In building Brythonic polytheistic monastic practices I feel at once like a pioneer because few people are doing this specific work today but at the same time like I’m standing on the shoulders of thousands of ancestors because since homanids arose the majority have been animists and polytheists.

Since I came to Brythonic polytheism through Paganism and Druidry over ten years ago I have been developing my practices and deepening them further as a monastic since I took vows as a nun of Annwn in 2022.

My main practices are prayer, meditation and trance. These lead into and complement one another and their boundaries can be permeable. Here I will provide my personal understandings and how I have come to them through studying their development in ancient and contemporary polytheisms and current mainstream religions then share how I put them into practice.

Prayer

The first and foremost of my practices is prayer. Prayer, in its most basic form, is conversation with the other-than-human worlds and persons. Indigenous people have always lived in dialogue with the land and its spirits, the Gods and the ancestors, with prayer permeating their lives from rising to sleeping. 

People have likely been praying for as long as they can speak. Some of the earliest recorded examples of polytheist prayers are the Litany of Re from the Egyptian New Kingdom (16th – 11th BC) and the Homeric Hymns (7th BC).

The hegemony of Christianity brought about a shift in focus in prayer from the land and its Deities to one transcendent God and the saints. The rise of rationalism, materialism, industrialisation and capitalism have all played a role in putting into doubt and in erasing beliefs in Gods and spirits. One of the main problems with Western society is that we’ve forgotten how to pray.

Within the current mainstream religions Christianity has the most developed system of prayer and meditation is seen to be a form of contemplative prayer. 

Prayers can be formal (written prayers that are often memorised) or informal (personal prayers in one’s own words often taking the form of a dialogue). Some of the most common forms of prayer are praise / adoration, thanksgiving, petition / supplication, confession, and intercession. Other prayers are written for the marking and celebration of Holy Days.

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Unfortunately we don’t have any evidence of prayers to the Brythonic Gods because the ancient Britons did not write anything down. However, archaeological evidence shows they made offerings of bones, pottery, jewellery, weapons and other objects in sacred places such as hill-tops, springs, rivers, lakes, bogs, in pits and shafts, and in or near burial mounds. Such offerings were undoubtably accompanied by prayers and ceremonies. 

Much of our knowledge of the Brythonic Gods comes from Romano-British altars and temples wherein they were often equated with the Roman Gods (for example Apollo-Maponos, Mars-Nodens, Sulis-Minerva). The vast numbers of Romano-British curse tablets recovered from sacred sites show people were petitioning the Gods for aid against those who had wronged them.

We also find references in Roman texts to ancient Gaulish and British rituals. Most of them describe sacrifices of animals and humans. These ceremonies  (and others less bloody) likely opened and closed and were punctuated with prayers to the Gods who were the recipients. Tacitus describes black-clad women with fiery brands and Druids raising their hands to the skies in prayer to call upon the Gods for aid against the Roman invastion of Anglesey.

These more extreme examples presuppose an underlying relationship with the Gods founded on prayer and reciprocity common amongst the general populace.

By the time the stories of the Brythonic Gods were written down in the medieval period Britain had been Christianised and all but Wales Anglicised. The Gods appear in the texts in euhemerised form (eg. Maponos as Mabon, Matrona as Modron) but the only prayers to be found are to the Christian God.

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This has meant Brythonic polytheists have had to begin writing prayers from scratch, building on the forms found in ancient polytheisms and other religions.

Thankfully we’re not alone. The rise of the polytheist movement has given birth to numerous devotionals featuring prayers from publishers such as 

Bibliotheca Alexandrina and Moon Books and from independent authors and editors.

I worked with Dun Brython building devotional material for several years. On the website and in the devotional anthology The Grey Mare on the Hill can be found a variety of prayers to Brythonic Deities with a focus on Rigantona / Rhiannon.

Pauline Kennedy’s ‘Prayer for Epona Rigantona’ is an excellent example of praise.

‘Epona of Horses, I praise you!
Rigantona of the Land, I praise you!
Epona of Sovereignty, I praise you!
Rigantona of Journeys, I praise you!
Epona of Stables, I praise you!…’

‘Rigantona: Calan Gaeaf’ by Greg Hill is a seasonal prayer marking the first day of winter.

‘By Orion’s light
At the dark of the moon
Now the hawthorn tree is bare

A shadow passes through the veil
Of the Otherworld on a Grey Mare

Rigantona; roses wither on your altar
But we keep your vigil here.’ 

Albion and Beyond is an active Brythonic polytheist group committed to sharing information and resources and to building community. Here there is a section on the Bardic Arts with poetry for Andraste, Cocidius, Maponos and Nodens.

‘Cloud-Maker’ by Nico Solheim-Davidson praises Nodens and petitions Him for rain.

‘Nodens, Iron-handed ruler
Cloud-maker, dream-catcher
Hound-master, net-thrower, rain lord. 
Waters of deep Dumons you ride,
Turning to rain, the provider…
Guide us Iron-Hand to good times,
As we turn our praise to you, lord.
Come fast cloud-chasers, mist-racers,
Bounding and bustling in the sky,
Bring unto us your rapid rains, 
Fill the heavens with your dark cloaks.’

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My personal practice began mainly with informal prayers to Gwyn, my patron God, and His family and my local spirits along with formal prayers for Holy Days. Since I became a nun I have been using more formal prayer – some prayers I have written myself and shared prayers of the Monastery of Annwn.

I get up at 4am and begin my morning prayers with a statement of intent to honour Gwyn. Speaking His name as the first word after I have got up and the last word before I go to bed has become increasingly important to me.

This is followed by prayers of praise to the Spirit of the Monastery, the spirits of place, the ancestors, and Gwyn and His family then formal prayers for Gwyn. These include both written prayers and songs. In the summer, when Gwyn is absent, every morning I sing a seasonal song called ‘You Are Gone.’ 

‘Dawn arrives but You are gone,
the birds are singing yet You are gone,
the flowers are turning their petalled heads
Towards the sun but you are gone…

You are gone but Your haunting 
is everywhere with Your promise of return…’

I also read a shared prayer of the monastery, ‘In Summer We Miss You.’

‘In summer we miss You 
We miss You like we miss the rain
but we know You will return again
like the raindrops on our window panes…’

This is followed by informal prayer which usually includes adoration and petition. ‘Gwyn ap Nudd, my lord, my teacher, my inspiration, my beloved, I appreciate the sacrifice You made through your death and sleep so summer can come. I am grateful for Your tireless work through the winter gathering souls. You are the Heart of my Heart, the heartbeat of my heartbeat, keeping me alive and strong. I pray to You today I might be more present, compassionate, loving, as You love me and all the souls You gather…’ Time is also spent simply being with Gwyn and listening to what He has to say.

My evening prayers take a similar form but with thanksgiving in the place of praise and ‘confession’ in the place of petition. Here I don’t mean confessing sins as such but sharing what I’ve done during the day and getting any mistakes and failures off my chest. ‘I’ve worked hard today on Your book but I got side-tracked by wondering if anyone has checked in on my blog…’ I spend time in communion with Gwyn and playing a heartbeat on my drum to bring my heart into alignment with His.

Finally, I pray to Nodens for as my God of dreams, then I say farewell to Gwyn.

An example of my daily prayers from last October can be viewed HERE. 

I am also striving to become more prayerful in my daily activies. To see writing, exercising, cleaning, cooking, gardening as forms of prayer. This doesn’t come easily to me as someone who has been very task / goal rather than relationship orientated for most of my life and is one of my biggest challenges.