Daily Devotions to the God of the Day

I used to do this all the time, making a small offering (usually a tea-light candle, incense, or water) and spending a bit of time in prayer to whatever God or Goddess governs the day, but it’s been a very, very long time as I change up my practice every now and again to keep it fresh. I find myself, however, as the New year approaches, wanting to get back into this type of consistent and regular daily practice again—practice of the sort that ties my contemplations of the Holy Ones to the day and very concrete sense of time and place by which my daily life is ordered. 

Before we continue, let me explain for those of you who aren’t Heathen, what I mean by “God of the Day.” In English, the names for the days of the week derive from Old English or Old Norse words that are basically constructed like this: name of a Deity + day. Monandaeg (OE), Mánadagr (ON). So, we have the following: 

• Monday – Mani’s Day
• Tuesday – Tyr’s Day
• Wednesday- Woden’s Day
• Thursday – Thor’s Day
• Friday – Frigga or Freya’s Day (the etymology is from the OE “Frigedaeg,” Frigga’s Day but the ON is frjá-dagr and Latin gives the day to Venus. I solve the problem by honoring Them both). 
• Saturday – we only have the interpretatio romana for this day, which means Saturn’s Day in OE. The ON word for Saturday is laugardagur, which means „bathing day.“ I don‘t know why there was no Germanic God given to this day, but my House has always honored Loki on this day, and, once my adopted mom took me in hand, I began to honor Sigyn on this day as well. This is for solely personal reasons: Mutti was what one might call in German a putzteufel, or cleaning devil. You could eat off her bathroom floor her house was so impeccably clean. She considered cleaning her entire house daily to be a devotional act to Sigyn. She was creating space where nothing malignant could endure. She would pray to Sigyn the whole time she clenaed. It was a deeply, deeply devotional act for her. Becuase of this, as I honored Loki on Saturdays, so too I began to honor Sigyn and it is a custom my House has maintained. 
• Sunday – Sunna‘s Day, the day of the Sun. 

I have shrines in my home to Sunna and Mani, Odin (multiple ones), Loki and Sigyn, Thor, Frigga; my housemate has one to Freyja. I have Freyja on the ritual room shrine and that room is also an appropriate place where I can make an offering to Tyr (Neither I nor anyone in my household has any particular personal devotion to Him, so we don’t have an individual shrine to Him in the house). 

Starting this Monday (I always count Monday as the first day of the week, but I know some folks would say that’s Sunday. I grew upon rhymes like ‘wash on Monday, iron on Tuesday, mend on Wednesday, churn on Thursday, clean on Friday, bake on Saturday, rest of Sunday’ which sort of set the tone for how I number the days.), I intend to return to this practice and as much as possible, I’ll post my prayers and any other devotions that I do for each day (for instance, I often honor the military dead on Tuesdays). I might not post every week, but there will be enough for folks to follow along and if they want to start incorporating this into their own devotions. 

I have to admit, in addition to just thinking of Monday as the first day of the week, I also deeply love Mani, our moon God, so this will be a lovely opportunity to begin the year with His veneration. 

Now I’m off to do the ritual equivalent of mise en place. We begin our ritual at 11:15 tonight, so that we can end right at midnight. Before any ritual, I always read over the rite or my notes thereof and make sure that I have everything required. I set it out, all prepared for use (in addition to setting up the shrines or ritual room – depending on the type of rite I’m doing) so that once we begin, there is no fumbling, no stopping, no interruption, and no nonsense. 

Have a lovely New Year’s Eve Celebration, folks. 

Mani by V. Hardy

Kofi – Buy me a Coffee here. 

A Bit of Magical Advice for the New Year

We are in the process of preparing for our New Year’s ritual tonight, which y’all can read here. I want to take just a moment, however, to share with you something I consider of tremendous importance for January 1: setting one’s intentions for the year. In my House, we do this ritually by making sure that the first actions that one takes, once the clock has moved past midnight and into 2023, symbolically reflect what we want the year to hold. New Year hits a powerful groove magically and we can take advantage of that by using the same ritual i.e. symbolic language of action and focused intent. 

So, what do we do? After doing our traditional religious ritual (and there are a couple of things at the end of the ritual that we incorporate as a matter of course as part of the tail end of the rite), we do a couple of things consciously to set the tone for the new year. Nothing that we choose is random – we discuss it beforehand as a household—and nothing is difficult. Whatever things we choose are all symbolically charged though in our minds, and we approach this as a household with a unified intent. 

