in all things. That is a principle I can get behind. I just don't think it has anything to do with the legitimacy of set prayers.

In many cases, this attitude is, itself, not authentic. Neo-Paganism is cursed with a number of problems that have their roots in the childhood practices and beliefs of its members. Since they belong to a religion formed mainly of converts (a situation that is, fortunately, now changing), neo-Pagans have a bad tendency to react against their early religious background, which, in most cases, is Christianity. They seem to believe that Christianity is a religion of rote repetition, whereas Paganism is, by nature, spontaneous.

This does both Christianity and Paganism a disservice. The repetition of a memorized prayer is not necessarily a mechanical thing. It involves a relationship between the one praying, the prayer, and the one prayed to. This relationship is expressed through the words of a prayer, perhaps, but each prayer event is no more identical to those before than each performance of a particular piece of music is the same as another.

Now, I do not think that even the most hard-nosed proponent of set prayers would be opposed to spontaneous prayer. The techniques given in this book are meant to teach you how to compose your own prayers. Once you have mastered them, you can compose prayers anywhere, anytime. If you follow these rules, your prayers will be no less spontaneous than your normal speech is when you follow the rules of grammar. They may even help to make your prayers more spontaneous, since having some order to rely on sometimes opens us up creatively. On the other hand, even if you don't use these techniques, you can impress the gods with your sincerity by speaking what you truly feel.

The disagreement arises when people oppose set prayers on principle. Their attitude seems to be that a prayer must come from the heart; it must be completely unique to the moment, expressing what the person praying feels at just that point in time. Anything else is thought to be insincere. I understand this position.

Ancient Paganism, for its own part, had set prayers. The Rig Veda is a collection of prayers that acquired canonical status. In Pagan Rome, following set prayers was so important that an assistant with a prayer book stood next to priests, whispering the proper words to them. There is, thus, definitely a strong Pagan tradition of set prayers.

And why shouldn't there be? Our circumstances aren't that much different from those of others—we mourn, feel gratitude, desire to praise, want to make requests. Why should each of us have to compose a prayer each time we need one? I happen to be good at writing prayers. I'm a lousy plumber. If there is a plumber out there who isn't good at writing prayers, why shouldn't we avail ourselves of each other's talents?

Most important of all, there are times when we want to pray, but words fail us. I think here of mourners at a Catholic funeral praying the rosary. Locked in their grief, they fix their minds on words they know by heart. They no longer need to think; they give themselves over to mourning and are comforted. It would be a shame for Pagans not to have the same gift.

Moreover, it is impossible for people to pray spontaneously as a group. They need to know what to say, so they can say it together. Prayer is not just a private matter. Sometimes a group will be drawn together by circumstances—anything from a funeral to a seasonal celebration—and they will want to pray together. Sometimes, the whole point of praying will be to practice religious acts as a group. Prayer can be used to unify people; those who say the same words are, in a sense, one. The Catholic mourners described above can know that the other mourners are feeling the same thing they are and be comforted by that.

The most important rationale for set prayers, however, is a phenomenon I call “deepening.” The more often a prayer is said, the deeper it sinks into your consciousness. Eventually, it sinks into your unconscious mind. When this happens, it can be said that the prayer prays you. It becomes part of who you are. It changes you in a way that would not have been possible with a prayer said once and forgotten.

It should come as no surprise, of course, that I like set prayers. This is, after all, a book of them. I have given you quite a few to work with here. I have also shown you how to write your own. If you do write your own prayers, don't discard them after use. Work with them more than once. Chew them over in your mind; let them grow in you. You will discover an amazing thing—you have written better than you had thought. As the prayer is said on each new occasion, you will discover insights in it that you didn't even know were there. It is an amazing feeling. I would hate for you to be deprived of it.

When you feel as though nothing will do but to burst forth with a prayer, go right ahead. Don't feel as if you're cheating either the gods or yourself, however, if what comes forth is a pre-learned prayer. Sometimes set prayers can carry meaning even better than those you come up with on the spur of the moment.

As you write and perform more and more prayers, you will get better with spontaneous prayers, like a jazz musician learning their scales and then learning to improvise. I'm not saying that your early spontaneous prayers will be ineffective (out of tune), mind you, simply less beautiful and less precise than you will eventually be able to compose. And I am definitely saying that to be good at improvising you need to learn your scales.

Previously written prayers can be memorized or read, and may be written by yourself or by others. Besides being easier to write well (editing is a wonderful thing), they allow you to concentrate on performance rather than production. This allows you to think about tone of voice, pauses, gestures, and other stylistic touches that add to the beauty of performance. Don't underestimate the value of pre-planning and rehearsing these touches.

Some people have problems memorizing. Someone reciting an insufficiently memorized prayer will stumble over words, pause at inappropriate points to remember, go back to forgotten points automatically, or without thinking say, “wait,” before redoing a poorly recited part. A poorly memorized prayer isn't as good as one read well.

Reading prayers is okay, and even expected in certain occasions. Weddings and funerals that are attended by non-Pagans are examples. We have become so used to an officiant reading from a book that people might take a memorized prayer less seriously (and a spontaneous one not at all). It is very important to read a prayer over a few times before the ritual to become familiar with it. Otherwise you will find yourself tripping over the words.

One of the great strengths of prepared prayers is that they can be repeated. Repetition can have great psychological effects. It's especially nice for prayers for comfort; familiarity can bring peace all on its own. Also, each time a prayer is said, you may discover new meanings in it, new connections with the divine, new understandings of the deity you are addressing. This can be true even if you have written the prayer yourself. You may have touched on an aspect of the divine you had not understood but now, through the continued reflection brought about by repetition, becomes clear to you.