Pagans do not usually use catechisms or have central liturgies in their theologies. This means we do not have official invocations and prayers. What we have instead are homemade invocations based on epic poems, Homeric hymns, and the basic concept of asking nicely. All of what follows are simple invocations and prayers; you may insert them into rituals you are writing, write rituals around the invocations, or use them as a template to follow when constructing your own invocations.
When writing any invocation or prayer, it is important to pay attention to the details of a given god. For example, you may want to invoke Athena—but Athena has many aspects. Are you seeking the scholar, the feminist icon, the warrior, or the instructor in humility? All at once may be more than you can handle. Spend time reading and familiarizing yourself with a god before you invoke one or make requests. Some gods will not want to fill your requests and others will have no interest in the ritual or in you. It is often enough a matter of resonance. Listening to your gut—rather than just imaginings—can lead you to the right personality for the right job and give you an idea about the right way to give thanks/energy back for that assistance. However, especially for those new to ritual practices where the gods get to talk back to you, it can take some time to hear those gods and to develop that gut instinct. Research can take you where intuition is not ready to go.
Before starting an entire ritual invoking a deity, take some prayer and meditation time to introduce yourself to that being. Some of the invocations here may be used for this purpose. Cast a circle, speak the invocation, and then verbally ask for communication time to get to know one another. Accompany this with an offering, whether a libation or burning incense or a candle. Whether or not these offerings are more effective or better energy, they are usually good etiquette.
While pop culture often has playful takes on the personalities and traits of the gods, it’s a good idea to go look at the sources that fed those modern creations. So, as wonderful as Hercules and Xena may be, still try to go to the source material first. Look to what the ancient Greeks wrote about their gods, what the folklore of the Mabinogion described when it came to Celtic gods, to the Bhagavad Gita for the Hindu pantheon, and so on. Bear in mind as you read and meditate on these deities that their cultural context is rooted in their culture of origin and some may see things in a way much different than what you know. Even if your concept of gods and godforms is strictly metaphorical, it is still a good idea to consider this if only to evaluate how such invocation may affect your own subconscious patterns.
If looking for better information before invoking a deity, consider using the Internet to find as much source material as possible:
Internet Sacred Text Archive: http://www.sacred-texts.com/
Google Books: If you use the “search tools” box, you can set your search to Free Google eBooks. This holds many books from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, some of which contain public domain material with some of the earliest known information about different gods and cultures.
Ishtar and Tammuz: Ishtar and Tammuz bear special celebrity in Western culture: they are among the Pagan gods mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible. In particular, one of Tammuz’s seasonal rituals involves women in the fields crying over the soil as a symbolic act of mourning his death. Even so, we know the least about the rituals of Ishtar and Tammuz. If you choose to invoke them, go slow—they, more than any included in this book, require a ritual of introduction.
An Invocation to Ishtar
Queen of Heaven,
we look toward the eagle
to send our messages of love to you.
Great Mother, priestess of the skies,
be gentle with us;
pour your rain upon our fields
as once you wept for Tammuz.
Cradle us, that though we reach skyward
we do not hurtle to the earth
but come to it gently
when our fallow times come.
An Invocation to Tammuz
In our tearful moments, we plant our seeds
as you, Tammuz, lay beneath the earth to receive them.
It is in joy that we shall sow them,
the joy that rises
from going deep,
lying still beneath
then rising, reaching for the light.
We stretch, we grow,
your return betides
the end of every dark night,
every winter
of the soul.
Shepherd us, your people,
tend us well,
so that we may tend your body
fallen upon the land.
An Invocation to Demeter
Demeter is the great mother goddess and the keeper of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Mabon is a profound time for her, Persephone, and Pluto. While much grain goddess lore focuses on her effect on agriculture, her stories offer many lessons about empathy and compassion as well.
Mother of the grain, mother of all that grows,
we reach out to you, offer our arms,
return your comfort with our comfort,
your love with our love,
your loss with our loss.
We open ourselves to your Mysteries,
align,
listen,
observe.
We will rejoice with you as you rejoice.
Blessed are your Mysteries.
Blessed are your Mercies.
Blessed are you,
Mother of the Wheat,
Goddess of the Corn,
She who turns the seasons
by sun, by fire, by wind, by rain.
We await Persephone’s return with you.
We honor your lessons as we work the earth.
An Invocation to Kore
Sweet maiden at the edge of the earth,
fear not.
You have the strength of all women within you.
You have the power of your loves to sustain you!
As you descend,
our hearts descend with you.
In all our human yearnings
it is you who we seek—
your thought that warms us in dark nights.
You help us remember
the mysteries of springtime,
the light that warms the soil,
the grace of wonder
as we behold the miracles of this world
even as missing you is bittersweet.
