Old Gods Made New

I wrote this several weeks ago, shared it with a friend who runs a local chapter of a Hellenic group to get her, much appreciated feedback, and have updated it a bit based on that. I'm adding this paragraph though because I just finished season 2 of Ragnarok on Netflix. I think it illustrates how one can take the concerns, goals, and nature of a god and contextualize them for our modern reality. If you can't read this blog post, then watch Ragnarok...or do both.

 

Throughout the original version of this, I think my friend had some confusion about my view on the changeability of the gods. For a short clarification to give context to things I'm saying, the gods are vast and enduring and unlike humans in many ways. As a result, over time we can see elements of them, and perspectives on them which are relevant to us now that people may not have seen before. The gods can address and deal with things which did not exist for mankind before, but which still existed in the greater purview of those gods because of the vastness of their natures. They can act in ways which address our current needs and seem different from previous concerns because they encompass a totality of modes of realizing their natures, and our interaction is one of many small pieces of that.

 

People get turned off by the "Polytheism" movement and the "Reconstructionist" movement because they feel like they lack relevance. Growing up, the explanation I always heard was that our goal was to worship the gods in a way which followed what we know from history and tradition but contextualized for today. Carried with this was the idea that Paganism (not NeoPaganism) is about engaging and being situated in the reality of where you are, not the fantasy in which you'd like to imagine yourself. Pagan means local and so it is very much situational - it has to deal with life as you live it.

 

Some people describe these approaches as attempting to imagine Pagan religions as they would be today if they had evolved uninterrupted by Christianity. This is a bad notion. The reality in which we are situated includes 500 to 1600 years of heavy Christian influence. Not addressing or considering that would be anachronistic and would fall into trying to live the fantasy in which one might wish to imagine themself.

 

While I would say accusations about relevance are arguably unfair, accusations about anachronism can be fair. Paganism involves piecing together bits which come from different regions at different times as if these were all part of the same religious expression and understanding. In most cases, they weren't. Frequently, it also involves attempts to adopt lifestyle elements from the bronze age, or iron age, or medieval periods or all of these thrown together. Often, people forget that modern Paganism is historical religion in a modern context and try to dress up for an imagined historical context. The anachronism accusations sometimes come with accusations of LARPing...but you can find LARPing in all religions.

 

Relevance though. We're talking about worshiping gods who had their heyday anywhere from a thousand to three thousand years ago - in some cases of Near Eastern and North African religions, even earlier than that. People back then were part of cultures far removed from our own with different concerns from our own and their religions were expressions of - integral parts of - those cultures. The gods answered the needs and interests of those peoples. So, how can they be relevant today?

 

Some people suggest that we can find the answer by looking at modern peoples living in those places once populated by those gods and their worshipers and reimagining the gods as expressions of the contemporary culture. If the gods are still part of that contemporary culture, maybe...but if they're not then we're just saying the gods are linked to that genetic heritage, or they're tied to that place intrinsically in such a way that the people and culture are still defined by them. Most people don't like the first suggestion and I think most people would realize that the second one frequently doesn't hold up.

 

Others might suggest that we consider the way the gods have survived in our popular awareness or even how they have appeared in pop culture. If the gods themselves guide these images then that could be reasonable. I think there are a lot of pop culture examples we can explore which run in opposition to how we might imagine the gods, either historically or in some present echo of their historical self...so I'm not sure I'm ready to take that approach. Some people might suggest that enough people believing in the pop-culture depiction of the god reshapes the god, or feeds that popular image until it becomes the god - whether the popular image is based on some authentic or traditional element of the god may or may not matter. Again, I wouldn't subscribe to such a view, and I don't think most modern Pagans would. That kind of thinking is much more useful for addressing thought-forms and egregores.

 

Finally, some people might suggest that the gods can be what we want them to be. We can look for what our lives need and what we need gods for and decide the gods fulfill these new roles. Again, I don't think anyone who believes in the gods as real autonomous beings would take this view...because we wouldn't take it with other living autonomous beings. In fact, if we tried to do this with the gods, rituals, or spiritual items belonging to other living traditions people would very rightly call foul.

