A Behind-the-Scenes Take on my Weekly Blessings

Early this year, I started to offer what I call “weekly blessings” – i.e. a formal blessing ceremony, once a week, in which I bless everybody who requested it for this particular week.

(If you haven’t seen this offer yet, you can read more and sign up here.)

I have to admit that the blessing anouncements which I put up each week are a bit short on background info. This is partly because they are long enough as they are, and partly because I wanted to find my footing first and settle into a proven structure, before I start talking about details.

However, some of the regulars have expressed interest in background info. And since we’re already into week 12 of these Weekly Blessings, well, here you go: all the secret (and not-so-secret) behind-the-scenes info about my weekly blessings in one convenient essay… 😉

But before we get into the specifics of what I do in my blessings and how, we should probably clarify what “blessings” are in the first place:

A “blessing” as I understand it in the context of my weekly offer is “positive, divine energy brought into our lives by the conscious act of blessing”. Yes, I know that’s quite a mouthful, so let’s go through this one thing at a time:

Divine energy is probably the easiest to understand: I assume that there are divine or higher powers in this world, and that they can bring energy into our lives if they choose to do so, and if we give them the chance to do so.

Or, in other words: During my blessings, there is a definite flow of energy, and this energy is not coming from little ol’ me, but from somewhere “up there”.

However, there are different kinds of higher powers, and all sorts of different energies. A blessing, as the everyday use of the word suggests, brings positive energies.

Of course, “positive” can mean a ton of different things: healing, clearing, supportive, calming, uplifting, happy, miraculous, tough love, and so on. And divine powers aren’t vending machines – “throw a blessing in at the top and get the effect of your choice out at the bottom” is not how this works. 😉

Instead, these higher powers have their own ideas of what is “good” for us or not. That’s why sometimes blessings have the intended effects, sometimes they might have no discernable effects, or surprising or unintended (but still ultimately positive) effects, and sometimes they have seemingly no effect at all, until we realize a lot later just how much things have changed for the better.

Or, to put it more bluntly: Even though I send you the blessings with the intention you asked for, there is no guarantee that this is what will actually happen – the divine powers might have their own ideas of what is “good” for you.

The next defining issue is that these blessings aren’t just “somewhere out there”, but are being brought into our lives.

(“Into our lives” doesn’t necessarily mean onto the material plane, btw – emotions, thoughts, and all sorts of other things are also part of your life, right?)

Divine powers can have a lot of influence (they are divine powers, after all!), but they don’t always act it out here on earth and in our lives.

I’ve seen various assumptions as to why that’s the case (e.g. they might need to act through somebody or something in order to be capable of acting down here; they might know from hard-won experience that too much meddling in earthly life isn’t going to improve things; they might have a lot of stuff to do up there, and ultimately we’re just small fish and not as important as we’d like to be; …).

While I don’t know what the reason for this is (and chances are good it’s a mixture of various reasons, including some things our poor human brains can’t even comprehend), a blessing can act as a conduit to help these positive divine energies flow into your life.

And lastly, there is the conscious act of blessing.

In everyday terms, the word blessing is oftentimes being used rather casually, e.g. everything good that happens is called a “blessing”. While that is perfectly fine, I hope it has become clear that this is not what I’m talking about with regards to my weekly blessings. 😉

Just as the meaning of the word blessing, the actual act of “blessing” is also being used rather casually in everyday life:

We might say “bless you” when somebody sneezes. Or we might close a message to somebody with “my blessings to you”, or “I offer you my blessings”, or something to this effect, and then just forget about it. And while these are all nice and friendly intentions, they aren’t conscious acts of blessing.

Again, there is nothing wrong with this at all!

However, I use the word “blessing” differently in the context of my weekly blessing offer, and I want to be clear and upfront about this. I.e. I don’t just approve your comments when you sign up, write a casual “bless you” in a reply comment, and then forget about it.

Instead, the blessings I perform on Wednesdays are a conscious act:

I first go through the list of all the requests again. Secondly, I prepare myself and an altar space according to the occasion, and take some time to get into the right state. I then consciously perform first the general blessing for the whole group, and then equally consciously go through the list one by one, and bless each of you individually, including your particular request if there was any, or ask your individual deities for their blessing for you, if you have mentioned any.

And yes, I do raise my hands for the blessings. 😉

Thus each of my weekly blessings is a conscious act, done in the best state and with the best intentions which fallible me can manage.

It’s really important to me to be clear about all this: This isn’t just some empty feel-good gesture. When you sign up for a blessing, you should know that there is actually divine energy flowing to you, to the best of my ability.

Btw, that’s also why I ask you to sign up anew each week:

If I’d let you sign up “forever”, you might receive blessings in some weeks when you don’t want them, or when they wouldn’t be good for you. (Plus, I’d have to manage a whopper of a list very soon!) Instead, I feel you should receive these blessings only when you consciously decide that yes, you want them this week.