We look forward to rest in the dark.
It is as you are beneath
that we may rest.
We shall greet you at the edge of earth
as snow sinks into soil
to hear of your lessons for us;
to behold you, as woman.
An Invocation to Persephone
Queen of the underworld,
we greet you
with libations, fruit, honey, perfume.
Speak
so we may hear the voices of our ancestors
as the land goes dry and dark.
Yellow paths
mark your trails of descent.
We give you now
what we would lay to rest;
we render the pain, the love
stored in our breasts
unto you, O Queen of the Dead.
May our own hearts be light
when we meet you.
An Invocation to Pluto
King of Hades,
he who keeps what lies beneath,
we hail to you
who receives what we send to the earth.
Pray judge it well,
be merciful when we stand before you,
reaping at last
all we have sown.
We lay these old pains to rest before you.
Take them with you, king,
and send them to their rightful place.
An Invocation to Pluto and Persephone
Hail to the King and Queen,
ruler of the dead,
voice of the dead!
Receive our messages of love
as all around us
ages, lays still,
surrenders itself to your care.
We send to the earth
that which in rest may grow,
that which you might keep awhile in the Land of the Dead.
Be merciful, King and Queen—
take only that which must be taken
that we may live another season here.
An Invocation to Mabon
The Celtic Mabinogion refers to Mabon as the son stolen from “between his mother and the wall.” Aidan Kelly believed that Mabon’s disappearance paralleled Persephone’s kidnapping and that Modron was a deified version of the land the Celts stood upon—making Mabon a literal son of the earth and part of cyclical mysteries.
Hail, Mabon, son of Modron,
exalted prisoner!
Reveal the hidden things,
guide us through the path
to that which is hidden,
to memories long forgotten.
Show us what lays beyond the castle wall.
Send the blackbird to sing to us,
send the stag for us to chase,
send the owl for us to listen,
send the eagle for us to see,
send the salmon to tell us
how to set free the hidden thing.
An Invocation to Modron
Great Mother, goddess of the land,
we see your grief and we honor it.
We see your love and we cherish it.
In our silences
let us hear the land,
so we can hear your voice
speaking
between the ocean and the winds.
An Invocation to Dionysus
Ancient Greeks revered Dionysus as the master of mysteries of the vine, just as Demeter held sway over the mysteries of grain. His worship in ancient Greece involved the ecstasy of wine.
Hail to the king of the vine!
Semele’s son, it is the ecstasy you provide
that relieves us from the grief of living.
In the grape comes the balm to sorrows,
so that when we return to the sobered world
memory of such merriment
makes our losses not so harsh;
our pain not so great.
You are he who uplifts the poor,
who elevates women,
who frees slaves
and those enslaved too.
Double-doored god,
born twice of woman and man,
we pour out our cups to you,
pound our feet to the soil for you!
In this wine, in this juice,
we partake of you.
We dance to your ecstasy
in sunlight.
We dance again
as the rain pours itself onto the earth
as you so poured yourself into the vine,
as you once poured your being into us—
we are full of you,
and so we fill you.
An Invocation to Bacchus
Some people consider Bacchus and Dionysus interchangeable. The Romans did do a good job of establishing a syncretic religion that only minimally disrupted the cultures brought into their empire. Even so, differences did occur. On an intuitive level, Bacchus can feel like a different personage from Dionysus, though one might recognize the other as a sort of shadow self. If performing invocations and prayers, it only seems right that Bacchus have a prayer separate from that of Dionysus.
You can find translations of hymns to Bacchus online. Here in its place is a twenty-first-century variation on the original hymn:
Hail Bacchus, voice of thunder,
horned one of field and farm,
bull of heaven!
He who raises passion,
consumes with it,
teaches with it,
releases it.
Praise to you, immortal king,
grant our supplications
that we may have cause
for celebration, for singing of your praises,
as what we grow
can kindle passions
and rejoicing
for seasons to come.
An Invocation to Apollo
Pagans often see the sabbats as the solar holidays while esbats celebrate the lunar cycles. Mabon, as an equinox is especially solar, and so some Pagans choose to honor gods of the sun at that time. The ancients were keenly aware that the sun is crucial to the health of all crops. Without enough sun, plants do not get what they need to live. With too much sun, they wither and die. Consequently, Apollo received his own section of harvest celebrations.
Hail to Apollo!
We salute you
as you pull your chariot across the sky.
With a kiss from our palm to you,
we send our praise!
We feel you cooling to us
as it must be
from time to time
between lovers.
Come spring,
we too shall be eager for you—
to feel your touch on our skin,
to see what you alone
can raise from the soil.