 

Since I clearly don't agree with these common ways people suggest we can personalize and make relevant the gods, am I saying that they can't be made relevant for modern culture and modern people?

 

No. Not at all.

 

I think we can look to living traditions, historical trends, and the gods themselves and easily see how they adapt without us requiring that they suit our whims.

 

Gods and spirits within living traditions adapt to the contexts and lives of their people. We talk about this a lot in magic when we talk about adaptability. When we look at African traditions in the Americas we see people forcibly displaced from their homes. But not just from their house or village, or even the town or region which shares their culture, but displaced from their continent to the other side of the world. The environment is entirely different. The character of the land, the plants, the animals - all different. Their context is different too. Instead of free people in their community, surrounded by people who share their language, culture, and gods, they are in a place ruled by foreigners, and live mixed with other oppressed people who are foreign to them. Their religion and language are illegal, their customs have to be hidden, and the same is true of the locals with whom they are forced to intermingle.   

 

So, modes of worship and ritual adapted to maintain elements that could be maintained. Other elements were hidden in other similar behaviors and practices. Gods were hidden in images which were acceptable to their captors. Gods and spirits intermingled with local gods and spirits and new relationships and stories formed. Plants, animals, offerings which couldn't be obtained because they didn't exist in the New World were replaced with similar things. In the view of the people, the Gods took on elements which related to their own natures but which reflected their ability to help with and share in the experiences of this new context along with the new troubles and difficulties it presented. We might otherwise say, the people uncovered elements of the gods which were always present, but which weren't understood or weren't revealed previously because they weren't relevant to the people yet.

 

I think this last part is important. In many of these traditions, gods and spirits are still recognizable between people still living in Africa and people in Diaspora. Sometimes stories vary...just as stories of gods vary regionally. Sometimes gods might have attributes and elements which relate more to their new context while retaining elements of their original context. The fact that they can accumulate new areas to be concerned with while still being understood or recognized by people who did not undergo that displacement shows that our experience and understanding of the gods can adapt to new contexts while the gods retain their natures. Their natures can allow expression and action which is relevant for the new context.

 

I would imagine in many of these cases, when new stories arise and new patronages are attached to a god or spirit it's because that god or spirit did something which involved this area of interest. If a god is a warrior who defends his people and that god becomes a god who helps free slaves - he is still a warrior defending his people. He's defending them from a new danger, he isn't becoming something new and different from who he was.

 

Adaptations can take the reality of the gods and spirits, and their ability to communicate with us into account.

 

A Lukumi priest told me a story which explained why Oshun receives honey. I unfortunately don't remember the details enough to recount it fully. Essentially, it was time to make an offering to the Orishas and whatever sweet substance was usually offered was in short supply. They asked if they could offer a substitute and the Orishas agreed with the substitution. While the details are too muddled in my head to confidently tell the story...and it isn't my tradition or story to tell...the point remains that the people turned to the spirits involved to confirm that they could make this adaptation.

 

I've heard several times of South East Asian traditions in which sacrifices and blood offerings were common for certain spirits. The people eventually negotiated with the spirits and came up with other offerings.

 

Living traditions show us that people who have a deep relationship and open communication with the gods and spirits of their traditions are able to communicate with them and adapt to fit with developments in human culture.

 

In all these instances, the change is negotiated with the gods, or some communication or experience happens. The gods or spirits see the changes we need to make and agree with them or guide us in how to make them. The gods see what new needs we have and they intercede regarding those needs or provide vision or tell stories which relate themselves to those things - usually in ways which reflect who that god or spirit already was.

 

Most people don't expect people from outside of a god or spirit's tradition to be the people receiving these messages or being gifted with these insights about how things have changed. Generally, if someone says they have discovered the true and hidden nature of a god or spirit, or they've decided they can dispense with the rituals or initiations that go with that tradition most people dismiss them as imagining things at best, or appropriating things at worst.

