A Pagan Ritual Prayer Book (2 page)

Before giving the prayers themselves, I've provided a discussion of prayer theory. This is not as extensive as in
A Book of Pagan Prayer
. My goal was to give enough information to allow this book to be useful on its own and to help people construct their own prayers, but without repeating too much from the previous book. I also wanted to present new material, things that I've learned since writing
A Book of Pagan Prayer
or that I didn't have the space to put in that book.

In one sense, then, this book stands alone, while in another it is a continuation and expansion of my previous work. I've tried to present the most important points in different ways, so even those who have seen them before can gain something from them. Because of the emphasis on ritual, I've added a chapter on ritual theory. I've only been able to touch on the most basic features of this broad topic, concentrating on those connected with prayer. For those interested in a deeper study I'm working on a book about ritual, where I will cover the subject in more detail.

In writing this book, I've tried to consider feedback from readers of
A Book of Pagan Prayer
. For instance, one reviewer suggested that a book written by a single author would tend to be limited to deities that had a particular appeal to that person. I'd actually made an effort to avoid that, but fair enough. I've made even more effort in this book to include a large number of deities from as broad a range of cultures as possible. Even so, the majority of the prayers given here are to Indo-European, Egyptian, or Wiccan deities, since these are the most common cultures that Neo-Pagans operate in. And I hope I may be excused the personal foible of including some prayers to Proto- Indo-European deities.

I have attempted to remedy this further by writing some prayers to deities assigned by function rather than by name—to hearth deities, storm deities, etc. There are characteristics shared by types of deities in different cultures, so I have written these prayers to line up with the commonalities. Even some of the prayers I've written to particular deities can be adapted to others: Indra fighting the serpent V
tra isn't too different from Thor and his opposition to the Midgard serpent.

Other reviewers remarked about the style of the prayers. My natural style is sparse. Some saw that as an advantage, but others found the prayers less moving for it. I'm not about to change my basic style, but for the sake of those who like their prayers more flowery I have written some that are less sparse. I must admit that making the effort to write them was a lot of fun.

The discussion of theory in Part I will raise more questions than it answers. It gives things to think about when writing or performing a prayer rather than instructions on what effect each prayer may have. It is intended as a place to start from, rather than a destination. I have included a bibliography to help point the way onward.

Prayer is communication with some form of the sacred, most often seen as a person or persons. It is a form of speech and, like speech in general, can be divided into marked and unmarked. Unmarked speech is informal. It can be called “conversational,” since it is the style we use in conversation. It's a prose style, friendly, using everyday words in everyday arrangement: nothing fancy here. In prayer this style is most appropriate for deities with whom you are on very good terms, and for those who are close to people in general and therefore likely to be friendly to us—for instance hearth goddesses, homey deities who live with us and with whom we interact daily. Prayers to other kinds of beings can be in this style as well; ancestors, who were people like us, may enjoy it, as long as it is respectful. High gods like Zeus, on the other hand, may not appreciate being treated on chummy terms.

Conversational prayers are almost nonexistent among the prayers we have from ancient times. Although this may be due to the vagaries of survival, it may be because these less formal prayers express a theology that sees little distinction between the deities and humans—a belief not common in those times.

For other sorts of prayers, marked speech is most common. Marked speech is simply any form that is out of the ordinary. At one end of this spectrum is elevated prose like “newscasters' speech,” in which grammatical niceties are observed, and words more common in written than spoken speech are used. The interest here is clarity and precision rather than decoration. The more formal types of elevated prose include technical terms; a good example is legal speech. Elevated prose may include sentences that have become ritualized: “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” It may contain archaic terms like “thou,” or words that still exist but are used with archaic meanings, such as “suffer” for “allow.” These words are used not just for their basic meanings, but also for their psychological and social implications. Fancy words are seen as expressing fancy thought.

