How do you worship?

[Ouranos Ouroboros]

Re: How do you worship?

I don't worship them - not in the generally accepted sense. I practice egalitarian magic, which means that - while I recognize degrees of progression - I don't adhere to a hierarchy as one would within a coven or similar group. When I receive an initiation (assuming I ever have), I'm told, "You now have the right not to call yourself [acolyte, priest, adept, etc.]". It's the same in working with the gods. What most people call worship is, for me, like spending time with good friends and family who have an entirely different set of skills. We work to co-create the world (I can only speak for my world - that is, the set of experiences that I believe I remember). I do not respect the gods as being greater than I am; I deeply respect them as an otherworldly family of equals. And I strive to meet the high standard that I believe equality entails because they deserve no less than this from me.

[boyo1991]

Re: How do you worship?

One of the beautiful things in the way I practice is that you are worshipping simply through observation. "It's a lovely day out," or, "thank the Divine that was a great night's sleep!" Of course there is always observing the cycle of the year.

One of the main things that have been instilled in my head is that the Divine has ever lasting love and doesn't want or need anything from us or ask us for anything. I show my appreciation the best way I can, accepting the guidance and bounty and thanking the energies around me.

I don't call on specific gods because I was always taught that all the different names are the same god manifested in different ways, and that god is litterally the energy around us. Break down an object to molecules, to atoms, to pure energy. Including yourself!

This is just a brief overview of the way I believe and by no means do I speak for any lineage of pagan traditions in its entirety. Just follow what you feel or believe is correct.

I hope that I helped you out in some small way along your path!

[Carlin]

Re: How do you worship?

I'm more of a pantheist pagan. I don't worship, for me it's more 'tuning in'. I observe the wheel of the year because I like it, and it helps me feel connected. I don't do rituals. I prefer simplicity.

[Daughter of Toothless]

Re: How do you worship?

How I worship Toothless is usually how Christians worship their god. (and I tend to worship on Sunday nights) You see, I was bought up in a Christian family and started going to church when I was 14 and kept going there for three years til Toothless hijacked my spirituality. :XP: I dress up in a nice, long dress and fix my hair to make it look nice. Then I kneel by my altar singing Christian songs. :XP: I usually sing songs in which the Christian is singing about how they feel about Yahweh or Jesus. However, I can't really worship with songs that express the sacrifice on the Cross and things like that. They just don't create the right atmosphere.

When I worship Toothless, I just feel my connection to Him grow stronger and it makes me feel good. I just now broke the record with fifty minutes. I was just so lost in Him that I lost track of time. XD

[iflewoverthecuckoosnest]

Re: How do you worship?

The methods I use to work with gods/spirits, and what, exactly, "worship", means to me, is still very much in the works. This is my first year or so dipping my toes into actual pagan practices. For me, it is very steeped in symbolism. The items on my altar all play into eachother on an archetypal level. Anubis has flowers around his feet, and a little buddha leans against the flowers. It's all a symbolic representation of death and spiritual rebirth/enlightenment. I often burn candles or sage to Anubis, usually after or during meditation.
During Beltane I had a Green Man figurehead and a Nature Goddess figurehead. There were four candles surrounding them, each representing the passage of a season. I also had a little offering of flower seeds, from what I remember.

I'm still figuring it all out, though :P I probably always will be. Life is for learning, they always say.

[Sonku]

Re: How do you worship?

I believe in ancestors of which I communicate with them on daily basis, so if I need to pray, I pray for the high creator, but how? I seat down in my shrine open up my hands and say my prayer, sometimes I can go to the mountain and say my prayer from there but it depends to what I actually need. Because my ancestors are always with me and am used to doing offerings for them as a form of thanking what ever they do for me.

[wildcat]

Re: How do you worship?

I don't practice any sort of rituals or engage in any "formal" type of worship, since I am not part of any pantheon that encourages that. I've tried rituals before when I was trying to fit myself into a certain religion, but I found I didn't connect to the rituals and formal worship, it felt empty. My worship is constant. I'm constantly in reverence and in awe of nature, and constantly meditating on certain aspects of nature that affect me on my personal journey, so that is my worship. Non-formal, but extremely personal.

I speak to my patron goddess frequently, when I need to sit down and talk something out with myself. I open myself up to anything that she might want to impart to me, and based on feelings and intuitions, I get a sense of what her viewpoint on my current situation is. I very rarely ask my goddess for anything, that is "pray" for something to happen or for her to help me in some way. I usually only do so when I feel that something is out of my control, that I cannot fix by myself. Because I believe my goddess wants me first and foremost to illustrate my own strength in regards to helping myself in my own life, she encourages that type of inner strength and ability to survive on my own. So only when the outcome is out of my control, is when I appeal for her help and support (basically, placing the fate in the "gods' hands"). When I do so, I light candles as offerings, or some other form of offering, as I believe in reciprocity when we commune with the gods. If I am wanting them to intervene in my life, I should show the courtesy of offering them something of value in return.

[alternatingSelves]

Re: How do you worship?

mostly through offerings. olive oil, incense, fire, wine, and words are my usual fare. I try to regularly give offerings to my goddess, Athena. especially at night, and outdoors, if I can swing it. if not I open my curtains so I can see the sky.

[Briar]

Re: How do you worship?

Similar to what Wildcat said, the way I live my life is how I "worship". For me worship is more just me being grateful for what I see around me. It has been shown scientifically that people who show gratitude are happier, healthier people. So I will often just stop and say thank you as I see, feel, hear, taste, smell or sense something wonderful, which happens quite a bit. I don't know that I am saying thank you TO anything though as being a secular witch means I don't have any deities. I don't do formal rituals as I often see those as play acting and insincere (for me). I have very few specifically pagan items, though I see every item I use to be infused with energy. In fact the more I use it, the stronger that energy becomes. The wooden spoon I use to cook with every day is more powerful than a wand someone pulls out on the full moon (again, for me). When people ask me to list my ritual tools I will often say something like; binoculars, hoe, my big stone soup kettle, 5 tined fork, cast iron griddle, Stokley's bird guide... I am a minimalist in life as I think that having too much "stuff" makes me at odds with the earth. Everything that I own had to come from somewhere and I do not like stealing from the earth for trival things.

So how I worship would be working at our local food pantry, teaching at 4-H, cooking a good meal for my loved ones, cleaning the local stream, foraging, gardening, petting my dogs, butchering my own meat...and having gratitude that I am healthy enough to do all these things and that it rains sometimes and the sun shines sometimes, and that the wind blows, and that the fire in the stove is keeping me warm this morning (it's 25 degrees F outside right now).