 

When we want to consider how the gods remain relevant to changing times, we can also look at how it's happened through history.

 

Cultures change and develop over time. Cultures intermingle, fade, get absorbed, and absorb others over time. When this happens the religious landscape can change. Sometimes those developments involve gods absorbing the characteristics of other gods or blending. I think the spiritual realities behind syncresis are beyond what I want to address here, but I think there are spiritual realities to it. I think there are maybe also times where it's more political than anything else and might not reflect something real.

 

I think more relevant to our conversation is when gods within a culture shift as a result of the shifts in that culture. This is, after all, the main thing we're really considering when we discuss the idea of historical gods in a modern cultural setting.

 

Religion is, almost always, through most parts of the world, relatively conservative. When I say this I don't mean politically speaking but in terms of thought and practice religious traditions frequently will maintain elements of culture which are otherwise long out of date. If we consider how religion evolves with people - particularly before the age of instant communication - it would be pretty unrealistic to think that a new generation would get a notion into their heads and decide the whole religion is going to shift to match it. It happens sometimes, but usually with kind of fringe outlier groups, or if the people with the notion are in power it might be something that takes hold but only while people in power buy into it (example: Akhenaton).

Culture might start to shift, but religious practices and stories about and understandings of the gods will probably lag behind. When the culture shifts enough, I think three things commonly happen.

 

First, elements of the god which weren't the focus before might become the focus. This isn't the same as deciding the god has changed what they are about. Gods are multifaceted, and major gods frequently have many aspects which relate to many areas of society and life. Some particular aspect might be the focus because it suits the needs or views of the people at the time but generations later, maybe some other aspect will become the most important. This doesn't mean the previously important aspect goes away, or that the newly important aspect is a change or growth of the god. It just means the way people engage and relate to the god has changed. If I'm traveling with a friend, and the friend speaks French and German, then in France I'll want the aspect of that friend which speaks French, and in Germany I'll want the aspect that speaks German. It's the same friend and nothing has changed, but we're dealing with different situations.

 

The second option is one we do see commonly in history. The god who is the focus of society might change. In some instances this is a question of who the people give attentio to primarily and is a human/social thing, in some it is reflected in the mythology and is seen to be cosmic. In the latter cases, this can include changes in rulership amongst the gods, but not always.

 

In Canaan, some of these shifts as far as what god was the focus of the people seems to accompany shifts in what god ruled the pantheon, as far as I understand. Those shifts in rulership of the pantheon seem to also potentially accompany political shifts as well. In Greece, we see particular gods being important for a place because of the particular heritage or customs or needs of those regions. This doesn't necessarily change who ruled the pantheon, but it could change elements of how the gods were worshiped in that place. In Rome there were shifts in importance between Mars and Jupiter depending upon the needs of the city, but those shifts in attention don't necessarily include changes in the positions of the gods in the cosmos.

 

So, if we look at historical religions it may be that those gods who are of primary importance to us and our lives are not the same ones who were of primary importance in history. For example, while Mars may have been of primary importance in Rome, maybe Ceres would be more the focus for Americans living in a culture concerned with commerce.

 

A third thing tends to happen when cultures encounter entirely new scenarios or technology. The understanding of the god expands.

 

I've had a couple disagreements about whether or not the gods evolve. I think the idea that the gods are the same as humans fails to grasp their divinity. I don't believe the gods are incomplete in the same way humans are and so the gods don't need the same kind of growth and development as humans. The gods have elements of their behavior which reflects human behaviors. I think sometimes this is because those elements in a story convey some greater truth which humans need to understand, and sometimes they convey some element of the gods which seems like a flaw to us when expressed through myth but which may be part of a more complex reality.

 

So when I say that the understanding of the god expands, I believe this is a reflection of humans changing, developing, and growing, and not necessarily the gods.