So. I’ve explained what I mean by the term blessing, and have also answered quite a few questions about the process on the side (sneaky of me, isn’t it? 😉 ). However, there are still three open questions.

Let’s tackle them one at a time:

1. Where do these divine blessing energies come from?

In all honesty: I don’t know.

(Yes, I’m aware that this is a bit pathetic. At the very least, I should have come up with a story about how my great-grandma was an accomplished medium and established that contact to a certain spirit of an ancient Egyptian high priest and… 😉 ).

But seriously, though, as of yet, I really don’t know.

I do know, though, that these are powerful, positive energies. And they might (or might not, I haven’t figured that out yet) be connected to the divine healing energies from the Modern Order of Essenes (if this means nothing to you, I’ll get to it in a second – just keep on reading).

Which immediately brings up another question, of course (sorry, I know I said “three questions” – but follow-ups don’t really count, do they?):

1.1 Are these blessings connected to a particular deity?

In short: Nope.

I deliberately don’t call on any particular deity for the blessings, to make sure they are appropriate for people with all sorts of religious views.

However, in the general part of the blessing, among other things I also include an intention for the deities of the recipients to guide and bless them. I figure if you have any personal connections to gods or other higher powers, then this will be welcome to you (and if you have such a connection and this is not welcome to you, please don’t sign up for the blessings, ok?).

I also figure that if you do have a personal connection to a deity or other higher power, they will be aware of it and will at least look somewhat favourably on a polite request to bless you (and if not, I’d say there is an issue right there which you might want to address!).

Of course, it’s up to your god(s) to which extent they are willing to chime in with a blessing of their own – as, again, they have their own ideas of what’s good for us.

Since I have already raised the topic of intention, let’s hop straight to the second question, then (finally!):

2. What intentions are included in these blessings?

That depends a bit.

In the general section, I include intentions for health, protection, guidance and good things. These are (deliberately) phrased generally enough that I feel they will be a fit for everybody.

E.g. if you have any issues where you aren’t ready for healing yet, or any things you maybe shouldn’t be protected from because you’ll ultimately benefit from the experience, the blessing intentions won’t interfere with them. (Plus, and I know I’m repeating myself, the divine powers will have their own ideas of what’s good for you anyway.)

In the second part of the blessing ceremony, where I bless each person individually, there is also room for some personal intention – if you want to state one, that is.

(If you do, please make it short and concise. Remember that I need to not just read all the comments, but also prepare the blessing list and then bless each person. For my own sake, I’ll refuse intention requests which are expressed as short novels.)

In this part of the ceremony, there is also room for me to call on a specific deity for a blessing, if you feel that would help. Again, I will phrase this in the form of a polite request, and it’s then up to the deity in question if and how they will follow through.

In any case, whether they have stated an intention or not, and whether they have named a deity (or deities) or not, I bless each person indidividually.

We’ve covered most of the ground by now, and I think there is just one question left – although if you should have any others, ask away in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them, ok? 🙂

Thus without further ado:

3. Why am I offering these blessings at all?

A good question – and as so often with good questions, there isn’t a simple answer. 😉

First, my weekly blessings are a form of community service.

I get so much from John Michael Greer’s ecosophia online community (website; dreamwidth), and I’ve wanted to reciprocate in some form for a long time. That this reciprocation ended up taking the form of a weekly blessing offer… well, sometimes we end up on strange and unexpected paths. 😉

I want to make it clear, however, that these weekly blessings aren’t a sacrifice for me – if they were, I probably wouldn’t offer them for long. In fact, I get something out of them in return (more than one thing, actually):

For personal reasons, I would like to expand my ability to do ceremonies like blessings for larger groups of people, and to perform a public blessing each week is good practice for me.

Here, I suppose some of you might be wondering how I can practice this ability with a solitary ceremony, where there isn’t even a single person in the room with me, aren’t you? 😉

Well, as I said above, I can actually feel the divine energies flowing in these ceremonies. And to put it in overly simply terms: The more people are included in a blessing, the more energy is flowing.

Thus I am grateful to everybody who signs up, as it gives me a chance to practice handling these energies for larger groups.

And finally (I told you it was complicated!), I also have some hidden motives.

See, I’m a Master Teacher of the Modern Order of Essenes, which is a system of spiritual healing. It’s not the same as blessings, but in many regards it works through similar means, to achieve “healing” on various (non-physical) levels, with the help of positive divine powers.

The Modern Order of Essenes has only been revived very recently, and consists, as of yet, of a rather small group of practitioners.

My secret (cough, cough) hope is that some of you might experience the power of blessings, and might then become interested in similar modes of positive divine energy – and that some of these people might pick up the Modern Order of Essenes.

Although if that’s not for you, that’s fine, too – you’re very welcome to just sign up for blessings whenever you feel they’ll do you good! 🙂

So… I hope I’ve covered most of your questions in this essay. 🙂 Please feel free to make ample use of the comment box below for further questions, comments, …

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Image: Joes Valentine on Unsplash