Transitions
Creative ceremonial celebrations to mark life's milestones
Ceremonies help us mark the transitions in our lives and move us into the next phase of our journey with consciousness, meaning and connection. Let's work together and create unique rituals to honor any threshold you are stepping through.
When I started my journey to become a Certified Life-Cycle Celebrant my intention was to help families and individuals seeking unique and personalized ways to mark life's transitions which are so often ignored or glossed over with rote words and actions.
Some of the most profound transformations in life can be found in the context of healing and transitions.Life throws all kinds of challenges at us and when we meet them, overcome them or make peace with them we learn that being broken open by big life transitions has a much larger context. When you experience life altering transitions you deserve to express yourself in your own exclusive way. Be it through sustenance rituals, transition ceremonies, marking your incorporation into a new way of life, a validation ceremony, or celebrating a complete rite of passage, you deserve to mark it in a significant way.Are you ready to join me and let me serve as your guide to craft your elements into a ceremony, using ritual theory, creative brainstorming, and storytelling?
Releasing Rituals
Powerful Ceremonies for letting go to move forward
There inevitably comes a time in life where we must let go of that which is no longer serving us in our highest ideal. Whether it is a relationship, job, home, or behavior, letting go and marking that transition towards freedom with ceremony and ritual is a powerful and reinforcing way to release something from our lives, heal emotional wounds, and celebrate new-found freedom. Rituals help us to be grounded and intentional as we shape the thresholds that we cross in our personal healing journeys.
House Blessings
Comprehensive cleansing and blessing of personal spaces
When you move into a new space, start fresh by clearing away the energies of the old and creating openness and space for your new beginnings. Taking time to create ceremonies and rituals to bless your house is a chance to bring a joyous, sacred spirit into the space that you call home. Whether you are creating a new business in your home or starting a new relationship there, the blessing can encompass all that the home will hold. A house blessing can be a beautiful gift for a family moving into their new home too.
Baby Naming Ceremonies
Beautiful celebrations for your new born
This ceremony will provide you and your family with a unique way to share your child’s name with those who matter, introduce a new member of the community, and celebrate your parenthood. It allows you as a parent or parents to make vows of love and introduce other important and supportive adults into your child’s life. I will help guide you in creating the vows, planning the rituals and providing any content that feels right for you.
Active Duty Military & Veterans Ceremonies
Special celebrations honoring transitions for military members and veterans
Certified Life-Cycle Celebrants in your community perform many kinds of ceremonies for military personnel and their loved ones, including ceremonies to commemorate enlistments, commissioning, promotions, deployments, homecomings, and retirement. I will be your resource in facilitating your visions of ceremony and to expertly craft meaningful rites to honor your career or transition.
Gender Reassignment Ceremonies
Supportive celebrations for becoming who you are
There are few milestones as important and literally life changing as gender reassignment for anyone who undergoes this transition. Adopting a new name to reflect this is a significant part of their journey and is a symbol to the world. What better way to share and celebrate this occasion in a meaningful way, surrounded by those you hold most dear than a Naming or Renaming Ceremony?
Divorce Ceremonies
Recognizing divorce with compassion and dignity
Divorces can be anywhere from traumatic to joyful but it is a major life transition and changes our status in our community. Consider a Divorce Ceremony to symbolize this change with your friends, family, and children.
Coming of Age Ceremonies
Celebrate the life-changing rite of passage into adulthood
Coming of age ceremonies have played a vital role in all cultures throughout history. Today, with the often-vast cleft between the youth and adult worlds, these rites are more important than ever. Adolescence is oftentimes a period of psychological turmoil and these ceremonies can help the young person's emotional well-being by easing the passage to adulthood. It is not unusual to find ourselves experiencing profound growth or psychological change when we are far beyond adolescence - a change so dramatic we feel almost like a new person. Whether that change happens at 30 or 70, a Coming of Age ceremony is appropriate to mark this life passage.All coming of age ceremonies celebrate us as human beings at whatever stage of our lives we are in: Act I (youth), Act II (middle-age, parenthood), Act III (elders). Let us actively embrace our life experience. It is through ceremony we celebrate the art of life!
Civic and Community Ceremonies
Innovative ceremonies for organizations
We are a community. It is ingrained in our species. From the beginning of time we humans have gathered together for our very survival. We sought safety in numbers. Humans still gather today in communities, not just for survival, but for enriching our lives in many other ways. We celebrate achievements together; we mourn loss together; we protest together for change or for preservation, and we feel safe together. All these things that we do together are intrinsically valuable in creating community. Using well crafted ritual and ceremony emphasizes the intentionality of our communal spirit. First Night to safely bring the community together in celebrating the New Year, the opening of a Farmer’s Market to celebrate a new season of harvest, seasonal festivals, marking historic events, the opening of a new civic center: these are all reasons to gather together in community and mark events in ceremony and celebration, purposefully and wholly.
Work-Life Ceremonies
Uplifting celebrations for the workplace
As a professional Celebrant I can work with your managers and employees to create and officiate at ceremonies for your organization. I meet with them to develop a ceremony that is meaningful to the work environment.Some of the many ceremony-worthy occasions that occur in today's workplace include:
- Marking a new partnership
- Opening a new office
- Launching a new business, product or service
- Rewarding valued employees
- Retirements
- Promotions
- Adjusting to reorganizations and mergers
- Honoring employees who are laid off due to downsizing
Validation Ceremonies
Acknowledging the experiences of others through ceremony
The purpose of a Validation Ceremony is to communicate acceptance and understanding that what a person feels is real to them. Validation is the recognition and acceptance of another person’s thoughts, feelings, sensations, and behaviors as understandable.Ceremonies for Validation would be beneficial for caregivers suffering burnout. These people may be caregivers of young children, special needs children, the elderly, people with severe handicaps, hospice workers and first responders.There are three essential elements in every validation ceremony: The participant is heard with the heart and the mind.; The participant’s experience and feelings in regard to their experience are acknowledged as important: The participant’s feelings are recognized and valued.A Validation Ceremony is an opportunity for caregivers to acknowledge and speak their truth that what they are doing is really hard, physically and emotionally challenging and often the person being supported cannot express gratitude due to mental or physical health problems. Offering the support of acknowledgement can be incredibly healing.Validation Ceremonies are best held in a group context. Caregivers often work alone and a group ceremony provides additional support of healing in community and lets them know that what they are feeling is normal and shared by others in their position.If you would like to participate in the healing experience of a Validation Ceremony please contact me and we can talk about what opportunities I may be able to guide you to.
Elderhood Ceremonies
Supportive rites of passage celebrations marking an Elder status.
Individuals who choose to mark life’s transitions with a rite of passage through ceremony and ritual are following in the footsteps of our ancestors.The significant difference today, as compared to our ancestor’s day, is that there is a lack of elders. The wise women and men, who guided the community in ritual, who reassured the one crossing over to a new status by explaining their new roles, guiding and empowering them have been disappearing from our communities.Elderhood is not a rite of age. It is earned through a lifetime of falling down and getting up. Elderhood is a rite of surviving the journey of hard-won knowledge, experience, pain and joy of a long life and having been changed by it.Celebrate with your community your rite of passage into Elderhood. Let me help you in crossing your threshold, and mark your significance and incorporation into the community as the wise and valuable person you have become through an Elderhood Celebration
Contact me to discuss how we can mark your significant life milestone.
