Weddings
The way I like to work
to co-create a beautiful and meaningful wedding ceremony
with you is to begin by meeting each other and getting
acquainted. I like to hear
your stories – who you are individually, and who you are
as a couple. How did you
meet? Tell me the story of your being together. Then I’ll give you some
resource materials to consider: readings,
ritual, poetry. You can
decide together what you like, what speaks to you. What elements from your lives
and libraries and music collections do you want to
include? We might have some
email correspondence about all of that.
Then we’ll meet again to create the ceremony
together and work out details.
Memorial Services
When
preparing to do a memorial service, I start by meeting
with those close to the loved one who has passed over,
to hear about his or her life, look at pictures, to find
out what music, poetry, other writings were special to
the loved one. The ceremony crafted will be fitted
to his/her life and culture and beliefs. For me
it's important to set a tone in a memorial service that
allows everyone present to honor whatever they are
feeling - to laugh, to cry, to remember, and to share
those feelings and memories if they wish. It's
important to acknowledge and make a space for the grief,
the love, the unfinished, the completed, and to give
whatever comfort is possible to those present.
Other
Rites
of
Passage
Life is full of times of
passages from one state to another, and it is good to
mark those passages with ceremony and ritual. You can call on me when there
are houses to be purified or blessed, babies to be
welcomed, goodbyes to be said (moving, divorcing,
retirement, young ones leaving the nest - all kinds of
endings), passages to be celebrated, such as menarche (a
girl’s passage into womanhood), embarking
on a new work – whatever feels important and meaningful
and worth celebrating. We’ll
create the ceremony together, much in the spirit of
creating weddings and/or memorial services.
You can
contact me at azima@zianet.com
or 575-574-7805.