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Back from the Brink

6/28/2013

With increasing interest in divorce ceremonies, Life-Cycle Celebrant Dannielle Yates brings us a story of a ceremony she conducted that supported healing for a couple who had travelled to the brink of divorce.

As Dannielle's client J. recalls, "My husband and I had been through a long and difficult journey that created much uncertainty as to whether we would continue to be together. After working diligently for several months with a couples' counselor, we made great progress and recommitted to our marriage.

"There was much healing to do, though, and one aspect of our healing was to clear our home of negative energy that had accumulated through arguments, hurt, and anger. We reached out to Dannielle for her clearing talents."

In addition to her expertise in ceremony, Dannielle brings her gifts as an intuitive healer to clear, heal, and bless living and work spaces. She uses sound, among other modalities, to elevate the energy vibration to a frequency favorable for clarity, harmony, and transformational change.

J. reports, "As the three of us walked from room to room, Dannielle inquired as to how we used the room and what experience we had with that room. Each had its own story and she used each room's unique energy and purpose to clear it and bless it."

Going forward, Dannielle invited J. and her husband to be intentional as they step through the door to their home. She coached them to take a moment to affirm their choice to recommit to their marriage, remember what they love and admire about each other, and enter with an open heart and mind. Their home is now humming with possibilities.

My colleague Dannielle Yates

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Many thanks to Dannielle for sharing her clients' story, with their permission. Read more about Dannielle's healing rituals here.

This spring I used gifted feng shui consultant Anezka Drazil to help me redesign my insanely cluttered home office to better support my Celebrancy work. Now I'm tackling nearly 20 years of flotsam and jetsam in my basement!

What do you do to clear your home of bad energy and distractions?

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Summer Solstice

6/20/2013

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Jennifer Strange photo

Summer Solstice is a high holy day for those with an earth-based spiritual practice. For others, it's simply the longest day of the year. One of my Celebrant colleagues in Southern Oregon is using the occasion to conduct a ceremony for Courage and Clarity.

Despite five years of Latin, I had to consult that timeless tome of down-to-earth wisdom, the Farmer's Almanac, for the original meaning of the word: solstitium, from sol (sun) and stitium (to stop), reflecting the fact that the sun appears to stop at this time (and again at the winter solstice).

The timing of the solstice depends on when the Sun reaches its farthest point north of the equator. As I write this, it's still a few hours away, scheduled for 10:04 P.M. on Thursday, June 20th.

As that hour approaches, Jennifer Strange will be gathering with friends in her backyard. After a sage smudge and the building of an altar, the ceremony will open with a welcoming blessing and an invocation to the four directions and elements to create sacred space.

We have gathered here today to honor the power of Father Sun. We invite reflection on the sacred marriage between Sun and Moon, light and dark, yin and yang. Today, at exactly 10:04 p.m., a profound power exchange takes place. At that moment, the sun gracefully cedes his power of light to the moon’s darkness.

We are here to request and offer Courage and Clarity as this longest day of the year shifts into the coming darkness of Earth’s cycle. Courage to help us meet life’s challenges … and Clarity to see clearly, with accuracy, compassion and common sense as we traverse our path.We are also focusing on Remembrance, Sacred Cleansing, Purification and the Lifting of Depression.

With these intentions set, participants will light a Courage Candle and then burn branches of dried rosemary. Jennifer told me, "I purposely left the two Burn Rituals very unscripted. This invites improvisation, inclusivity, interaction. Guests are invited to become the ritual - to literally be part of it by making their offerings, whether silent, symbolic or voiced."

Those gathered will end with a closing blessing read aloud together, after which they will look each other in the eyes, open up the sacred space, and join together for feasting and fun.

Ancient sun, eternally young,
Giver of light and source of energy,
In coal and oil, in plant and wind and tide,
In spiritual light and human embrace,
You kindle the heavens, you shine within us
(For we are suns with hearts afire –
We light the world as you light the sky
And find clouds within whose shadows are dark),
We give thanks for your rays.
~ Congregation of Abraxas

Many thanks to Jennifer Strange Celebrancy for sharing her photo and her ceremony. How do you celebrate the change of the seasons?

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Without Words

6/13/2013

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This week I've asked Monica Wesolowska to share the story of how she and her family honored the 10th birthday of their son Silvan, who died after only 38 days of life. Her critically-acclaimed memoir of Silvan's life and death is a tribute to the courage it takes to love and let go.