 

With traditional religions that survive through to today, I don't believe many of them think their gods suddenly learned about electricity or sat down and took a computer course. Our discoveries and understandings are not novel to the gods, at least not in the way they are to us. Members of traditional religions still recognize that religious laws, or divine patronages might apply to these new things. In some religions it may be that they understand a new god to be born, or some previously unknown god to now be known. In others, they understand these new phenomena in the light of older known phenomena and so they fall under existing laws and existing gods. For example, in the past we didn't know about electricity, but we knew about fire. Now that we know about electricity religion can treat it as a form of fire.  We didn't have cars in antiquity, now we do, but we still had vehicles and chariots and so cars are under the dominion of the gods who ruled vehicles and chariots.

 

In all these cases, we can look at history and see that just because a focus changes, or a position of importance changes, or an understanding expands it is not automatic that these mean that the old thing is gone. The gods don't stop dealing with their now less needed aspect, they don't cease to be, and their attributes don't necessarily abandon their previous meanings when they begin to include new ones. Even as Christianity grew into prominence, the gods of pagan religions didn't disappear, they became viewed as daimones and faeries, and Saints. Ancient peoples would sometimes celebrate holidays which even they admitted they didn't know why they were celebrating it - but they retained elements of some god or spirit or their heritage which was not as immediately obvious to the common person anymore. Those unneeded elements remained in place even if they weren't the thing the average person understood anymore.

 

So, we looked at living traditions, and we looked at history, the final place to look for finding relevance was at the gods themselves. I think, honestly, looking at what we can see in living traditions and what we can see in history tells us how we can look to the gods themselves for this.

 

If we want to understand how the gods fit our lives today we can ask the gods. We can listen earnestly for answers. We can do divination. We can develop deep and meaningful relationships and let them guide us through those relationships. 

 

We can examine our own lives and our needs and we can scour mythology and history and find gods who speak to those needs and who speak to us.

 

We can deeply explore the myths, history, archeology, and rituals and holidays related to individual gods and get to know them more fully than some surface summary of their personality. Once we do this we can begin to unfold how their existing nature is already relevant to our lives.

 

For example - Mars. Most people would say "Well, Mars was the Roman version of Ares, he was a god of war and violence and carnage whereas his sister Athena was the wise elements of war like strategy."

 

Those people would be wrong. Mars is not the Roman version of Ares. They are two very different gods. Mars was one of the chief gods of Rome whereas Ares did not have a broadly established temple cultus.

 

Rome was founded by farmers, and according to those legends, more specifically by shepherds. Those shepherds were led by princes who had been raised amongst them, after having been suckled by a wolf as babes when they escaped the murderous intentions of one of their relatives. More importantly, these shepherd princes were the twin sons of Mars. Discovering their mother's captivity and the past ill intentions of their uncle the boys rose up and gathered their shepherds and turned them into a band of warriors to overthrow the king - their uncle. They avenged their family, restored the rightful king (their grandfather), and killed their uncle, then they established a new city for the shepherds amongst whom they were raised.

 

Mars was the god of the early Roman people, along with Quirinus who might have been linked to deified Romulus or might have been linked to Mars, while perhaps having elements of an earlier Italic god.

 

Mars is initially a god of farmers and shepherds - admittedly his bucolic worshipers get into a lot of fights and wars. But he has elements related to parentage, to shepherds, to city building, to justice along with the more commonly understood connection to warfare. Even Mars's connection to warfare is more than that. Mars is a god of the military, training and military games were part of his domain and so therefore also he is a god of sports. Mars is a god of expansion and broadening boundaries to establish order as this is his role in establishing empire (whereas Jupiter is a god of imperium itself, or the power and command which maintains empire). Mars is a god of chariots and vehicles.

 

When we look at a god and say "Well, do we really need this war god anymore? Maybe he can relax, his wars are done, and he can stop being a war god and focus on these other areas of life..." we are probably selling those gods short. They likely already dealt with a huge array of things and had a multifaceted touch that rarely gets explored. We don't need to reimagine them and give them new areas of concern - any major god probably already had several.

