Celebrant

Culminating Healing and Transition Ceremonies, Celebrant Institute

When I got an answer to my application from Elise, telling me she had studied the same year as you

The tears felt oh so right

As I learned of rituals and honoring grief,

I remembered you…

“Separation, liminal phase, and reintroduction…”

There you were again, welcoming folks into our sweat lodge

Finding the right introductory questions…

There you were again, designing my wedding ceremony.

Following in a parent’s footsteps can many times generate doubt. 

Is this truly what I want?

A semester of fundamentals on ceremonies gave me the tools to express my grief, to mold my sorrow into something tangible.

Slowly the doubt began to diminish.

Another semester of poems, rituals and inspiration, delving into what could be called the business of hope. The crafting of narrative and the cultivation of hope.

Today I present myself to all you, not without doubt, full of insecurity, but brimming with hope. Quivering with conviction, that what we do is right and necessary. 

Why? Because I’ve lived it myself, and so has everyone who has been touched by ceremony. Be they joyous, bereaving or anywhere in between. 

A friend of mine questioned me the other day, how can you celebrate grief? I had to think about this one… and check up on the definition of celebration: acknowledgement, honoring, recognition. To truly live each moment of our lives to the fullest and with the most presence. That’s why our rituals allude to fire, water, earth, air, to bring us back to our fullest, natural selves. To remind us we are more than a bunch of ideas, that we are physical beings interacting constantly in a physical medium. Just so, as we recognize ourselves as part of an interweaving, our stories become each others stories. 

So thank you dad, for your story, thank you to my teachers for their stories, to my colleagues for theirs, and for the stories told by the consuming fire, gushing river, the streaming wind and the enveloping mountains.