Giving offerings?

[CoyoteFeather]

I still can't get around how to give offerings to a deity/guide/guardian/spirit ect. Lets say I was gonna offer something to my dragon guide. What would I offer and how would I do it? would I burn the offering (lets say its unburnable or dangerous to burn like a coin or something of such) would there be a certain ritual setup, and what would I do with the (insert offering) afterwards? Excuse my annoyance

[Seraphin]

Different types of Deities and Spirits seem to respond best to different sorts of offerings. There are a lot of things we may use as an offering "to come close" to Them. Offering bread, cake, grains, salt or wine to my sacred shrine, and elevating its parts on the altar, declares my intent to bring my material side closer to Hearth and Home Deities such as Ashera, Brighid and Yemaya. Artworks and crafts appeal to the Gods and Goddesses of arts and beauty such as Kerridwen and Lakshmi. My harvests -- fruits, vegetables, root crops and such are usually offered to the Gods of fertility, harvest and agriculture such as Baal, Ashtaroth and Dagon. Iron works and fire are the best offerings for Gods of War like Oggun and Resheph while bringing alcoholic beverage, sweets or chocolates, strong spicy dishes, are all ideal offerings for Chaos, Discord and Strife Deities such as Eris and Kali and also for Eleggua and Papa Legba.

So if we want to express our gratitude or want to petition a Deity, it's important to think about what the God represents; things related to the spheres of influence of the particular Deity or Spirit you're honoring or worshiping.

Also, there are many different types of offerings:

• Food Offering
• Drink Offering
• Herb Offering
• Burnt Offering
• Grain Offering
• Charity

How one give his offerings to his Deity depends on how his chosen path. Rituals vary from tradition to tradition as well as person to person. But for me who doesn't follow a single tradition it lies in the basic understanding of what it means to me come close to my Deities and spiritual community. I personally believe my Deities don't really care what sort of rituals or ceremonies we're going to perform. It's more about who we are, rather than what They seem to need. For me, it's irrelevant whether you perform a complex ritual or a simple one, so long as your intention is for the Higher Worlds!

[SnowCat]

For me, a lot of what I do in the way of offerings is to either work with something in this realm that is special to them, or share what I've learned from having them in my life.

Snow

[Echo_of_shadows]

I think the direct approach works well in this situation: ask the entity you're working with if they'd like an offering from you and if so, ask if they'd like something specific. Some beings will ask for tangible items while others will ask for things like perhaps a song or poem in their honor, or for you to do good deeds for others.
If you are going to be leaving tangible items, you might want to set up a specific place to leave those items so that both you and the entity will know the reason those things are there. Some people will leave offerings on their altars for a period of time to allow entities to take what they need from the offering, then they dispose of the offerings in some way. Other people have a specific spot outside that they leave offerings, and they skip the step of leaving the offering on the their altar.
What you plan to offer plays a role in determining where to make the offering and how to dispose of it afterward. Let's say that you pick flowers from your yard as an offering. You could leave them on your altar for as long as the blooms are open and pretty, then you could take the withered flowers and lay them back out in the yard. The flowers won't hurt the environment and any seeds that may be inside can return to nature and give you more flowers in the future. Let's say that you bought a lovely Merlot specifically for sharing with an entity, and you normally pore the wine outside after rituals, but it's the dead of winter and you really don't want to get out your snowshoes. You can ask the entity if they are okay with you consuming the offering as a way to dispose of it. Some other options are to burn offerings, bury them or leave them in running water. If you're unsure of how to dispose of an item, you can confer with the entity you offered it to and keep mother earth in mind by not polluting.
Virtual offerings are also acceptable. You can create a virtual altar and leave pictures of anything as an offering. The beauty of this is that you can find pictures of things that you'd never be able to obtain in real life and use them as offerings and for spell work. You can leave gorgeous and elaborate meals for gods without having to know how to cook or spend any more money that you already do for your home or mobile internet access. You can celebrate the Sun by leaving several pictures of burning candles without the worry of accidentally burning down your home. Another nice thing about virtual altars is that you can have them be totally private if you want to. Set yourself up a blog or a Pinterest board that can only be accessed by someone that has the password, then go ahead and leave anything your heart desires knowing that only you and the entities you work with can see it.

[AnaisStar]

I read a lot about my deities and then find something from their history/stories to add as an offering. For instance Lakshmi is seen on a lotus most often. So I offer her lotus things alot: lotus incense, lotus pods, lotus oil etc.

Ganesh has an affinity for certain Indian sweets so I often go to the Indian market and pick those up for him.