I’ve hopefully shared inspiring thoughts about rites of passage with folks across the world. (Google analytics tells me someone in South Africa sees this!) I’ve learned quite a lot from experimenting, too. In the year ahead, I will increase my post frequency to bring readers more views into the amazing ceremonies I co-create with Sweetgrass clients, based on their own stories, beliefs and values.

Road to sacred places in Zuni, New Mexico

The road I’ve traveled with clients in the past year led us to a wide array of experiences: tremendous joy, soulful stillness, fizzy laughter, peaceful sighs and heart-wrenching tears. What underscored all of these moments acknowledging new life, love or loss for my clients? A delicious sense of  satisfaction, because we celebrated their life passages with heartfully handcrafted ceremonies that I composed with great intention and awareness, specifically for them.

In the year ahead, who really knows where the road will lead us? I do hope to celebrate my second anniversary of posting with many new followers, folks who add their spicy thoughts to this blog. Plus, I hope to celebrate with new found joys in my practice as a Life Cycle Celebrant, too!

With Joy,

Kristine

Bill and Dianne after they took their vows!

I felt completely blessed to be a part of this wedding a few evenings ago. The Bride and Groom are both approaching 80 years of age. They both, along with their supportive family members, completely inspired me! They are SO in love! As I watched the family take photos after the ceremony, my heart was nearly bursting open with a sense of how today is truly a gift. Here is a passage from the ceremony I composed:

“As a couple, you feel a common chord connecting you, about doing the best with what you have and being thankful for every day you are given. You quickly felt a natural connection this way, in your philosophies of life and living based on many rich experiences. For all that you have experienced, however, you do not dwell in the past. You are VERY present right now, right here, today. A gift for which you are so grateful.”

Summer evening at DeGrazia Chapel in Tucson, AZ

The Groom was one of the original lithographers for the artist Ted DeGrazia. It was fitting to have the wedding in the DeGrazia Chapel, at the Gallery of the Sun. We timed the ceremony to be held at sunset, as the couple is in their precious sunset years of life. It was simply beautiful! Afterward, we even had a graceful bat or two swoop into the Chapel, which is open to the sky above.

I am so thankful to be doing this work when I serve families in these deeply memorable moments. There were tears and laughter and such good stories. When I walked up the path to my house later that night, I saw a huge bursting star fall, with a long shimmering tail. The perfect footnote to an evening that felt so full of stardust already!

In Gratefulness,

Kristine

I am ready and game!

Kristine

Schoolgirls at Hiroshima Peace Museum (A/P photo by S. Kajiyama)

Ceremony helps us mark events; both the bitter and sweet occurrences in life. It helps us pause and remember. Tomorrow marks the 65th anniversary of the first atomic bomb dropping on civilization. It is surely one of our most collectively bitter events to mark as a world community. I can only imagine the solemnity in Hiroshima, when they ring the peace bell and release doves during the ceremony. I am thankful a U.S. Ambassador is attending for the first time. I am encouraged to see other nuclear powers, France and Britain attending. Mere symbolism you say? Well regardless, I believe the ceremony clearly sends messages of peace to leaders and citizens around the world.

I visited the Peace Museum in Hiroshima with a pit in my stomach and many tears. Exhibits made clear to me what utter devastation we wrought. And yet, there is attendant beauty in the walls of letters from Mayors across the world, urging peace and destruction of nuclear weapons. There is magnificent beauty in the thousands of colorful origami cranes draped over garden statues. The sense of remembrance for all the victims and survivors is viscerally palpable. Enough so, I hope, that this world does not see devastation on that scale again.

Kristine

All four individuals have had prior marriages. One bride in particular said when she planned her first wedding, she didn’t focus on the ceremony. She regrets it. She realizes she was too young and obsessed with other details anyway (read: big hair, big dress and so on.)

Today there is an opportunity to dramatically change that approach. To her, the ceremony is the most important piece now. (I am cheering when she says this, because that is music to my Celebrant ears!) Together, we will craft a heartfelt and original wedding. A lively celebration of not only themselves, yet their adult children and surrounding communities, too. A chance to recognize how intertwined their lives are, plus how much they appreciate each other.

The nearly 80 year young bride shared this little tidbit with me, that I want to pass along:

Yesterday is history.

Tomorrow a mystery.

Today is a gift.

So, she said, “don’t wait, love now! Act on the gift that is today!”

Happily humbled by this work,

Kristine

A recent NPR story touches on this question. The answer is: more and more folks are married by someone familiar to them. Really familiar! As in friends or family members.  Often, this opens the door to bringing two different traditions together, without encountering ‘clergy complications’. Says Melissa Evans, a wedding planner quoted in the story, “One partner doesn’t necessarily have to give up their religion, their faith, their history,” she says. “They can tie it all together.”

With a Life Cycle Celebrant like me composing and leading the ceremony, the same needs for ‘tying it all together’ will be met and exceeded. Individuals from interfaith traditions – or conversely – a complete lack of religious or cultural conditions, may choose to work with me as their wedding officiant. I spend a great deal of time and energy getting to know my clients and truly hearing their stories, listening to their beliefs and understanding their values. Through the interview process, we develop trust and an emergent friendship.

