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How I Pray

March 29, 2007
by Jeffrey Pierce

I begin each morning with the same prayer. While I clear my mind and focus solely on the intent behind the words of the prayer, more often than not, my prayer is spoken behind the wheel of my car as I begin my morning commute to the office.

Nukah, the Native American woman who guided me on the shaman's path, was a strong proponent of daily prayer. In fact, we spent a good deal of time focusing on how to speak to the spirit world, including the appropriate ways to pray. She felt that it was necessary and appropriate to speak our wants, needs, and desires to the spirit world on a daily basis. Building upon this, I feel it's important to specify the parameters for the guidance we're seeking and take control of what we're manifesting in our lives and in our paths.

However, the inspiration for my morning ritual came not from the depths of shamanism, but from the Christian Bible.

Many Paths, Many Sources

It may seem like a contradiction to many who read this, for a dedicated pagan to draw inspiration from a Christian text, but I've always encouraged my students to work with any source they feel connected to, regardless of its cultural origins. Just as I draw from ancient Taoist texts, integrate hermetic principles into my rituals from time to time, and rely on Native American beliefs to weave the framework of my path, I don't see any contradiction relying on any source, be it Christian in origin or hailing from another culture, when we're approaching our own spirituality. Our spiritual paths are intensely personal in nature. They speak to us and us alone. As you weave your own system of belief and the path that leads you on that journey, draw upon what you connect with and discard the rest. And as you grow, feel free to reevaluate the sources that you build your path around. It's appropriate for them to change as we grow and evolve as spiritual beings.

Those of us who grew up in a Judeo-Christian culture are most likely familiar with "The Lord's Prayer." It begins, "Our Father, who art in heaven..." and continues on from there. However, what's often lost is the passage of scripture leading up to the prayer itself. In Matthew 6:9 Jesus says, "This, then, is how you should pray." Not, "Follow this word for word," or, "This is the only incantation that works in prayer," but "This is an EXAMPLE of HOW to pray. Feel free to use this structure and these concepts when you create your own prayers."

The structure is pretty simple. Address the spirit world. Consider and honor the flow of your path and your life. Ask for what you need in both your physical and spiritual life. To that, I add a couple of key concepts that I learned when I underwent my shaman training. Give thanks. Offer blessings and gifts when you interact with the spirit world. Consider what you manifest.

First, Say, “Hello”

I open each portion of the prayer by addressing a different spiritual being. In my own path, I use the title "Great Spirit" to reflect a concept closer to the Tao than to any particular entity. Sparrow, when she was about six years old, summed it up best. "Do you know what I think God is?" she asked me. "I think God is everything. I think God is the sky and the earth. I think God is the trees and the wind and the rocks. I think God is you. And I think God is me." When I address the Great Spirit, it is with the reverence of the Native Americans from whom I draw the soul of my path, but it is the Taoist concept of spirit that I'm speaking to. It's a concept that has no boundaries and no definition, but not only permeates everything in all of existence, but is everything, absolutely everything, whether it exists or not. It is both realization and potential. It's reality and imagination. It's darkness and light. It's a concept that truly encompasses everything without limitation.

In the second portion of the prayer, I address the spirits who work with us and guide us on our paths. This not only encompasses those in the unseen realms, our spirit guides and those who work behind the scenes of the mundane world, but honors those who have chosen to incarnate and share this lifetime with us. The people we encounter in our daily lives, whether they are known to us or are those we categorize as strangers, are still spiritual beings. Their presence in our lives, whether it's a chance encounter in a grocery store or simply passing in traffic during our daily commute, is still part of the spiritual weave of existence. By hailing them, I recognize their role in my daily life and place them in the proper perspective.

Make Sure To Say, “Thanks”

One of the core concepts in the shamanic tradition that I was taught was the importance of thankfulness. To maintain a proper relationship with the spirits we work with, whether they are seen or unseen, we need to honor their gift to us and their role in both our lives and our paths. Much of shamanism is about maintaining balance, by giving before you take and by giving thanks, both when you receive something and when you ask for something but have yet to receive it.

