Offering and Sacrifice in a Modern Context

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Additional ideas by Lynn / Leoghanta of the Cothrom mailing list. Lynn made some very intelligent observations after I posted this article to the list. This observations have been included in this article now. [Battersea Shield]

Our celtic and gaelic ancestors made sacrifices and offerings to the Gods and to the Land in order to have their wishes heard and hopefully enacted. The Battersea Shield, found in the river Thames, or the 1st cent. BCE Spear Head, also found in the river Thames are good examples of offerings. Items seemingly made speficially for the purpose of being a votive offering. The shield, bronze, ornamented with red coral, obviously quite an expensive item, thrown into a river to ask for divine favours. The same with the spear, impractically ornamented with bronze, it catches the eye, and one can assume it was to catch the eyes of the gods. And then there is the examples of sacrifice, a body given to the Land for at the moment, unknown purposes. There are a number of examples of peat bog bodies, dying three-fold deaths, with evidence that these people were royality of kinds. Of course, as Lynn points out, these sacrifices were of the rich aristocracy. The every day folk would have made sacrifices also, less rich but no less important and sacred.

But of course today, sacrificing our leaders is not really feasiable. Although maybe this is a good thing, considering some of the leaders of the world's nations, I personally feel the Gods might be offended if some of our current leaders were offered. To make matters worse, the idea of offerings is lost, restricted it seems to the occasional tipping of wine onto the Land, from few. If the Gods are especially lucky, an inspired lass might realise some truths and offer food, fruit and drink. Or the unspiritual might make a sacrifice from food for 40 hours, in the belief that it will give them insight into the life of starving millions. [La Tene Spearhead]

Breaking the practice of our ancestors into a modern context will have to start with sacrifices. As offering the lives of our political leaders is out, we should be looking at sacrifice in a more abstract sense. Doing the 40 hour famine (I assume that non-australians know what this is about) is a nice gesture but ultimately, its hardly a sacrifice. You know there is food afterwards, you know there is food if you really decide to cave in. And, the barly-sugar sweets and water allowed during it are kind of nice too. A better way of using this as a sacrifice would be giving a weeks worth of food to a homeless shelter, or a womens' refuge, and subsisting on water, rice and maybe some bread for a week. Really feel hunger, and dedicate every hour that your stomach is knotted as a pledge to the Gods that you will help make the world better.

Another popular way of 'sacrifice' is donation to charity. A few dollars here, another few there. Net loss? Maybe twenty dollars over a month or two. What is this? One or two meals at MacDonalds. Even giving to something as worth while as World Vision is not really much of a sacrifice. Here its thirty dollars a month, not all that much really (And on a side note, the reports I have seen about a lot of the larger charity funds is that most of it goes towards the Directors hip pockets. Little gets to the people that need it most). A real sacrifice using money (lets face it, money is, at least seemingly, extremely important in modern society), would be to donate a few hundred dollars at a time to a small local charity, to a shelter, a hospital, an orphanage, something where you are certain the money is going to be used. Why a few hundred dollars? Because, it hurts, you will know you have made this sacrifice. I dont recommend putting your own family in trouble, so they cant be fed, or housed, but giving up the new DVD player for a month or two is suprisingly spiritually satisfying when you realise who you may have helped. However, ultimately as Lynn indicated to me, a sacrifice must be meaningful to the person making it.

Now, offerings? These can be a lot less abstract. Taking an item and making it a votive offering is still realistic in our 'modern' setting. For me as an example, I collect swords and knives, mostly they are collected cause they are real weapons, not for their ornamentations. And if for some horrible reason this country brought back conscription (the 'draft' for those americans out there), and I was called to do my 'duty', I'd be considering a votive offering. I would take one of my blades, one that looked nice, was real, one that I have spent time sharpening, polishing, oiling, a blade that had taken up my time, effort and energy, and I would bend it, smash it, dump it into my local river with words to my tribal patrons, asking them to watch me, and guide me home to my family once the 'war' was finished. There could be plenty of other examples, a medical student, doing their final exams could make a offering of a set of medical tools as a dedication should they be guided through properly. A bad example would be lawyer offering an old mobile phone to the River (the batteries leak toxins), but the lawyer offering themselves to the River might work. Lynn makes a very good suggestion, especially in areas where river pollution might be a problem. Form the shape of the offering with dough and bake it. Or you could use clay. More environmentally friendly in many areas. I had not originally thought of this as the river where I visit is liter free.

Forgetting food offerings would be bad, meats, fruits and drinks have been offered since humans have felt they needed to impress someone. Market gardeners could offer the first of their crops to the Gods, to ensure the growth of the rest of the crop goes well, and that their sales improve. For those that live on farming land, I'd think that making silent offerings is almost automatic, if not, unconscious, when they have to prepare their meat.

Where does this leave us? Left with just wine, ale or mead for the Gods? Or in a position to use the same practices as our ancestors in recognising the Gods, although with a modern slant. Personally I would rather live my faith to the full, rather than a pretty mass-marketed sanitized set of beliefs. I stand up with pride, call myself a Gael, and openly admit to offerings and sacrifices. But even I temper my thoughts so that first and foremost my family and my kin are cared for, after that my thoughts go outwards, I have no wish to make my kin be in a position that they must use up the resources of others.

Beannachdan oirbh.

Sacrifice: A Rant by Emma Oxenby (It is found on the Paganach Dubh website.
Essay on Sacrifice by Erynn Rowan Laurie

Offering and Sacrifice in a Modern Context

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