In a way I find the timing of this NPR story ironic. Just in the past two weeks, I’ve assisted three long-distance friends who are performing weddings for friends. I lend them the tools I have in my Celebrant treasure chest for crafting completely original, joyful and meaningful ceremonies. They say they would be lost without the help. So far, I’ve heard effusively happy comments from their experiences. Plus, I am always willing to work with couples from afar, to compose their wedding ceremony script. Then, they can choose someone dear to them for leading the ceremony in person.

This summer, I am also working on a ceremony for two dear friends’ August wedding. I’ve known the groom for 20+ years and met his lovely bride-to-be just a couple of years ago. We are totally enjoying ourselves while co-creating their ceremony. Our experience is a testament to how the sense of authenticity, love and humor that arises from working together out of a place of mutual endearment will surpass any wedding service a justice of the peace or unfamiliar clergy member could ever offer.

Yes, marriage is often viewed as an institution with assigned religious rites. Yet, I see it as immensely personal, too. And so, being able to choose who marries you with the greatest depth of meaning and personal relevance during the ceremony is really the heart of the matter, yes?

With love,

Kristine

I am a Life Cycle Celebrant and I honor my clients’ stories, beliefs and values when I compose and lead original ceremonies. Naturally, I love how this interview offers honest insight into the healing nature of relevant ceremony!  As Patrick says, ceremonies are “not just for the benefit of the community,” they may also “help us to orient ourselves, give us perspective, and provide us with reassurance when we face new roles and challenges in life.” 

I am a regular reader of the Daily Undertaker Blog, edited by Wisconsin based Funeral Director Patrick McNally. I am thankful he posted his very thoughtful conversation with Dorry, a fellow Life Cycle Celebrant. She is founder of Circle of Life Ceremonies in New Jersey and someone I am truly happy to call a colleague! In the interview, Dorry eloquently states our broader perspective as Life Cycle Celebrants by saying:

Dorry Bless of 'Circle of Life Ceremonies'

“We tend to see our clients and their lives as a ‘work of art’. The ordinary is truly recognized as the extraordinary when we look closely and pay attention. The small gestures are the big ones – -the kindnesses that make life wonderful and worthwhile. We paint their story with the words, readings and rituals selected. Everyone experiences their own version of the hero’s journey throughout their lives — even when they veer off that path due to circumstance. Ceremony allows us to view this and experience it on a heartfelt and cellular level. Each client’s story is reflected in a way that is truthful, authentic and genuine to them so that each ceremony is ultimately different.”

Thank you, Pat and Dorry, for sharing your conversation with us all. Your perspectives and wise experiences will surely give readers new insights and bright inspirations, as well!

In Gratitude,

Kristine

Painting a cardboard cremation container at a Final Passages workshop.

People can participate in many creative ways during family-led funerals. It may surprise you how having a purpose to serve after a death occurs in a family or community may ease uncertainties and awkwardness. For example, people can build and decorate a container for burial or cremation. Young and old folks alike may find it healing to paint designs and express their feelings. People may also help with the filing of paperwork, decorating a room for the deceased to ‘lie-in-grace’, or cooking meals during the vigil.

May was a month full of meaningful work for me, preparing weddings and memorials. So, I meant to get this article posted sooner! And yet, the timing now is perfect because I had a home funeral consultation with a family earlier this week. They had complete clarity around caring for their elderly Mother at home during the continuum of her daily life now, throughout and after her passing. Because they birthed all three of their kids at home with birth midwives, they see death at home and my support services as a death midwife as a natural part of life, too. Simply and naturally beautiful.

The process of honoring Ruth’s wishes for natural care, as told in the Arizona Republic article, inspired me to add this work to my client services at Sweetgrass Ceremonies. I couldn’t be more thankful to her for the life-affirming journey I am on now. In April, I received certification as a Death Midwife from Jerrigrace Lyons of Final Passages.  I am humbled by and grateful for the opportunity to serve families in this way.

Much love,

Kristine

I am not and never will be a robotic officiant.

There, got that out. I need to add though, how I LOVE the way this lovely couple chose to make their ceremony such a unique reflection of themselves. Since the robotics industry brought them together, I think the scenario is brilliantly clever and fun.

;-*D

Kristine

After the ceremony however, I won’t be filing a marriage license. The State of Arizona will not recognize their joining because this couple is gay. In the ceremony, we acknowledge how “their love is BIGGER than social rules” and hope how someday they will find legal recognition in addition to social recognition of their commitment to each other.

Here is an excerpt from the 2003 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage in that state. I keep it nearby when I write ceremonies for same-sex couples, to be inspired or to insert pieces of it.

“Marriage is a vital social institution. The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support. Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family. Because it fulfills yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution, and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life’s momentous acts of self-definition.

It is undoubtedly for these concrete reasons, as well as for its intimately personal significance, that civil marriage has long been termed a ‘civil right.’ Without the right to choose to marry, one is excluded from the full range of human experience.”

I love that phrase, “it (civil marriage) fulfills yearnings for security, safe haven and connection that express our common humanity” because regardless of belief systems, isn’t that something we might all agree we share?

With Love,

Kristine