For instance, when I address the Great Spirit, I make sure that the first thing I do is give thanks. "I thank you for today and all of the blessings that it brings. I thank you for the blessings you've given me already and the blessings that are yet to come." Of the three expressions of thankfulness - the blessings that the new day brings, the blessings that have already been given, and the blessings that are yet to come - only one of the three have manifested in linear time.

There's a very valid concept behind giving thanks for what we have yet to receive. It ties into the conscious manifestation of energy in our world, a concept we'll talk about a lot in these pages. Think of it this way. Let's say you're doing spellwork. Typically you're creating something new in your world (usually an opportunity or something tangible) or altering something that already exists. Think of giving thanks "in advance" as doing the same thing. It’s a little bit of a complicated concept to wrap your head around at first, sort of a “chicken and the egg” type of approach. If we’re giving thanks for something, it must exist. After all, if it didn’t exist, how could we give thanks for it? The approach is very similar to the concept behind spellwork, it’s simply a different way of creating the energy behind the intent. Because we're not integrating specific energy or precise symbolism into the prayer, we can't ask for a specific outcome and anticipate that it will occur. We can only work with broad themes, like the anticipation that our world will be filled with blessings.

Use Broad Themes, Not Specific Outcomes

Specifying broad themes in a prayer can be thought of as giving reality a nudge. Spellwork requires the manifestation of specific "flavors" of energy and the use of precise symbolism because we're essentially performing surgery on reality. In prayer we can give thanks for broad concepts like "blessings" because the potential for their manifestation is already so strong. We can work with preexisting energy, like the fact that my family is currently healthy and protected, that my car is running, or that my home is secure, rather than having to raise energy for our “spell” from scratch. Utilizing broad themes doesn’t require a significant change or shift in what already exists, so a simple prayer is appropriate and effective for this type of work.

However, we do have some control over the energy that manifests in our world, as long as we stick to broad themes. Rather than asking for a specific outcome involving specific individuals, I stick to the manifestation of certain types of energy in my world. Peace. Patience. Compassion. Tenderness. Understanding. Love. All of these currently exist in my life, so don't require spellwork and the associated raising of energy to manifest. They are also all lessons that I'm working with on my own journey. Because I'm knee-deep in eliminating the obstacles that exist in my life that hinder these themes from fully manifesting or that limit the scope to which they can occur, I'm asking for assistance with a preexisting energy. Prayer works wonders for this.

It's also appropriate, as we ask for spiritual assistance and guidance, to limit that assistance to specific areas we're working on and broad themes we're manifesting in our lives. I ask the Great Spirit to watch over me, teach me and guide me WITH specific types of energy. These are things I'm manifesting in my world. However, I address the spirits, specifying, "I invite you to assist in this endeavor." They are invited to assist in a specific area rather than allowing random entities to haphazardly appear in my world.. They work IN an endeavor, not adding energy to it by co-creating or working WITH me. This puts me, and by extension, the parameters that I set, in control of which themes will predominantly manifest in my world.

To be Blessed, First Offer Blessings of Your Own

Each portion of the prayer also ends with a blessing. Sometimes it's something specific, like asking the moon to "be blessed as you travel across our land." My personal favorite blessing to use in a prayer, however, also works with broad themes. "May you be blessed as you bless myself, my family, and my friends and family with whom I create my world." It's a blessing that works on two key levels.

First, it allows me to practice the themes that I want to manifest in my world. One of the manifestations of love is shown through giving. By offering blessings to those I address in prayer, I'm expressing love. The easiest way to manifest energy, especially an energetic shift in a broad theme, is by simply doing it ourselves. Many pagans hold to some version of The Threefold Law, a concept that suggests that the energy we project will return to us in greater amounts than what we originally created. By doing something that we're trying to manifest in our world, we're projecting an energy that will return to us in greater amounts than we originally created ourselves. This will give us the energy and "raw materials" to continue this work, essentially creating a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Second, using the concept of The Threefold Law, this approach creates something of a mystical feedback loop. We ask that the entities we address are blessed as they bless us. Their own blessings are multiplied in relation to the blessings we receive as the concept behind the Threefold Law applies to them as well. However, we receive energy in a greater amount than we sent out. So us asking that others be blessed, sends that level of energy to us as well. We receive the blessings from the spirit world. That's one level of blessing. But we've asked that they be blessed as well. That same energy comes back to us three times over. But more than that, it's tied to our blessing of the spirit world, so they also receive the same multiplier that we do, benefiting everyone involved in the process.

