Rites of passage are the ways we mark the most significant transitions in our lives: child dedications, youth bridging ceremonies, weddings and ceremonies of commitment, memorials and celebrations of life, and more. Every rite of passage is an opportunity to focus on an important change in someone's life and an opening for the community to support its members.
When preparing for weddings, vow renewals, and commitment ceremonies, it's important to me to get a sense of what the people involved are envisioning and what this ceremony means to them. For some, a wedding is a private exchange of vows. For others, it's both private and public and even political, as when marriage equality was coming slowly into place across the US. A vow renewal brings in new relationships as friends and neighbors met over the course of 40 or 50 years together come to witness recommitment.
A memorial service or celebration of life offers a chance to engage the important and challenging work of grief, the process of moving from a loved one as a living presence to a remembered presence. My role in preparing for these services is, first, to sit with the family and close friends who are arranging the service and get to know, or get to know more deeply, the person who has died. It's an honor to prepare a eulogy. Second, at the service I strive to create a container for all present to engage with their grief, knowing that one loss tends to bring up the grief of other losses as well. Through words, music, silence, and opportunities to share memories, the service should provide an opportunity for healing to begin as tears are shed and all can remember that they are not alone in their grief.
If you have an upcoming milestone to mark as you embark on a deepening commitment, celebrate a big anniversary, or mourn a loss, it would be a privilege for me to accompany you and help offer a service that honors who you and your loved ones are. Please be in touch.