The Quiet Offering

Stand or sit before your shrine, with one small offering ready, a single flower picked that morning, a steel lota of water, a lit incense stick, a piece of fruit. Make the offering slowly. Watch your own hand placing it. Do not rush to the next part of the ritual. Stay in that single moment of giving. Notice that the offering is not really moving from you to the deity. It is moving from one part of one whole to another part of the same whole. That is what every offering has always been, the heart placing a piece of itself in the lap of the heart.