Make Sure You’re Ready To Receive

So when you're asking for broad themes that can be moved in prayer, (things like love, patience, peace, compassion, tenderness) and you exponentially multiply the energy behind those things, you can manifest a great deal of energy in a very short period of time. The caveat to all of that is that part of the reason we're here is to engage in spiritual growth. As you know, growth requires stretching and can be a rather painful process. If you're going to engage in this level of manifestation, you have to not only be open to the growth, but you have to ready to work on the things within yourself that would limit that growth. Energy can’t flow freely with obstructions in place, which means those obstacles need to be removed. You’ll find yourself dealing with insecurities, vulnerabilities, attitudes, perceptions, and world views that limit you manifesting this type of energy yourself. It's a process of letting go, of surrendering, of dropping your ego, and learning to trust - all of which can be a tremendously painful, scary, and ultimately transformative process. Trust me. I'm speaking from personal experience on this one.

Think about it this way. To manifest a greater amount of patience in your world, you have to be placed in situations where your patience is tested. After all, growth requires resistance, regardless of whether it's a flower pushing through the earth to reach toward the sun or an athlete lifting weights to grow physically stronger. To fully embrace this type of spiritual evolution, we need to begin seeing things not as challenges, but as opportunities for growth. Getting stuck in traffic when you're late for an appointment. Waiting behind a tremendously slow person in the grocery store, who first fumbles endlessly with their purse, then very slowly writes a cheque to pay for their purchase, only to find that they wrote the wrong amount and have to write a second one to cover the difference as they don't carry cash. And you're in a hurry. We may see these as ordeals to be endured, unless we are not only aware that the individuals are spirits themselves, interacting with us in this incarnation, but that those same spirits are also providing us with the opportunities to manifest specific energy in our world, in this case, patience.

The next three portions of the prayer find me addressing first the sun and the moon, two of the key touchstones in the physical expression of my pagan path, and then Gaia, the manifestation of the spirit of the earth. Our esbats and Sabbats are based around the passage of the moon and sun and it's useful for us as pagans to be aware of its travels on a daily basis. Addressing the sun each day gives us an awareness of when it rises, the hours of daylight, the turning of the seasons, and the temperatures that rise and fall in our world. Hailing and blessing the moon each day reminds us of its current phase, the passage of time, and the magick that we can work in different portions of the lunar cycle. Because shamanism is so intricately tied to natural energy and nature spirits, I also like to address and bless this energy on a daily basis. By asking that Gaia be blessed, it’s shorthand in my world to address the earth itself, the flora and fauna that call this planet home, the atmosphere and weather patterns, and all of the nature spirits that I may encounter in my work.

I was taught by one of my teachers that the word "abracadabra," used liberally by stage magicians of yore, actually has a more mystical root. There is some debate over the precise origins of the word, but it has been suggested that it is derived either from the Aramaic "Avrah KaDabra," meaning, "I will create as I speak," or the Hebrew "Aberah KeDaber," which has the same meaning. While neither of these theories are verifiable, the word is universally associated with magic and has engrained itself deeply in our cultural subconscious. I end my prayers, and often my spellwork, with a more modern variation of the definition, "As I speak, so shall it be," which I personally prefer over a more widely used, "So mote it be."

For me, ending any magickal rite, be it a celebratory ritual, spellwork, or a simple prayer, with the phrase, “As I speak, so shall it be,” is a way of confirming that the energy you raised is exactly what you wanted and manifesting it in your world. Imagine what you could change in your life if you not only manifested specific energy and opportunities on a daily basis, but shifted your perspective to embrace opportunities for personal growth and spiritual evolution.

And you can do all of this from behind the wheel of your car.