A Pagan Ritual Prayer Book (47 page)

Liberty and Minerva:

• Renew your old friendship, Minerva and Liberty,
  

  create a land where creativity runs free and freedom possesses the skills to become real.
  

   
  

  Work without freedom is enslaving;
  

   
  

  Freedom without work, pointless.
  

   
  

  Work without freedom is deadening;
  

   
  

  Freedom without work, lifeless.
  

   
  

  Renew your ancient friendship, Minerva and Liberty,
  

   
  

  and inspire the citizens of this country to create a land where you'll feel at home.
  

   
  

• Sweet Liberty,
  

  whose self-evident truths can be so hard to see,
  

   
  

  and so hard to establish,
  

   
  

  and so hard to maintain:
  

   
  

  to you, increased devotion.
  

   
  

  Minerva, through whose wisdom the founding documents were composed,
  

   
  

  and through whose martial power liberty has been maintained,
  

   
  

  and through whose teachings of skill the People have prospered:
  

   
  

  increased devotion.
  

   
  

  To America, ever young and learning,
  

   
  

  ever unfolding the lessons of Liberty taught by Minerva:
  

   
  

  listen to them well.
  

   
  

  With you,
  

   
  

  as part of you,
  

   
  

  I worship Liberty and Minerva today,
  

   
  

  and will each day,
  

   
  

  with increased devotion.
  

   
  

Mars:

• With your weapons and armor, Father Mars,
  

  protect our land.
  

   
  

  With your weapons and armor, Father Mars,
  

   
  

  protect our Constitution.
  

   
  

  The one to prevent our destruction
  

   
  

  The other to make us worthy of emulation.
  

   
  

Providence:

• The founding deities,
  

  Liberty, Justice, Democracy, and the others,
  

   
  

  are continually unfolded by us into a country more and more in accord with their teachings.
  

   
  

  Liberty denied to blacks was extended to them with the abolition of slavery.
  

   
  

  Justice denied to the indigent was extended to them by requiring public defenders for those who could not pay.
  

   
  

  Democracy denied to women was extended to them by the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment,
  

   
  

  so that our imperfect system grows closer and closer to the deities' perfection,
  

   
  

  even if it does not operate perfectly itself, and sometimes denies even that which has been extended.
  

   
  

  These changes are created by human beings,
  

   
  

  but they do this as they apprehend more and more the implications of the self-evident truths on which America was founded.
  

   
  

  This apprehension is itself the result of human effort,
  

   
  

  but its inevitability and development in time,
  

   
  

  so that each new perception of truth might be absorbed in preparation for the next,
  

   
  

  are in the care of Providence, the deity which keeps us under its special protection,
  

   
  

  and provides the means through which the other deities might perform their work.
  

   
  

  This deity is hard to know, since it is itself one of knowing,
  

   
  

  and how can one know the knower?
  

   
  

  Indeed, whether Providence is a god or a goddess is not even known.
  

   
  

  So, having no shape, it is what
  gives
  shape,
  

   
  

  Providence is shown in the Great Seal as the Eye and the Pyramid:
  

   
  

  the Eye which watches us,
  

   
  

  and the unfinished Pyramid of the American ideals.
  

   
  

  It is to Providence that we pray today,
  

   
  

  that our sight might be clear, to see the founding principles better,
  

   
  

  and that we might find the strength to climb the Pyramid again and again,
  

   
  

  carrying more blocks of stones, to place them there, strongly cementing them with mortar.
  

   
  

  Providence asks us not for offerings of things, but of words that inspire,
  

   
  

  ideals in our minds,
  

   
  

  and the continuing effort to defend and protect the founding ideas.
  

   
  

  Our vow today, then, is not to erect a stone altar, but one that is informed of all that is good and right,
  

   
  

  and conducive to the extension of the Self-Evident Truths to all,
  

   
  

  and not just to those who pray here.
  

   
  

  And for that we ask strength and knowledge and wisdom,
  

   
  

  and most of all courage:
  

   
  

  May we both know the right and do it.
  

   
  

Rule of Law:

• Rule of Law, with your rods and axe,
  

  gather us together,
  

   
  

  enable the State to enforce the right only under your blessing and approval.
  

   
  

Shang Ti:

• Shang Ti, ruler of all under heaven, rule benevolently
  

  through the Eastern Mother,
  

   
  

  through the Western Mother,
  

   
  

  through the Ruler of the four quarters.
  

   
  

  We offer to the East.
  

   
  

  We offer to the West.
  

   
  

  We offer to the North.
  

   
  

  We offer to the South.
  

   
  

  We offer in the way of the Way.
  

   
  

  We offer with a request for your just governance of all.
  

   
  

Apollo:

• Son of Leto:
  

  You whose chariot is the all-seeing sun,
  

   
  

  whose truth-knowledge sees into every dark corner,
  

   
  

  whose arrows strike down liars with no mistakes:
  

   
  

  today in this court may only truth be spoken
  

   
  

  may only truth be heard
  

   
  

  may only truth be decided.
  

   
  

  Phoebus Apollo, here my prayer.
  

   
  

Hekate:

• Come to me,
  

  but don't
  go
  to me, Hekate.
  

   
  

  Go instead to those who unjustly oppose me
  

   
  

  and torment them.
  

   
  

  Be relentless.
  

   
  

  My cause is right.
  

   
  

  If not, may it be I who feels your wrath.
  

   
  

Helios:

• It is true that you see everything that happens under you, Helios,
  

  great eye of the heavens.
  

   
  

  So you know that I am blameless in this matter
  

   
  

  and you know who is to blame.
  

   
  

  Harry them with guilt.
  

   
  

  Beat down on them relentlessly and mercilessly
  

   
  

  until they right the wrong.
  

   
  

Justice:

• Not content with your blindfold's shield
  

  you avert your eyes from the scales by which you separate the false from the true,
  

   
  

  and even with your unseeing eyes the sword you carry will not miss,
  

   
  

  separating the just from the unjust.
  

   
  

  May all my deeds,
  

   
  

  on this and other days,
  

   
  

  be weighed as true
  

   
  

  that I might be able to meet your piercing nongaze without fear.
  

   
  

Maat:

• If what I'm doing is right,
  

  a touch as light as the feather of Maat will suffice.
  

   
  

  Goddess of Truth,
  

   
  

  turn my feet onto the path of the Good.
  

   
  

Tyr:

• Irony of ironies, that you, God of the Oath,
  

  have no right hand to raise in swearing.
  

   
  

  Or perhaps just right, needing nothing to show for your speaking,
  

   
  

  the speaking alone being enough.
  

   
  

  Even thus, though I raise my hand as a sign of truth to others,
  

   
  

  to you and to me the words suffice,
  

   
  

  writing my vow into the Ørlog.
  

   
  

• In time of war, we come together as a people,
  

  as a people, we must pray for peace:
  

   
  

  Holy Ones, may there be peace.
  

   
  

  In time of war, we come together in our families,
  

   
  

  as families, we must pray for peace:
  

   
  

  Holy Ones, may there be peace.
  

   
  

  In time of war, we find ourselves as individuals,
  

   
  

  as individuals, we must pray for peace:
  

   
  

  Holy Ones, may there be peace.
  

   
  

  As a people, as families, as individuals, we must pray for peace:
  

   
  

  Holy Ones, bring us peace.