Each morning I do a small ritual which is made up of a short prayer to the Sun, a series of affirmations, and sometimes another prayer. (Yes, I am a creature of habit!) I touched on prayer the other day in my post about Jesus but I have been wanting to elaborate on it.

According to Wikipedia:

Prayer is the act of attempting to communicate with a deity or spirit. Purposes for this may include worshipping, requesting guidance, requesting assistance, confessing sins, as an act of reparation or to express one’s thoughts and emotions. [...] Secularly, the term can also be used as an alternative to “hope”. [...] Most major religions in the world involve prayer in one way or another.

Many of the items included in that description are things I do regularly. Requesting guidance, requesting assistance, and expressing one’s thoughts and emotions. The prayers I send out for other people are also my way of sending hope to them. So yes, I most definitely pray.

Prayer is not a term generally thrown around within the Pagan community. This is, in my opinion, because of mainstream religion. Most of the Pagans I know were once Christian and when they left that faith most of them distanced themselves from all its practices. Prayer is often one of the first things to go, which is really a bit odd when you think about it since prayer was around long before Jesus walked. To an extent, I understand the desire (however unhealthy) to bury ones past. After all, many Pagans had traumatic experiences within their former churches which are what ultimately drove them to seek beliefs that were better suited for their soul. I do think that prayer is a term Pagans have every right to reclaim though.

In my practice, prayer is not the exclusive territory of the gods. Many, if not most, of my prayers are focused towards spirits (elemental or otherwise) or my ancestors. I don’t think it matters what spirit is prayed to (if you want to send your thoughts to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, go ahead) all I think matters is that we take time to send our gratitude, hopes and wishes out into the Universe. I pray because it helps me live my life with reverence, grounds me, brings me comfort and order my thoughts.

Ultimately, prayer is an intensely personal experience and one I don’t think we should be afraid of. It is a opportunity to say exactly how you feel without repercussions, it feels good to get stuff like that off your chest, no matter how silly or serious. No matter what is said it can stay between you, the god or spirit of your choosing and the all-knowing fence post. (And of course anyone else you are comfortable sharing with.) As for me, my prayer this morning went something like this:

Blessed Mother Earth, I ask for your help on this day.
I ask that you send your Spirits of Peace to my dear friend,
She has great trials ahead of her in her fight with breast cancer.
Let her remember that it is the heart that makes the woman, not the body.
Let her remember your unconditional love, let it give her strength,
So that she may grow from this and find some joy in these hard times.
Blessed be.

I must take a moment to admire my friend, in spite of her diagnosis and the looming fear of surgery, her faith is strong and she is at peace with where ever this disease will lead her. I do not know if I could be as strong. As hard as it is for me to admit, I sometimes find myself angry with the powers that be for the trials I find myself in (and those that I love.) It is hard to remember that it is these trials and how we carry ourselves through them are what define us. That is a topic for a future blog post though.

Do you pray?