Patreon Topic 89: On Offerings

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From Cunnian comes this topic:

“Managing offerings, unevenness, conflicting desires and views, feeling responsive but not excessive, not leaving some spirits out, etc. Kind of a beginner topic but I feel like one comes back to it repeatedly and it is hard to feel comfortable with the job one is doing.”

‘Managing offerings, unevenness, conflicting desires and views, feeling responsive but not excessive, not leaving some spirits out, etc.’ is a beginner topic. It is also an intermediate topic. It is also an advanced topic. It comes up again and again because we encounter gifting and offerings in our religious lives as different points, and how we relate to it can change in a number of ways. Where we are coming out of as beginners, what set us up or presaged our encounter with the Ginnreginn, can have a huge impact on how we relate to the giving of gifts and offerings. When we get experience under our belts the ideas we have around gifting and offerings, what we consider ‘good’ offerings and gifts, can change, and we can be more (or less!) responsive to how our Ginnreginn want things to go, or what They consider ‘good’ offerings at that stage to be. When we advance (even if we do not consider ourselves or are not recognized as ‘advanced’, whatever that is) in our practice, our experience and wisdom, our ongoing relationships, and the input of our community can have material impact on what we offer, how, to who, the quantity of them, and in what ways we make offerings and gifts.

For me, the key thing I try to keep foremost in my mind is that when it comes to offerings it is not about what is most expensive or energy intensive, but what I can give with a good heart. That what I offer is a good gift for a gift, and that the gift is given well and freely. That what I offer is seen and accepted as good by the Ginnreginn.

I had a few responses to this: “it is hard to feel comfortable with the job one is doing.”

The first thing that hit me when I read read this is that excising the capitalist mindset from gift giving is incredibly hard. We often go to the cost of an object because we use it as an indicator of value across so many variables in our life. Sometimes various Heathen and Pagan circles will portray buying an item for a Ginnreginn as being ‘cheaper’ or ‘less valuable’ than hand-making it, and, just as often and irritatingly, that the reverse of this is that we are being cheap with regards to those offerings and gifts we hand-make. I want to be clear that I do not think that buying or making offerings is inherently better, and that the ‘value’ of an offering depends on our skills, talents, abilities, relationships, and the desires and expectations of the Ginnreginn Themselves.

The specific discomfort any of us may be feeling can have so many roots, reasons, and wherefores that speculating is beyond my scope here. Generally though, I find that the discomfort with the overall ‘job’ we do in offerings and gift-giving can either be linked to the want, if not anxiety to ‘do it right’, whatever that is. Part of this, at least trending in the Pagan and Heathen communities I have seen, is as a response to Christian upbringing or the general background that suffuses our over-culture here in America. The ‘doing right’ is spelled out pretty blatantly in many of the teachings and traditions of various Christian denominations. That kind of background radiation can make it hard to feel fully secure that we are ‘doing it right’…even when we are, we know in our hearts we are, and when we have even gone the extra step to have it confirmed through divination that we are.

It is not a failing to not feel fully secure in ‘the job’ we do with offerings and gift-giving. To a certain degree, as these are relationships, the push and pull of expectations and obligations, doing our best, and occasionally falling short of doing our best or being able to fulfill expectations and obligations are just part of living a spiritual life as a modern Heathen and Pagan. Wanting to do our best for the Ginnreginn is a good thing. These are the Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir we share our lives with, our ups and downs, the good and bad. They bless us, guard us, guide us, and live with us. They are part of our lives, our families, our hearths. Doing right by Them through doing whatever capacity our best is, ultimately, does right by us even when we miss the mark, screw up, or have periods of inactivity.

With regard to ‘not leaving some spirits out’, sometimes we can do this by accident, in which case we can apologize and do what is in our power to make amends, and sometimes we need to leave some spirits out for our own good. Sometimes not giving offerings to a particularly cumbersome or demanding Ginnreginn is the best self-care we can do. Sometimes when I buy items or get a gift (such as when my wife made my last dice bag!) I will proclaim, loudly, that the item is for me and not to be used for spiritwork. Sometimes we need to have what is at hand for ourselves, whether that is time, energy, resources, food, or items. Sometimes, by not giving offerings in the moment, we reserve the resources and energy we need to do better by that Ginnreginn or our hearth. This unnevenness in offerings can feel disruptive, or even sometimes rude, yet we do not owe the same obligation to, say, a God not of our hearth to one we just met. I have had to tell several, such as The Morrighan that, with all due respect, I do not have the capacity for another relationship. This is especially true for me with a Goddess who can be as demanding and ‘heavy’ as I know Her to be, and how I undertand She would be for me. She does not get regular offerings from me because it is not a relationship I desire to cultivate deeply or long, both out of respect for myself, and out of respect for Her.

Managing offerings and how we feel at any given moment will change depending on where we are, how we get there, and what the Ginnreginn desire and react to in kind to those offerings. It is an ongoing and unfolding thing just as surely as our relationships with Them are. At the moment I feel as if I have said all I can to this. If folks want me to dig deeper into this topic, we can do so in the comments or in future topics.