The Gods are real. The Gods are many. The Gods are here. (--Kenaz Filan)
Contemplating daily devotions and such (again)
Here's what I want my morning routine to look like (not necessarily in this order, but you get my drift):
- Wake up
- Do morning hygiene stuff and meds
- Libations of water to assorted Gods
- Start coffee (this ends with 'put coffee in freezer' so it's adequately iced)
- Sun-salutation yoga, or other stretching sequence (but yoga's familiar)
- Ground and center or meditate
- Daily prayer sequence to assorted Gods
- Daily prayer sequence to the Hero[in]es and the Dead
- Water potted plants
- Journaling
- Study / contemplate some text that should deepen my understanding of my religion, and maybe journal some more
- Write at least two hundred words on one of the projects in progress
- Drink coffee at whatever point in this sequence is 45-60 min after it went in the freezer
- Exercise (this should typically involve going to the city park and doing laps of the walking path)
- Shower and water purification after exercise
- Don't get on the internet until after this whole sequence is completed
Here's what my morning routine actually looks like:
- Wake up
- Do morning hygiene stuff and meds
- Libations of water to assorted Gods
- Vanish into the internet for hours upon end
- Remember at various points to deal with coffee, shower, and watering plants before work (which is hours after getting up, because reasons)
How do I get from the second list to the first list in a sustainable, maintainable fashion?
(I suspect the answer involves, among other things, disconnecting the Internet when I'm not actively using it...)




First of all, don't try to do everything right away. Establish a pattern of only doing a few things, and when that pattern is pretty automatic, then add ONE more thing. When THAT'S automatic, and ONE MORE thing. And soforth. Do not attempt to go from little or nothing to ALL THE THINGS, it won't work.
And maybe don't make all of your libations in the morning. I do gods in the morning, heroes and spirits at night, personally. But if you break them up and make them two separate habits, it may be easier to maintain.
Also, water purification should happen BEFORE addressing the gods.
Finally, that is one MASSIVE routine you're planning. It may not ever be possible to do all of those things in the morning, especially given, y'know, stuff. Do not freak out about this. Allow yourself to journal at lunch or after work, for example. You're still waking up, it's ok to not try to do a ton of stuff.
--good point about the order of operations wrt purification and prayer. I maybe am not entirely with it today 😦
My thinking for doing all this before work instead of after is, after work I'm good for approximately squat. But then, as-you-know-Bob, often before work I'm good for approximately squat, and also I have many ambitions and much ambition and this is how I end up in trouble.
But yeah. Thanks. One step at a time.
My daily routine looks a lot like your actual one -- get up, hygiene/morning stuff, shrine stuff, followed by life stuff -- and...well, that's not a bad baseline for being a functional person doing spirituality in a sustainable way.
You might experiment with adding one or two things to that routine for a week and see how it actually works for you in practice. Some things stick, some things don't. Some things sound good on paper but aren't great for real.
Another thought is that your longer list sounds like the underpinnings for a really excellent monthly retreat day, which might be a thing worth considering as an option. Everything every day doesn't always work, but lots of things on special days often can.
--I had not considered the possibility of a monthly retreat day. That sounds like a fabulous idea, actually. Unplug the internet before going to bed Friday evening (or, well, given my work hours, oh-dark-hundred Saturday morning), turn off the phone, and spend Saturday and maybe Sunday just at home doing my religion and not talking to anybody.
(*eyes upcoming fall term*)
Thanks.