Normally I wouldn’t mention this because the first rule of magic is to shut the fuck up about it. We A). chip away at our workings by talking about them and B). give enemies an opportunity to work directly against us by showing them precisely where to focus. A magus of any sense does neither, so I’m not going to give specifics of what we are going to do tonight. Instead, I’ll give you options: 

• Make an offering at one of your shrines (beyond what is noted in the aforementioned rite). 
• Offer a prayer to your primary Deity or Deities.
• Clean something: either a mundane or a religious space. 
• Make sure that the first person to enter your house in the New Year precedes his or her entry by tossing a handful of coins across the threshold (I learned this one from a Jewish friend, who said it was a common bit of folk-custom when he was growing up).
• Cook bread or something nourishing. 
• Eat something sweet. 
• Cook and/or share a family meal.
• Exchange small gifts. 
• Go visit ancestral graves (ok, I’m an ancestor worker and a genealogist. For me, this is a good day out ,and my husband learned early on this qualifies as a date for me lol). 
• Have a party. 
• Kiss your romantic interest. Hug your friends (pet your pets too – they qualify as friends) and family members or express your appreciation of them in an appropriate way if they don’t want to be hugged.  Have sex with your partner/spouse. Or just tell that person that you love him/her. 
• Deposit a check or do something else that speaks of savings and financial stability for you. 
• Start an art project.
• Finish a craft or art project (and yes, I hear all my crafting friends LAUGH as I write this. I too have the huge basket of unfinished but in progress craft projects. Lol. Let’s not even discuss the fabric stash).  
• Do something that brings you joy. 
• Do something that in some way represents what you want this year to be like – here, I’ve been assuming love, prosperity, and joy as primary goals because these things tend to be universally desired states of being but, don’t necessarily feel stifled by this. Carefully think about it and select something that represents what YOU want to personally manifest in the coming year. 

There are literally thousands of things you could do. These that I’ve listed here are what come immediately to mind in the half hour I’ve set aside to write this. The important thing is to curate carefully the first things you do immediately after the clock tolls 2023. Choose carefully what you do, and do it with intent so that you set a positive track for yourself in the soon-to-be-here New Year. 

Happy 2023, folks. For my readers abroad, some of y’all are already in 2023. May this coming year be one of health, abundance, prosperity, and joy for us all. 

Setting Lights – Candle Altar Opens Sunday, January 8

I haven’t done this in a very long time, not as a service open to the public at any rate. Starting January 8, I am opening up my conjure work for folks in one small way: I’m going to overhaul and maintain an ongoing candle altar and take requests for what is called “setting lights.” 

What is Setting Lights? It’s basically candle magic, though in my opinion, it falls closer to intensely focused prayer than magic. I receive a request, prepare a candle, and add it to the candle shrine, where I will offer daily prayers for the people and purposes included there for one week. I can and will also include traditional candle magic, which does not generally include the week of prayer but a very focused, prepared candle that is lit and let to burn down. I use various candles from tea lights to seven-day pull out candles (when I can get them – it’s getting harder and harder). Sometimes I make my own. It depends on what I have on hand. If I use tea lights, then I will be lighting a candle every night for my client, rather than using one single candle. Prepared sigil candles are larger and preferably pull-out candles. 

For 2023, every Sunday, I will refresh my candle altar. From Mon morning until Sat. 11:59pm EST I will be taking requests for candles. I’m doing this in part to raise money to cover my husband’s medical expenses, but also because I feel the esoteric itch to be doing this type of work again. My prices and precisely what I offer are listed below. Interested parties may email me at Krasskova at gmail.com and I will send an invoice via paypal. I’ll repost this every so often as a reminder of this particular service. I may, in the future, offer various charms as well. 

That is all – I hope y’all are gearing up for a good New Year. We’ll be doing our regular rite to Cardea on New Year’s Eve and divination for the year on New Year’s Day proper. I’ll post more about that before Saturday (probably lol). 

Setting of Lights

$12 blessing, memorial, or health and well-being candle for your pet. (I can get cat shaped candles, but otherwise, I use regular candles about the size of a typical yahrzeit candle.