In elevated prose, grammatical rules for word order may be played with—for instance, “For this I pray” rather than “I pray for this.” The style may be magisterial, conveying, without actually stating, that the occasion is an important one. Here we see the beginnings of poetry, in which the way something is expressed is as important as its literal meaning.

Elevated prose is often used in speeches. A classic example is the Gettysburg Address, which uses archaic and unusual terms: “four score and seven” is certainly not the common way to express “eighty-seven”; “brought forth” is not likely to be found in everyday speech, and “conceived,” at least in the sense that Lincoln used it, is equally uncommon.

These words are carefully chosen and arranged. There is, for instance, a parallelism in the structure of the speech. Something that is “brought forth” is something that has been “conceived.” There is the metaphor of the emergence of a country as that of a child. There is connecting structure between sections of the speech: “dedicate” and “consecrate” are repeated, and “who struggle here” is paired with “who fought here.” This is not casual speech; it has been carefully crafted to draw listeners in and to make a logical argument. It is beautiful, but its beauty is in service to its purpose.

This sort of speech requires a lot of practice and skill, careful planning and editing, or both. In the case of the Gettysburg Address, it was both; Lincoln had developed his speaking skill in years of legal argument and debate, and, despite the legend, the Address was not dashed off on the back of an envelope on the way to Gettysburg, but went through several drafts. (A wonderful history and for our purposes a very relevant account of this is found in Wills, 1993, 148–175.) I think this would be too much to expect when writing a prayer, at least at first, but it's a good goal.

A very formal type of speech is found in the King James Bible. Contrary to what many think, the language of this translation is not the English spoken at the time of King James. It is consciously archaic, looking back toward Elizabethan England, but formalized to create a language that no one had ever actually spoken. Even at the time of the translation, it was marked. Moreover, the text was designed to be spoken rather than read, so careful attention was paid to flow, ease of pronunciation, and meter (Nicolson, 2003). The end result comes very close to poetry.

And it is poetry that is the most marked form of speech, and it was the most common form for prayers in ancient times. Even many prayers that seem at first to be prose have been shown to be structured like poetry (Watkins, 1995). It's therefore useful to have a good knowledge of how poetry works when you are writing prayers.

It is difficult to define poetry, and the line between it and elevated prose is not always easy to draw. The definition in Wikpedia is “a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning.” This could be applied to some other forms of elevated prose as well. There are some differences, however; in poetry this definition is more intensely applied. In particular, poetry pays careful attention to beauty; it is decorative. This decoration, however, carries part of the meaning.

Although in recent years the rules governing the type of compositions considered to be poetry have loosened, there are traditional poetic formats. These may limit the number of lines, the meter, and the rhyme scheme. We all know about sonnets and haikus, for instance.

The grossest level of a poem is its overall structure. Is there one verse or more? If there are more than one, are they separated by a chorus? A verse/chorus structure is possible whether a prayer is sung or spoken. In either case it works well in groups, where a main celebrant may sing or say the verse, and everyone joins in on the chorus.

When composing a poem or prayer, you need to decide how many lines you want. If you are using a set format like a sonnet, this may be decided for you. (An English sonnet, for instance, has fourteen lines.) You also need to consider syllable count. Each line can consist of a set number of syllables. (In English sonnets, each line has ten.) Lines may have differing numbers of syllables, however, even in some set formats. The most familiar pattern of this is probably that of the haiku, with three lines in a syllable count of 5-7-5. I am very fond of this form, since it leads to short prayers that are still tightly constructed.

Haikus traditionally present a stripped-down description of nature that is then related to an emotional state or the transcendent, making them very suitable for Pagan prayers. A haiku prayer can end in a call to or praise of a divine being:

• Winter snow lies thick
  

  on the frozen ground beneath:
  

   
  

  Hail, Winter Spirits!
  

   
  

The structure can be modified to suit your purpose. For instance, sometimes I use an extended haiku format. Instead of three lines, 5-7-5, I may use 5-7-5-5 or 5-7-5-7: