Year of Pagan Prayer : A Sourcebook of Poems, Hymns, and Invocations from Four Thousand Years of Pagan History

450+ Poems, Prayers, Hymns and Blessings

This treasury of beautiful and powerful pieces is the perfect companion for marking holidays, milestones, and the seasons. You'll discover prayers to Janus from Horace and Ovid, a traditional Scottish blessing for Imbolc, an invocation to Pan by Aleister Crowley, an ode to Proserpine by Mary Shelley, a pharaoh's hymn to Isis, a song for Lammas by Gwydion Pendderwen, and many, many more.

A tribute to the beauty and resiliency of Paganism, this sourcebook will enhance any special day throughout the year. Enjoy prayers for weddings and funerals, blessings for the sabbats, and hymns to the gods and goddesses of various pantheons. Barbara Nolan includes brief historical or biographical details to contextualize each piece as well as descriptions of different celebrations and festivals to help you integrate these readings into your practice.

A Year of Pagan Prayer demonstrates that the literary worship of Pagan deities was never fully lost in the West. This bounteous collection draws from the spiritual legacy of Italian Renaissance poets, ancient Sumerian priestesses, twentieth-century Pagans, French Romantics, Greek playwrights, nineteenth-century British occultists, and Egyptian hymnists, making it a must-have resource for anyone who yearns to embody the eloquent expressions of our Pagan past.

Barbara Nolan (Philadelphia, PA & Mohawk Valley, NY) has been a practicing Pagan since she was nine years old. She studied Latin, ancient Greek, and Near Eastern archaeology at Bryn Mawr and Irish Gaelic at the University of Pennsylvania. Barbara holds an honors degree in English with a concentration in Celtic Studies. Her writing has appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Irish Edition, and she has worked in the book industry for more than twenty years.