Why I pray the way I do.

Gentle Reader,

It may seem odd that I pray in the fashion that I do. After all, I am not a monastic nun who is called to pray the hours of the day in some abbey in the middle of nowhere, living a life of contemplation and sacrifice. I am not a Catholic Christian who is working their way through seminary school and doing so for the requisite process of experience and discipline in order to become a priest.

Amusingly, however, I am an ordained priestess. It is through two different churches. In one case, I hold the title of Reverend and in one case, I hold the title of Priestess. I have yet to decide which one I will use for my correspondence. I am called to the level of discipline in worship that I exhibit by way of mystic experiences. I have been doing this manner of 'work' since in the mid '90s. (For the record, I am turning 40 this year, I'll let you do the math for how long I have been training and studying.)

While my prayer practices is informed by medieval practices, this is simply because it is a manner of organizing them that makes sense to me. I do have rules I live by. They are very simple. The primary rule that I mentioned earlier is pray daily. I strive to pray every hour of the day as per the medieval time system. My prayers may be simply a single "Hail and praise Dea." in the middle of the night as I shuffle from one room to the next in my insomnia or a "Thank you, Mother, for this day." as I am groggily trying to find matching socks when I wake up.

The nice thing is, it doesn't matter how complicated the prayer is. As long as it is sincere and timely. But, I pray often because something deep within me is called to this. The minor ritual of pausing and holding my rosary in the morning as I place out my offerings at the beginning of the day and saying a 'Hail Marya' is something comforting for me. As a person with anxiety disorders, comfort is necessary.

I will be making a little book of daily prayers in addition to Rose Petals focused upon the prayers of the hours of the day. It will include passages from the Gospel of Our Mother God to meditate on. And I will reference passages from Rose Petals to provide alternate prayers for the given hour. In addition to the hourly prayers, I also say a small prayer to the Janya/Angel of the day. This will be included in that text.

I'm well aware that my method of prayer is based upon a Christian method of prayer that revolves around the book of Psalms. It is why I have been sitting down with the book of Psalms and working my way through it as inspiration for prayers. This additional set of prayers/songs will be included in Rose Petals' next edition. I can not say when exactly that will be coming out because I'm only about 10 prayers in to 150. These Filianic oriented songs are mostly blank verse, like much of what is in Rose Petals. I am going to attempt to make some of these prayers into rhyming verse that one could sing with relative ease.

It is, however, slow going, just as is the transcription project of the Gospel of Our Mother God. As of right now, I am halfway through the Mythos of the Daughter. The slow and steady work of transcription has put me through a few pens because I'm doing it by hand, but I feel good about this work because my copy of the Gospel of Our Mother God is showing some wear. The binding in the book I'm transcribing into is far more sturdy. My only regret is that I'm not using archival ink for this.