 

When we start unpacking how much more there is to a god we can begin to unpack how much of our lives can relate to that god. For people in the military Mars could still be important. For people who play sports or work in relation to sports or enjoy watching sports Mars could be important. For people who drive cars, Mars could be important. Even in terms of warfare though, while Victory is embodied by Nike or Victoria those angels of victory still connect with other gods...including Mars. Mars is a god of triumph and can be a god to turn to when victory is needed, or when conflicts need to be explored or dealt with.

 

Approaching Mars for ways he can realistically fit into our lives doesn't require that Mars change, it just requires that we earnestly look at Mars and attempt to understand him.

 

Clearly, my point is not to advocate that anyone establish a relationship with Mars or become a Roman Pagan. Mars as an example of how the gods are enough as they are, more than enough, and we just need to take time to deeply understand them and build relationships with them. We don't need to dismiss them as needing to be reworked to suit our desires or our sense of what it means to be modern. When we seek to make the gods fit our desires, we're seeking our desires rather than seeking the gods. When we believe the gods are whoever we want them to be, we stop challenging ourselves to find their truth and explore how that teaches us about our lives.

 

The gods have deep meaning for many people without us needing to change them. If we don't see that meaning, then we can move on, or we can explore how the gods can change what we see.

 

This is obviously pretty different than a lot of what I usually post, but all the same, the info to follow and support will be below, and also...go check out Ragnarok on Netflix (they obviously aren't paying me to advertise them...the show is just awesome.)

 

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A Simple Sacrifice

Sometimes magic and our relationships with spirits need to be touched through simple things. These simple things should not only be those that we are weaving into the regular occurrences of our lives but rather things in which we find the magical in our lives. I’m not going to write about all such spaces in which we can do this but just give an example or two.

          Sometimes we can do things as simple as walking around outside and talking with the elements of nature and the spirits thereof. This not only reminds us that the living magical nature of the world around us does not only exist when we do magic – it is something which surrounds us at all time; but it also reminds those spirits we know them and they know us and we have bonds with them.

          Similarly, if you have some touch point for your ancestors or household spirits or gods near the entry to your home, speak to them when you come or when you go or both. Again, they’re not only there when you do magic, they watch over you always and are part of your family and your household. In my own practice, I have a picture of my father, which my grandfather had made for me after his death, that hangs on the wall immediately upon entry to my home. I great the picture every time I return home from going anywhere. My ancestor altar is also in the walkway as I enter my home, and so I greet my ancestors whenever I return home. With this greeting I thank my father, my ancestors, and my gods, angels and other allies for all help they have given me in recent times.

          Sacrifice crowns the title of this piece and so I should perhaps reference sacrifice. We often think of sacrifices as big things, or things where we give up something close to us. This is not always the case. It’s just to separate something out, to make it sacred, and give it over to the gods or spirits which aid us. It’s a moment where we can give a gift, and we can show respect, and when it is woven into our lives it becomes a moment where they participate with us in life. It’s a moment where we turn our thoughts to them outside of more formal ceremony.

          So, I have two examples to give, which are really essentially the same thing. In many cultures fat and bone were the objects of sacrifice. Meat was for mankind, but the glistening fat and the rich smoke that rose therefrom was desired by the gods. When cooking we often have meats with much extra fat. Whenever I cook chicken, sometimes when I cook beef, there is fat to be cut off. I imagine this would be the case with pork and mutton, but I don’t cook those. When I’ve cut the extra fat away, I take out outside and burn it as an offering. I usually make a prayer like this, “May the smoke of the fat rise and please the gods, may the ash fall upon the earth and please the gods of the underworld and the dead. May they be pleased with this and be pleased with me and pour their blessings upon me.” When cooking ground beef, the fat which cooks off into grease I’ll generally drain off and let cool. Then I go to a spot that receives offerings pour out this fat, with the prayer “May the fat of the animal become the fat of the land, may the spirits of nature, the gods of the underworld and the dead receive its richness, and may they likewise pour their richness upon me.”