$18: Basic candle for any of the following: general blessing, health*, purification, clearing away of obstacles, luck, peace in the home, general well-being and/or spiritual protection, memorial candles for ancestors/beloved dead.

$30 prepared candle with sigil, oil, herbs, charging, etc. for any of the following: luck, money, opening of the way, uncrossing, peace and prosperity, or spiritual protection, larger and more involved memorial candles.

$35 Petition candle for a Deity – I will prepare with oils, herbs, incences, etc. a candle dedicated to a particular Deity and will pray nightly to that Deity on behalf of the client for seven days, asking that the Deity favor the client’s petition.**

I’m fairly specific in what I’m willing to do for folks. My specialty is uncrossing and protection. I reserve the right to refuse any request. 

To order a candle, email me at Krasskova at gmail.com and tell me what you want based on my list above. I will get back to you within 24 hours and then, if we are in agreement, invoice you via paypal. Once I receive payment, I’ll prepare the candle which will be lit the following Sunday. Sunday is Sunna’s Day and seems to me like a favorable day on which to start these new workings. Prepared candles are done when they’re done. 

For your basic prayer candles, I will continue offering prayers for the entire week even if your candle burns down quickly. 

*This is not a substitute for competent medical care!

**Everyone is perfectly capable of making an offering for oneself, but sometimes one wants the added oomph of having a specialist do so instead or in addition.

To Nanna — The House of Vines

A beautiful prayer to Baldr’s Wife…no one ever writes for this Goddess. I”m delighted to see Sannion including Her in his upcoming devotional!

Hear my prayers O Far-distant One,the beautiful, the chaste, the unflinchingly loyalNanna Nepsdóttir, who is so rich in blessingsthat she dispenses boons to all her fellow Ásynjur,as when she gave Frigg a finely spun robe of purest linen,and Fulla who keeps the Queen’s secrets was gifteda finger-ring which gleamed brightlyas the smile of Sunna with […]

To Nanna — The House of Vines

Putting on Devotion

I’m not talking about Deity possession, not that this isn’t in the devotional equation for some, but rather the process of virtue formation and the daily choice of doing devotion and deciding whether one’s actions are going to bring us closer to the Gods and right relationship with Them or not. Recently, I’ve been contemplating a clothing/body metaphor that came up at an autumn theology conference during a discussion of Origen: the idea of “body virtue” and I’ve not been able to forget this and what it might mean for polytheists (1). We are all corporeal beings after all, and it is through our senses and our bodies that we experience our world, our Gods, and that we do this thing called devotion. 

I’ve also been thinking about a poet named Proba.  One of the earliest female Christian poets, Faltonia Betitia Proba (322-370 C.E.) wrote a 694 verse Cento (2), Cento Vergilianus de laudibus Christi, (retelling parts of the Hebrew scriptures and the Gospels and pulling on lines from Virgil, particularly the Aeneid) and in that work she writes “Piety and having virtue overcame the difficult road.” There is much wisdom in this line. Contextually in the original (A.6.688/P1.664) it speaks of filial piety, of personal courage, of endurance, and of positioning piety and one’s duty to the Gods  and ancestors at the core of one’s journey. It is the thing that carries one through when the road seems bleak and the work particularly hard. It is the thing that allows one to overcome challenges and triumph in one’s devotion and life. It is always the key and the starting point for everything else.

From here, prepare yourselves. I’m going to be jumping a bit, so please bear with me. These are ideas I’ve been wanting to explore for some time, at least since the conference in October. This is a first run at it to get my ideas down and out. One of the metaphors that I find every so often in tandem with ideas of body virtue is that of clothing, putting on what is good, taking off what is bad. Some writers in late antiquity are more colorful in how they present this idea than others, and by the early medieval period in the West, we have this transformed (again pulling strongly on Paul) into prayers that incorporate putting on the armor of Christ (3). 

Late antique Syrian theologian Makarios (c. 4^th century) used this imagery of clothing when he wrote (and unfortunately, I did not note the source in my quickly scribbled notes at the conference) that “the Evil One put on Adam’s soul as a garment (4)” I had never heard this, though I was familiar with other early Christian ideas such as Gregory Nazianzen’s idea that our corporeality was the result of humankind’s expulsion from Eden (5). The line from Makarios stayed with me for days, so much so that I wrote it down in my journal, because if the sin and transgression, essentially in Heathen terms breaking frith with the Gods can open a soul to such evil as a Christian like Makarios imagined for Adam, then by consciously choosing to embrace and cultivate piety, by consciously and mindfully turning away as best we ever can (being flawed and human creatures) from that which stands in opposition to the Holy Powers, then we can ward and restore the soul in quite the same way, through a reversal of the equation Makarios sets up. 