On the 10th anniversary of our son Silvan’s brief life, my husband and I wanted to do something special. Each year, we’d struggled. Should we celebrate his birth or death? Were these days of celebration or of mourning? Or both? Each year was different. Often, we’d end his anniversary days simply by sitting on his memorial bench in our backyard. We were so busy raising subsequent children that it seemed enough that we had this bench where we could speak Silvan’s name as a family.

But 10 years from the 38 days of Silvan’s life, Miles and Ivan are six and eight. Though we’ve never hidden Silvan from them, though they’ve spoken for years of his death with the natural ease of children, death has changed for them. It’s scarier now because they’ve realized it’s permanent. Death happens to real people, to people they love, and not just to an older brother they never met. But as death becomes scarier and more complex it’s just as important to acknowledge it—both for them and us.

We decided to mark Silvan’s 10th birthday with a hike. A silent hike. When Miles and Ivan balked at the idea of silence, we asked for just one minute of silence for each year since Silvan had been gone. Still, they resisted. “Ten minutes?” they said in tragic voices. But within a minute, something changed. Our senses opened. We spotted a flock of wild turkeys up ahead. We tasted miner’s lettuce from the side of the trail. In a stand of eucalyptus, we listened to the squeak of trees rubbing limb to limb in the wind. It felt right. By taking time for Silvan, our own lives were being enriched. And that’s when the boys gestured at my camera. Without words, they posed together. They looked back at me with love. And then, the ten minutes over, they asked if we could hike like this for Silvan again.

Excerpt from Holding Silvan: A Brief Life

If I’m lucky, I think, someday I’ll have children who will know about death. They will puzzle over birds who crash into our windows and lie broken-necked on the stairs. They will know that chicken comes from chickens and beef from cows. They will study the glassy eyes of fish at the market. Sometimes they will be the ones to kill things themselves and ask if they are really dead. They will keep a pet snail in a cage for too long and when they find it foamy and tucked tight in its shell, they will cry the way I cried over pets as a child and then be relieved when they take it outside to see it revive and creep away into a shelter of dead leaves. They will know that many people I have loved are dead and that the real dead stay dead. (Page 180)

~ From Holding Silvan: A Brief Life by Monica Wesolowska Copyright c 2013 by Monica Wesolowska. All rights reserved. All rights not expressly granted herein are reserved by the author.

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Young at Heart

6/8/2013

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Alethea Devi conducting a handfasting for Jack & June.

I’ve already written about how it’s never too late to remember a loved one well. This week’s story reminds us that it’s never too late to declare one’s love.

Inspired by my plan to tell 50 stories in 50 weeks, my sister Celebrant Alethea Devi reached out to share one from her own practice.

Jack was 78 and June, 82, when they met at a retirement home. Coincidentally, both were from Canada. Jack had been a community organizer and mediator; June was a retired school teacher and horse woman.

As Jack told Alethea, when he and June met, there were sparks. They became best friends and soon were in love. They wanted to live together in the same apartment, but the policy of the residence was that only "couples" could share an apartment. So Jack proposed to June to be married. June was diagnosed with dementia and so could not legally consent to be married, but they both wanted their special friendship to be recognized somehow.

Their families decided to gather in Portland for Thanksgiving and go together to see the famous Lipizzaner stallions, since June was so crazy about horses. They flew in from New York and Southern California: sons, daughters, and grandchildren. When their families saw how in love Jack and June were with each other, one of the sons contacted Alethea for a “celebration”.

Alethea suggested an Anam Cara ceremony. Anam Cara, meaning soul friend, is a Celtic tradition more recently popularized by the Irish poet John O’Donohue who described it as a friendship that “awakens an ancient recognition” between two people.

Alethea composed and led an Anam Cara ceremony complete with a hand-fasting with a long white ribbon, accompanied by a recording of Frank Sinatra singing Young at Heart. “As soon as the song started to play,” Alethea says, “Jack burst out to sing along. It brought a sweet tear to our eyes and became the theme of the day. As my husband said, “You never know when you'll feel 16 again, and poof you fall in love just one more time.’”

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"When love comes into your life, it’s almost like the dawn breaking within your heart.” ~ John O'Donohue

Hear John O'Donohue share more celtic wisdom on soul friendships and other topics.

And for another 'Young at Heart" love story, read about Cynthia and Howard, wed after 63 years apart.

Thanks to Alethea for sharing the lovely story of a creative and heart-felt ceremony honoring the special connection between Jack and June.

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Back from the Brink

Summer Solstice

Without Words

Excerpt from Holding Silvan: A Brief Life

Young at Heart

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