          Simple, right? Not everything needs to be complicated. We can find simple options. I like this because it’s part of something as normal as preparing a meal. It’s part of an essential daily activity, so it brings our spiritual life into those daily activities. It also allows us to make meaningful something that we might otherwise cast off. There are a lot of other things you can do with fat, if you prepare other foods, or compost or whatever other useful thing, this specific act may not be for you, but the idea is there. Find small things that tie your spiritual life to your daily life.

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Beginning Conjuration and Spirit Magic pt. 2: Devotion

Yesterday's post kicked off this week's special series of posts giving an introduction to various elements of spirit magic and conjuration. This is post 2 out of 8. Please like and follow us on Facebook so that you won't miss any of the action, and please share the series so others you know can also enjoy it.

Beginning Conjuration and Spirit Magic pt. 2: Devotion

So this topic was actually one I was planning to post about on its own initially but it definitely has it's place within our discussion of beginning conjuration. I had a conversation with a friend recently about the importance of devotional work in magic. The A.'.A.'. system assigns Devotion to the work of the Philosophus and it is with this work that initial elements that could lead to spirit conjuration start to pop up. Aside from that though, devotional work with spirits and divine figures helps with conjuration work, and also, with life in general. It has a lot of elements which overlap with magical practice without necessarily being magical practice, so it can also be a good practical starting point.

So what do I mean by devotional work? Devotion, for many people, would imply some sort of religious commitment to some deity or saint. In our context it could mean this but it does not have to. All we're talking about here is creating an on going relationship with a spirit or spirits who will act as allies for you, both in life and magic. This borders on religious practice and can look like religious practice.

Some theorists on Indo-European religion talk about the guest-host principle as a basic ordering concept of the universe and society. This suggests that at times an individual may be a guest or a host, and that as a guest he must act in a certain way out of respect for his host, and the host must therefore provide him hospitality, and further in the future he will at times act as the host, and his former host is therefore deserving of being welcomed and treated well as a guest. This does not necessarily mean a literal house guest scenario, but rather, if you help your neighbor it should be expected that your neighbor will appreciate the help, and also make efforts to help you later, and that you will show the same appreciation and seek later to again help your neighbor; creating then a cycle of mutual appreciation and aid. Devotional work with spirits works much the same way.

So if it is a God or Saint that you select, you are not necessarily selecting them as an object of worship. You're selecting them as a guide, or source of inspiration, perhaps, or more simply as a benefactor who will help and protect you. The God or Saint receives the offerings you make, the benefit of any prayers you make as part of your devotion, and at times perhaps public recognition. It does not necessarily receive you as a devoted worshiper, but rather a devoted friend. You make routine offerings, spend time in prayer or meditation for them, maintain objects for your devotional work such as an altar, or perhaps simply a statue, an offering bowl and some candles. The means of outfitting your devotional efforts can be between you and the spirit. But having some physical central focus is both helpful in bringing your focus onto the spirit, but also it can provide faster means of connecting with the spirit. If there is a space dedicated for the spirit to take up as a residence, or some tool used as a conduit for contact with the spirit you may be able to more easily reach out and communicate with spirits with whom you have some alliance.

Other than Gods or Saints, the ancestors or the dead are common, and very good, choices for devotional work. Again, you're not entering into this as some kind of religious self subjugation or some deification of your ancestors. You're keeping open channels of communication, and maintaining, strengthening, and creating connections with spirits who can be powerful allies. I've spoken before about the benefits of work with the dead including the fact that they were once alive, and because they were alive they are aware of and ready to work towards the concerns of average people. It's also easy because we see this kind of relationship in historical magic as well as in folk customs and practices. It's a lot easier to sit down having prepared a deceased relative's favorite food, and then leaving out a plate of it for them while telling them all about what's happening in your life and your families' lives than it would be to do really hardcore necromancy. Fortunately you're probably not conjuring a deceased person to bind them in a pact. All your devotion with your relatives needs to be is routine contact to maintain the relationship, and the offering of food, drinks, or gifts periodically to not simply assure their favor but also to assure their strength and their connection to this world.