For Makarios and Christians of his time, the mystery of the cross was buried deep within every Christian’s soul, just as the wisdom of the Tree and the obligation to maintain and sustain it is buried within ours. The World Tree is the axis mundi, the ultimate scaffolding holding up the Worlds. We sustain and restore our world, participating – by our choices, by living rightly, by our moral courage, by devotion, by prayer – in sustaining that World Tree of which we are part. We are, after all, descended from Ask and Embla, who were crafted from trees. Why trees? The Gods could have chosen anything, any substance from which to make humanity but They consciously chose trees. In the Gylfaginning, the creation of humanity is presented as a careless choice (6). I would argue however, that nothing the Holy Powers do is careless, especially not at the moment of creation. The creation of the first man and woman occurs right after the ordering of the architecture of the worlds, putting us within that primal order. The moment of humanity’s first forming occurs in a liminal place (a seashore (7)), the type of place sacred to the God of thought and holiness Hoenir. Within the boundaries of the lore that has come down to us (in however mediated a form), and by the nature of the Gods in question, this is highly significant. So why trees? Personally, I think this is because all trees in some way partake of Yggdrasil (just as Yggdrasil partakes of and imbues itself into every tree). By making Ask and Embla from trees, they and all of their descendants are tied directly to the axis of all the worlds, of all creation, to Yggdrasil. Moreover, because of this, our lives have the power to sustain and nourish it …or to do the opposite. All trees are conduits back to that source (8). That is what we carry within our souls. We are literally children of the World Tree. There are ways to bring that to the forefront of our memory, to seat it firmly in our soul’s consciousness. 

Returning to Makarios, he further writes that “thorns and thistles of evil spirits” are “removed by fruitful pain.” For those unfamiliar with plants, thistles are abrasive and depending on the kind of thistle like little nasty needles – thorns – that can pierce and tear the skin. If one gets stuck, like any splinter, it must be removed, which as necessary as it is, can hurt like the (no pun intended) devil. This is the power of ascetic practices for purification, of ordeal, the necessity of the darkest places of our devotion, the dark nights of the soul, and all the sacrifices we make – prayer, fasting, devotion, offerings, etc. – to shake the detritus of pollution from our souls every single day (9).

I want to be clear that our participation in the World Tree, in the architecture of the Worlds, and in our Gods cannot be reduced to pain alone. It is not just pain or even mostly pain. There is a terrifying, overwhelming joy there. I would say that it is quite often a joyous experience because in doing this spiritual work, we are aligning ourselves with everything our Gods would have us become. But it can sometimes hurt, because it is a reshaping, a formation that leads the soul out of pollution, out of corruption, out of spiritual malignancy or just spiritual ignorance and into transformation and virtue. Staying the course is our choice, for all that our Gods will meet us more than halfway if we take but the first faltering steps. 

Basically, we can choose to put on unfruitful darkness (10), as Makarios might put it, or we can choose instead to put on the clothing of our Gods: holiness, piety, love, and reverence. This is devotion. It is, however, a choice made daily, sometimes minute by minute and that is what devotion means.

Notes:

