Sometimes we know something needs to happen, to mark a meaningful occasion, such as an anniversary, a birth, a marriage, a commitment, a death, a leaving, or a coming together.
It may be that you as an individual, or one of a group, have ideas and want assistance to figure out what is required and what may be envisioned and done. You may not be able to name what it is that you think you may want. You may want to work with me in the background.
I am available, via Skype or Facetime or in person. In my view the latter is ideal. We make the arrangements and circumstances for our meetings to suit the situation. However we meet, our conversations, planning and execution will take some time, yours and mine.
Most often ceremonies nourish our sense of family and community by bringing folks together with a sense of occasion. The precise purpose and process of the ceremony only reveal themselves when the ceremonial making process begins and as it unfolds. Things change and it is important to allow the changes to flow. And sometimes the family and community is in spirit, as in this ceremony.
“A Ceremony of One for Three in Mother Ocean”
Sometimes it is right to perform a ceremony without anyone else physically present, just the spirit of the sea, earth, sun and moon, of the ancestors and those who died so soon.
Her twin girls died at birth. They would have been a year old very soon. Her GP suggested she have a ceremony and refers her to me. She is alienated from the girl’s father and her family is in another country. She feels very alone and she has been very ill. Ignorant people don’t see her as a mother. She knows she is. She wants a ceremony and is unable to imagine how it could be.
We start with the purpose, which is to honour her babes and herself as a mother. She wants just the two of us there. We will go to the sea at the dawn of their birthday. She makes beautiful little boats … we prepare lanterns …she will call on he spirit of her grandfather … she will speak and sing of her love for her girls .. her gratitude .. and her great sorrow.
… we arrange to meet just before dawn. I arrive and she is not there. …. She woke very early and decided to go then and do the ceremony by herself. She is very pleased and feels she did it just right … she thanks me for all I have done and says she would not have known what to do before. By the time she got to the sea she knew exactly what to do. Everything flowed perfectly. She wept her heart out and now for the first time in a long time, she feels some peace.”
A Celebrant’s Notebook Pp 125,126.