Both with the dead, and with Gods and Saints, our devotional work will often involve meditating at an altar or before some devotional object or picture. Frequently you'll give gifts and talk about what's happening with you. There may be prayers involved for the benefit of the spirit, or simply generally for your blessing. Otherwise most of your devotional sessions don't need to involve you asking for something. A lot of modern society associates all prayer with asking for something. Sometimes it's just about pausing to connect. Other times you might be thanking the spirit, or you may have discovered the spirit just likes certain poems or prayers and so they become part of your offering.

So by in large the basic devotional work of a magician can be pretty simple, or it can get more complex. It doesn't need to be tool heavy, but it can be if that's how you're called to approach your spirits.

Your spirits. In this case it means those spirits with whom you have a relationship. But it could also mean a familiar spirit, or a spirit given to your charge by a higher spirit. Some people build living vessels for their familiars and so work with the familiar may be very much like devotion work. For now I want to treat them as separate. Devotion work can be a little more casual, than other spiritual work. You don't have to seek to control the spirits, or move them from some far off place. For this, you're largely working with spirits that already have some overlap or connection with the world. But you're strengthening it by inviting them in and making gifts to them. You're asking them to work in this world and you're feeding them substances of this world. You're not just strengthening their spiritual capability by feeding it more spiritual substance; you are linking the spirits to the world by stirring up memories and desire.

So why go through this trouble, why not just get to the magic? Well, this is part of the magic. It's not just the act of magic, but also the preparatory acts which make us ready for magic which are a big part of success. When you have allies in the spirit world they become a spiritual currency for you, or spiritual street cred. Your ability to call upon and command spirits should increase as you strengthen the spirits who work with you and they are able to help provide you with authority in the spirit world. They can also help with controlling unruly spirits and keeping them to task. Another benefit though is the sort of invisible hand effect. They want to help you and they want to keep enriching your relationship with them. So as things happen in your life your spirits, especially those who have been alive previously, may recognize issues you encounter and help you with them prior to you asking because your spirits know you, they know what you need. So those little catastrophes in life might get smaller, or they might bring about less extreme problems, or problems from fewer converging sources than what we might expect with no one helping. With these things in mind, it's a good idea to keep your household or personal spirits in happy conditions.

So what does a devotional practice look like?

Let's say you have three ancestors you're working with as your personal spirits. You do your initial rituals to set up a connection and awareness. Then after that maybe you keep an altar with a picture of the three ancestors, a candle for each of them, and an offering bowl, or maybe one for each. Basically simple things. Maybe small possessions belonging to the departed. Perhaps once a week you light the candles, make a small offering of whatever their favorite drink was and say a prayer or two or simply tell them about your life. You might mark special occasions like birthdays, and other holidays, particularly May's Eve, and November's Eve with extra ritual work or prayer work or special gifts. For saints you might use their prayer candles and cards and other Catholic resources. Similarly for Gods obtaining a statue or image and other devotional gifts can be simple. But all in all this model can work fairly easily regardless of which type of spirit, though for Gods and Saints it's useful to draw on the traditions to which they are native and accustomed.

As you put together this part of your practice sometimes there is a tendency to pick one spirit, usually a God or Saint, and think of them singularly as your patron. Or conversely some people grab on to every God, Saint, and Ancestor they can find and try to juggle two dozen at once. Start small. I started with one ancestral spirit, and then selected a few others who felt significant. Then, and this can be an interesting devotional task in ancestor work, began exploring stories of my family's past to flesh out my sense of my pleroma of ancestors. Now your ancestral practice does not need to involve setting up devotional shrines for each ancestor or markers to remember all of them. Your personal maiores (great ones), the handful to whom either you or your work are most connected maybe two or three early on, those should have objects set for interacting, others can be considered and acknowledged more generally. If you're working with a God, don't jump to tie yourself down to a patronage but note two or three who might help with your work, similarly you don't need to set altars for a whole pantheon of deities, the same is true for Saints.