What are some ways you communicate with the gods?
This is an interesting question. As Rumi wrote, There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground; there are a thousand ways to go home again. The essence of this quote is that there are many, many ways to pray and establish your relationship with the Divine. As an amateur artist, I use my artwork as a vehicle to communicate with the gods. More often, I pray while I am doing crochet, but I have made devotional paintings as well. As I am working on a piece, I meditate upon what I wish to communicate to the gods and work to incorporate the essence of the prayer into what I am crafting.
I will speak or write down my prayers as well. Some of this comes out in prose, like what I pen in my prayer journals. (I keep three. One for Freyr, one for Loki, and one for Dea. Loki is the one who got me started writing in the journals on a daily basis.) The tone of my prose prayers come out more like letters to the gods. Usually, they are expressions of gratitude and what things are presently on my mind. Frequently, my prayer journals read like letters to dear friends where I share things that I feel are important and of strong emotional influence on my life.
There are times, however, where my prayers come out in more poetic language. The prayers to Dea are most frequently in blank verse poetry. It was from these prayers that I assembled my little book. My spontaneous spoken prayers tend to be blank verse couplets, though there have been times where I accidentally used some complicated rhyming schemes. (It's made things a wee bit frustrating to later record when I can't recall exactly what I said at the time.)
I also do my best to make my daily activities prayerful ones. I was inspired to do this upon reading the autobiographical writings of St. Thérèse of Lisieux where she spoke of her Little Way. I strive to take even the least of my actions and dedicate them to the gods. Some days, this is very difficult to do. Distractions and emotional tumult that comes with bipolar disorder makes it very hard to remain so focused on the Divine. The hardest of all the tasks that I attempt in honor of the gods is forgiving myself of my all to human flaws and resisting the effects of my illnesses.
When I am not actively engaged in prayer, I find a measure of comfort and communion with the gods by way of reading and listening to the works of others. I am especially moved by those of the Beguines and St. Hildegarde of Bingen. It seems odd that the works of medieval Christian women are what speak strongest to me, but their comprehension of divine love rings so very true for me. It becomes a passive means by which I might open myself to the gods and align myself with their will.
In many ways, that is the goal of my prayer life. While I do not seek to renounce the world, for it is filled with wonders and I firmly believe that only a small population of the world is called to renounce it for purely spiritual pursuits. I seek, however, to bring myself into greater alignment with the gods because in every instance I have attempted to do so, good things have come into my life. In my effort to clarify my place with the gods and my role in the world, I depend heavily upon prayer and meditation. I suppose one could say that this is the fruit of my fascination with medieval European culture. What ever the cause of it, these things form the core of my spiritual life and are the means by which I express myself to the gods.
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