Paganism in your everyday life

[patch99329]

I have to rewrite all of this. *shakes fist at gaia glitchyness*

There are a minority of pagans that only ever seem to do anything related to their path/religion/spirituality at certain times of the year and nothing else.

I'm wondering how intergrated your path/religion/spirituality is into your daily life?
Why?

My religion is an integral part of my life.
I'm a hellenic polytheist and my methodology is recon more or less.
The ancient greek religion did not begin and end with public festivals, and neither should mine.

Besides the aforementioned festivals I honour hestia every morning, say a round of prayers each night, honour poseidon some how every day and leave misc. offerings and prayers for various gods that affect me at certain times.
In addition to this I am trying to develop a more structured household practice and honour as many household gods as I can relevant to my situation.

I also try to honour the twelve olympians in some way at least once a week.

Furthermore, I try and live virtuously in accrodance to hellenic ethics and principles.
It's an ethical system that really strikes a chord with me so it isn't too difficult. Trying to live by them makes me a better, more balanced person.  

[Deoridhe]

Okay, I've slept on this enough, I think.

I am a bad person for ritual and regularity. They just don't work for me, for some reason. That being said, I don't stop being Asatru just because the last of the evening's alcohol has been drunk and I'm on my way home from the Blot.

One of the first things I did when I did the landtaking of my current apartment (I HAVE LAND!) was to build a small hoff out of sea stones, most of whom will go back to the sea when I end up leaving here. Odin lives by my door, and while I don't do a daily ritual in connection with him, he's always there... watching. (In the interest of full disclosure, Ganesha is next to the door, too, but I don't worship him.) Those are some of the visible things.

Invisibly, my ethics and morals are heavily informed by the gods... well, several of them, at least. I give many Thorites hives and while a Tyrian hasn't tried to beat me up, they might if I talked too much. In addition, the cultural concepts of hamingja, wyrd, orlog, and frith all are carried with me and I often act in accordance with various things without really being fully conscious of it. I didn't notice when I stopped being a Western-morality-monotheist philosophically, but it's quite far gone now and I have no interest in moving back.

I think that if one introduces oneself to something new, it changes one. I'm changed, and I keep changing.  

[Adametokillfor]

This is actually something that i've been wondering about. I'm new to paganism in general and I am trying to find ways to get more into it.

How would one integrate this religion into their daily life? I think one of the main reasons that I left the Catholic church is because I hated having to go there constantly, that and I don't believe half of what they say.

I've begun to meditate. When I get upset I've started visualizing a male or female figure comforting me, same as when I have panic attacks. It calms me down immediately.

So how would you say that I should work them more fully into my life?  

[maenad nuri]

I too, suck at regular ritual. But I have a few things I do:

The jewelry I wear daily stays on my altar, and it's an anchor part of my day. I take a few moments to think of the gods and just start my day off right.

I read, I study, I argue and I dance on a regular basis and I dedicate these activities to the gods. I am trying to start to do the same for the daily cooking. I suspect things will improve when I have a daily schedule again.  

[TeaDidikai]

I like this question. It makes me happy. twisted

My tradition is so integrated into my daily life as to be nearly invisible to the casual observer.

I have no alter.
I have no "special tools".
I have no "ritual clothes".

I have art.
I have household decorations.
I have "personal idiosyncrasies".

My understanding of self, religion, the otherworlds, otherlings, gods, magic- within my path, it is so constant as to go unnoticed.

My path's ethics, understandings and inclinations are with me at all times.


That said- I do rituals. I use fancy tools. I have a hearth that holds pretties.

These aren't really "for me". The divination tools are used for other people. The rituals I take part in aren't typically of my tradition for two reasons. One, because the bulk of the rituals I indulge in are for the social enjoyment of being with friends and loved ones. Two because if I am doing something above and beyond my daily comings and goings, it's being something is seriously ******** and I need to fix it.  

[Maze]

I don't really have a religion, so I don't really have anything to integrate. I'm still interested in Asatru and Taoism (although the latter isn't really a religion so much as a philosophy, I guess) but lacking a definite goal, I'm just chilling in the ocean and getting a most heinous sunburn while I dehydrate. cool

I should get off my a**, but I'm far too good at putting things into harmless perspective.

Most I do now are some simple exercise routines, but not of enough of a level to even catch a buzz.  

[Wrath of Ezekiel]

In a way, as a part of learning about new religions, tiny little things pop up.

