A Quiet Year With a God

Not all devotion comes in ritual. There are years when the altar gathers dust, when the words you once whispered in prayer fall silent, not out of neglect, but because something deeper has begun to move beneath the surface. A quiet year with a god is not an absence…it is a different kind of presence. One that slips in like morning fog, so softly that you only notice its weight once it’s settled into the folds of your days.

This kind of year asks nothing of performance. It doesn’t require you to post, prove, declare, or define. It is a season where the divine steps closer not through spectacle, but through subtleties. You do not feel consumed or chosen. You feel... companioned. Shadowed. Guided, but from behind a veil. And so you begin to live differently, almost without noticing. You speak with more care. You clean your home as though clearing space for something sacred. You pause before you answer. You begin to trust your inner “no” without explanation. And over time, you realise that these changes are not random. They are responses. You are not just living, you are in a quiet conversation.

This is how gods walk beside us when the candles go unlit.

There is something humbling about such a year. You learn to stop begging for signs. You stop demanding proof. You stop needing to feel “special” in the ways you once did. And instead, you begin to notice. The way the wind shifts when you think their name. The way an animal watches you, lingering just a little longer than it should. The sudden pull toward a book, a stone, a forgotten place. These are not accidents. These are breadcrumbs.

When you allow your year to be quiet, you begin to hear the low hum underneath all things. You begin to recognise that devotion can be woven into the everyday, not as an act of worship in the traditional sense, but as a way of being. You make tea more slowly. You fold clothes with more care. You walk a little differently when the sky is heavy. You stop pretending that everything has to make sense. You stop needing to explain your sacredness to those who will never understand it.

In a quiet year, the work is not external. It is not about perfect offerings or elaborate rituals. It is about becoming the kind of vessel your god might want to dwell in. You remember things your blood already knew. You begin to live in rhythm. You learn that devotion does not always mean reaching up. Sometimes, it means rooting down.You may not receive visions. You may not feel called. But one morning, months into this quiet year, you may find yourself doing something simple, a gesture, a word, a refusal…and suddenly you will feel it. Not a voice. Not a command. But a recognition. They saw that. They were there. And somehow, that one moment will be worth the silence.

A quiet year with a god is not a detour. It is a path. It is not a failure to perform, it is an invitation to become. To let the presence of the divine enter not just your rituals, but your actual life. Your breath. Your timing. Your grief. Your rest. Your choices.

And when the silence ends, if it ends, you will not be who you were when it began. You will not need to prove anything. You will know the god not as something separate. Not summoned by spell or incense, but remembered in motion, in stillness, in the shape your life began to take when you stopped asking what they wanted, and simply lived as if they were already there.

Some gods step back the way fog lifts, slowly, almost lovingly. The warmth fades from your altar. The signs quiet. The dreams dry out. And for a while, you wonder if it ever happened at all. But those who have spent a year in quiet devotion know: silence is not absence. It is metamorphosis. A god does not need to shout to be present. Some simply root deeper.

You begin to notice it differently.

It’s in the way your voice changes when you speak certain words. In the pause you take before burning what should be buried. In how you now recognize the taste of false promises. These are not dramatic visions. They are aftershocks of knowing. The marks a deity leaves on a soul when it’s been reshaped from within.

Sometimes, they stop asking for offerings. You still light the same kind of candle on certain days without knowing why. You still reach for iron or honey, a ribbon or a stone. You say a phrase under your breath before entering a new room. These small, compulsive acts, these are the signs.

They do not come from fear or superstition. They come from having lived with a god long enough to carry them.

And if you pay close attention, you’ll find other signs, too.

Their birds show up when you're doubting yourself. A certain kind of wind returns when you're near a threshold. Your dreams echo the rhythm of their myth. Strangers mention something sacred in passing. You feel watched, not by something menacing, but something patient.

They are still there. Just further in. A deity may step away from your daily practice so that you can learn to walk without leaning. Some bonds mature in silence. Some lessons require room.

And in that silence, the work of quiet devotion continues, not with ritual knives or loud invocations, but in gentler gestures.

You sweep your floor with intention. You leave half your bread on the stone wall for whatever walks by in the night. You write something true in a notebook and place it in a locked drawer. You hold your tongue when you’d rather curse. You wear the same token around your neck, even when it’s hidden under three layers. These are not grand offerings. These are not formal prayers. But they are noticed.

The gods, especially the old ones, do not measure faith by fire. And every time you remember, every time you act with the echo of their presence in you, another knot is tied. That is what devotion becomes after a year.

Not noise. Not certainty. But a quiet way of moving through the world that they still recognize.

And perhaps, when the next storm comes, or the next gate opens ,you will feel that thread tighten again.

And you will know: They never left.