Pagan Definitions of Prayer and Sacrifice
Prayer is seen as proper when kneeling as to a master, closing the eyes, so as not to be blinded by his glory, folding the hands in pleading. Is this the way of modern paganism, or even of paganism in general, subdued abject terror and slavery in the face of our deities. No, not one pagan I have met yet says that they are to their deities this way, or see their deities in this light. There is a general consensus, not complete, but nearly so, among pagans, that we are the children of the gods, or that we are their younger siblings, or that we are in some way related to them, or separate from them in a way that does not denote the master-slave relationship. I have heard of many of these views of deity, but it is not my purpose here to describe them all nor do I have the time.
Here I wish to show what our prayers and sacrifices should be to our deities. I will first deal with prayer, as that is the easiest to handle. Prayer is simply speech with the deities. If we see ourselves as not being slaves, and our deities as not being masters, then why would we speak to them with our bodies and words representing that sort of relationship? When we speak to our deities, we should speak to them as our elders, teachers, maybe as older siblings, or as parents. Do you close your eyes, kneel down and fold your hands to speak to such people? If not then why would you do so to your deities? You need not stand at attention, or stand at all, sitting comfortably and simply conversing with your deities, is good enough. I do have a tendency to close my eyes, but only to drown out other things going on around me, so that I can give my attention to the deity/deities I am addressing. Sacrifice is a harder topic.
Today sacrifice is looked at with an odd eye. Yet we do it all the time. Sacrificing our money so that our nation can be run better… hopefully. Sacrificing our time and energy so that our children might have it better than we did. These are sacrifices… payments. That is all a sacrifice is something we give of ourselves, in order to pay for something to happen or be granted us. The harder the sacrifice is to give, the better we would expect the reward to be. Sacrificing to our gods, in thanks for the meal they give us, could be as simple as returning to the earth a portion of our food, or even planting or raising food ourselves. Giving to the poor, is a form of sacrifice for all that the gods have given us, it shows that as they were willing to give to us what they could so are we willing to give to others what we can.
We are not slaves to our deities, no modern pagan I have met sees it that way, and I have never heard of any other pagan who believes that way. Thus, our prayers and sacrifices should not embody that mindset. We should never act towards our gods as though they are slave-masters, and we are here simply to do their bidding no matter what it may be. We should see them as mentors, guides, and as distant relatives, for we are related to them, as we are made from the cloth of the same universe that created them.