That altar to Set, that I made, has to b kept within light. Unfortunately, since I've told that to anyone else in the household, poor Set gets direct light for an hour or two everyday in the basement, because there's no room in my room, due to the fact we have guests over.

I try to honour all the gods and spirits I believe (and I have MANY) as much as possible.

After all, the Olympics are coming up. What a time it shall be to honour any Chinese dieties I may have met.  

[EternalHearts]

I too am bad at ritual. I try as best I can to libate my first coffee of the day "to the Theoi, Daimons and Ancestors." I blow a kiss to Helios each morning and whenever I get behind the wheel of my car, I kiss my fingers and touch the charms to Hermes and Hephaistos that hang off my ignition key. I try to libate alcoholic drinks when I have them.

I will be setting up my shrine once I settle into my new room in my apartment, and that will be a daily visual reminder of all the Theoi and Their place in my life. I'm trying to slowly create habits that will put Them and Their worship into my life.  

[Morgandria]

I can't say I've got daily rituals, persay. Sometimes I have ritual and workings I do at home, but for the most part my holidays are spent at my covenstead.

But my home is covered in shrines, which I tend on a daily basis - whether that be offerings and prayers, or just lighting them up to share space with my deities for a while. I like to have Their presence in my home. and also one covered in art and sculpture and other things that are nice to see every day.

My home is also covered in beautiful things - art, sculpture, wall hangings. I think that beauty itself is a spiritual expression, so I work hard to make my home hospitable, comfortable, and beautiful. It seems to work - my guests usually go home feeling better than when they arrived.

Aside from tending my shrines, there's nothing set in stone that I do.  

[Lotus Poem]

Quote:

My home is also covered in beautiful things - art, sculpture, wall hangings. I think that beauty itself is a spiritual expression, so I work hard to make my home hospitable, comfortable, and beautiful. It seems to work - my guests usually go home feeling better than when they arrived.

I really love that answer and I feel the same way. I have a few altars, one on my hearth that is the family altar. Everyone can add to it and we like to change it up as the seasons change. The kids love having something they get a part in. I have one in our bedroom that's hard to describe, to me it's like a couples' altar. It has significant things from our relationship and a big hunk of rose quartz.  

[TheDisreputableDog]

Kemetic Orthodoxy has a ritual that you're "supposed to" do every day, preferable at the same time. But I don't know whether any members besides possibly the (Kai-)Imahku and W'ab priests and the Nisut actually manage to do that--and supposedly the Nisut does rituals four times a day. I know I certainly don't do it every day. I use the excuse that I'm not actually a member yet...

I think about my gods pretty much every day though. I don't actually talk to Them as much as I should; but I don't really talk to many people in my life as much as I should. And half my religious community is online and I participate in those discussions pretty much every day as well. I've finally begun to remember to offer meals on a regular basis. There are stretches of time where I look up Who's in festival that day and say prayers to Them before bed.

But it's not as integrated as I'd like, really. I get distracted by all of the other things I have going on.  

[Striga]

I realized back in May that one of my issues is that I sit on the sidelines and study the game so much that I never actually get around to doing anything with the knowledge of gotten.

When the lady leading the ritual I went to had been a self-identified pagan for half as long as I, I realized I needed to get off my a**. It's no good to have the thinkers and the doers being disjoint groups, which became a rather significant issue at said ritual, actually.

I decided that it was time I stopped just being a student and give myself ample reason and opportunity to actually start doing on a regular basis. In other words, I had to stop building better instruments for looking down the paths without leaving the crossroads, and started walking.

I figured it was best, since this path is likely to be transient (har), to pick one that doesn't mind that sort of thing while still going in the general direction I want to head (in particular, helping me break the habits I don't like without just altering the details), so I settled on Eris.

I've started making some headway, but it's been slow going.

I have Turkey Cursed the crap out of my job to great effect, though rofl  

[imadelilith]

homemade cooking! that is one great way to add a little magic to everyday life. whether cooking for yourself or a family, you have however long it takes you to prep, boil, stir, etc. to endow your love and wishes of health and happiness for your family, or like i said, yourself. it's simple magick that requires absolutely nothing out of the ordinary!

on the note of an earlier post on hestia, i have a funny quote from someone on the subject of that goddess...

"i wonder how funny Hestia thinks I am... always cleaning but never quite finishing... I almost feel like I should make an alter to such a goddess. Maybe I might be mystically endowed with multitasking abilities and a silent vaccuum if I did..."

hah! well, i thought it was funny... sweatdrop