Fare thee well into the autumn, Apollo.
We love the glimpses we get
of your shining countenance
behind the greying sky.
Invocations to the Goddess and God
Many Pagans accept the idea of individual gods and goddesses or the idea of one God/ess with many faces. Some still prefer to pray to or invoke what they see as the whole—God/ess or at least address the God and the Goddess (or Lord and Lady) as separate entities.
Goddess
Blessed Goddess, Mother of all that is,
we ask that you bless our harvest,
and that you bless all that results
of seeds sown in this year.
Your abundance is infinite;
your presence eternal.
Please, by your grace,
give us the power to give back to you
as you have given to us.
God
Blessed Consort, we greet you
with tears and with praise.
It is your kindness
that allows us to live;
your sacrifice
that reminds us to care for others—
to extend that caring
outside our own tribes.
You have lain down for us,
led us,
lived for us.
We take your teachings,
take your nurturing,
and weave our lives together
for the good of all,
as you have done
for the good of us all.
Lord and Lady
Lord and Lady,
even you, the most holy of all couples,
must let death steal away.
We see this, we know this.
Lord, we bid you well on your journey.
Lady, we bid you safe return.
Invocation to the Dark Night of the Soul
The Spanish mystic Saint John of the Cross penned the poem “Dark Night of the Soul” around 1579 to describe the soul leaving the body and achieving union with God. The title of the poem is now used by mystics of many religions (and by a few therapists) to describe people experiencing extreme difficulty in life to such a degree that those who are religious—and some who are not—experience a loss of faith or spiritual crisis. While the original author saw this ultimate dark night as death, some Pagan faiths believe that people can experience death in a metaphorical manner as much as in a physical one.
Those in spiritual crisis may especially struggle with Mabon. The holiday revolves around the themes of gratitude and sacrifice with a heavy emphasis on bonds of love and community. For a person enduring such a crisis these themes may feel burdensome.
No single prayer can speak to the complexities of every situation. During crisis, prayer may not appeal. Honesty, at least, can perhaps relieve a little bit of the inner pressure—even in the form of an honest prayer. One suggested prayer is this (it may help to speak the prayer out loud):
God/ess,
I want to be grateful.
I wanted to be grateful.
I might even understand
how your sacrifice has brought us here.
As much as I want to,
I can’t feel it right now.
I see the rejoicing,
but my heart does not stir—
I cannot even remember that time when it did.
Right now I am in pain.
It dulls the senses,
dims connection.
I can’t even see you
through all my wounds.
I feel abandoned, ignored, hurt
by you and by what surrounds me.
I am unsure if what I seed
has any reward at all.
Will you return to me?
Were you ever here for me?
Is there something that needs your forgiveness?
I need your love, God/ess.
I need your compassion.
In this moment, I speak my truth:
I doubt. I distrust. I hurt.
Giving Thanks
Ultimately, Mabon is about gratitude. There are many times and ways to express gratitude and it is really a daily part of Pagan life. Mabon is the ultimate holiday for it, before we again move into other deep mysteries of life—sometimes even the feeling of thankfulness can be a mystery in itself.
Gratitude Prayer
God and Goddess, you who make the tides turn,
who shift the energies at the tilt of the earth,
we thank you for your kindness and abundance.
Let us remember you and remember each other
in the coming winter:
it is not just food and water that sustain us,
but the connection of heart to heart
that carries us through our winters.
We ask that you bless this meal
that we may carry the best possible blessings
and connection with one another
in the coming year.
Blessed be!
Gratitude Prayer for the Crop
Lord and Lady, with thanks and praise,
with libation and burning incense,
we celebrate the gifts that weigh on our table.
The gift of each other
that has come with us from one year to the next,
from one season to the next,
from one day to the next,
even from one moment to the next.
We are here to teach each other
and to listen to you.
Let us be celebratory, let us listen,
let us share our joy in you and in each other.
Prayers and invocations work best when they come from cultivated knowledge of who you invoke and of your own heart. Mabon is a holiday for gratitude—but it’s okay if you don’t feel magickally grateful at this time. Some years do render bad harvests. According to James Frazier, ancient Pagans used to bury god statues upside down and engage in other ritual abuses when crops were bad. Modern Pagans don’t really do that—in part, because most of us live in places where bad crops look more like small paychecks and high rents but also because many Pagans believe even symbolic aggression does more harm than good. Connecting spiritually during tough times isn’t about being rewarded, it’s about having a conversation, even if you’re not entirely sure the conversation is one-sided. Sometimes just engaging in the act of prayer is calming enough. Make offerings as you can, pray if you can, and perhaps look for gratitude in the reality that seasons pass no matter what.