1. Without subjecting y’all to a long and involved discussion of Origen’s theology or that of Makarios, whom I’ll shortly be referencing, suffice it to say there was a long tradition within Christianity discussing the question of whether or not the body was good or evil, whether it was a creation of God, what its connection to the human soul might be, and what role it had to play in the cultivation of piety and virtue. There were both Jewish and Polytheistic philosophers who dealt with some of these same questions, so it wasn’t just a Christian concern, but it was more charged and centralized in Christian writings mostly due to the work of the Apostle Paul, who had quite a bit to say on the distinction between body and flesh, inner and outer man, etc. Makarios wrote extensively on the role of embodiment in living a life of virtue (see. Papanikolaou, Aristotle, “Learning How to Love: Saint Maximus on Virtue,” in Knowing the Purpose of Creation Through the Resurrection: Proceedings of the Symposium on St. Maximus the Confessor, ed. By Maxim Vasiljevic, Alhambra: Sebastian Press, 2013, p. 241-243, passim). Origen is Origen and probably the most brilliant speculative theologian Christianity ever produced. 
2. A Cento is a poem that is comprised of lines taken from other, extant works. The whole thing becomes an interlocking word-knot, comprised of meaning upon meaning. The style was extremely popular in late antiquity and poets today still write cento. 
3. This idea comes from Paul in Ephesians 6: 10-18. Later Christians took it, ran with it, and developed it extensively and one still finds prayers incorporating it today. They can easily be adapted to Heathen or other Polytheistic usage, and I recommend doing so. 
4. The Evil One refers to Satan who took the form of a snake and tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In yielding to the serpent, Adam and Eve created a division between themselves and their God that could only be restored by the Incarnation. Jesus becomes the new Adam – again, a longer conversation about Christian theology than I want to have here but easily researchable for those interested. 
5. I’m pretty sure it was Nazianzen. I get Gregory of Nazianzen, and Gregory of Nyssa occasionally mixed up unless I’m looking right at my teaching notes!
6. Gylfaginning 9. The Gods are walking along the seastrand and find two trees. This is what They take up to create the first man and woman. 
7. This type of threshold, a place neither land nor water is nearly always viewed by cosmologists as liminal, as a possible doorway between states of being, between worlds.
8. “Tree” can also serve as a kenning for a person in Skaldic poetry. 
9. Ascetic practices like fasting are not a daily thing for most of us, though some are called to ongoing ascetic practice. It can however, when medically feasible, be a valuable spiritual discipline to engage in on occasion. Likewise, not everyone is called to formal ordeal, but the suffering we undergo as we get ourselves right in our devotion and right with our Gods can be elevated by dedicating it to that very purpose: purification of our souls, a resetting, a cleaning out of detritus that needs to go if we wish to grow in faith, love, and reverence. 
10. Sometimes darkness can be very fruitful, such as in the dark night of the soul. Darkness does not always equal bad or evil. It can, however, also be used, as I use it in this one time, as a metaphor for all the things that do not nourish our souls or our devotion to the Gods. 

The Sacrality of clothing, Fabric Taboos, and how to wear them

Excellent blog about clothing taboos by Freya’s Frenzy.

Freyja's Frenzy

Samson and Delilah, 1609-10, Peter Paul Rubens in London’s National Gallery

In my religious practice I have found that as people’s religious practice deepens, sometimes are assigned certain taboos or geas. Geas is an Irish word that is most encountered in Irish religious texts. It essentially refers to a religious directive or prohibition, a violation of which can harm or kill a person. While this type of religious directive appears in multiple religious traditions, here is a definition from Ancient texts.Org to clarify further:

geas

GYASS

pl. gease: GYA-ssah. gen. geis: GY-eshh

lit. “a request”

https://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/jce/geas.html

Dineen’s Irish Dictionary defines it as “A bond, spell, prohibition, a taboo or a magical injunction, the violation of which lead to misfortune and/or death.” However, it is properly defined as a “request” placed upon a warrior by a druid at the time of his or her birth, or at the time of…

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Morning Prayer — The House of Vines

A lovely morning prayer from The House of Vines:

A piece from my Polytheist Hymnal. I greet the day in joy, my heart in awe at the beauty of the cosmos.Hail to you Gods of the heavens, and the earth, and those below.Hail Gods of the mountains and the forest,Gods of the mighty rivers and the towering trees.Hail Gods of the desert and the […]

Morning Prayer — The House of Vines

Happy Yule!

Hymn to Sif — The House of Vines

This is a beautiful prayer to the Goddess Sif, written by H. Jeremiah Lewis. check out the full prayer at the link below.

For Johanna To Sif Hail to you Sif, who brings the golden ale round at the feast of the Gods, and can quench the quarrelsome coal with but a touch of your sun-kissed hand, and a gentle word whispered in the ear of your hot-blooded guests, before it blazes forth causing untold misery to one […]

Hymn to Sif — The House of Vines

Nine for Odin by thehouseofvines

Sannion wrote these when he was first courting me and I absolutely love them. They capture aspects of Odin that I don’t often engage with … or rather ways of finding Him, of seeking Him out that I hadn’t prioritized before he gave me these prayer-poems years and years ago. Hail the grey God. Hail Gangleri. You can read Sannin’s nine prayers here.