Glancing Over the Ceremonies of 2011

In the cool January of 2012, I think about the ceremonies I performed in 2011.
Some moments I am recalling:

The young ring bearer who came joyously down the aisle astride his father's shoulders, too shy to make the excruciating journey all alone;
the thunderstorm that came out of nowhere and as quickly vanished as two people, now married, exchanged a kiss;
the large vase of flowers crashing to the ground during a wedding, and the groom's mother coming to me afterward to tell me in wonder that a vase had crashed at the ceremony in which she married the groom's father.

The groomsmen who tightly surrounded their "charge" (after all, they were responsible for his well-being) with a language intelligible only to them.

The warm, enveloping voices of friends and family, in varying tones and pitches, all calling a tiny boy's name, at the baby naming ceremony in a Buddhist garden.

Dozens of tea lights extinguishing their flames before a ceremony. "I didn't realize it was so breezy," I thought, before I saw the 5-year-old girl in her frilly bouffant dress moving from one to the next, with a gentle "pfff". We came to a deal - she would let them burn through the ceremony, and then - she could blow every single one of them out.

The quiet, soft-spoken groom who pulled a crumpled piece of paper from deep within his pocket, and read the loveliest words to his chosen partner.

Tears of course. Laughter. Flowers and ribbons, buttons and bows.

Sweet, miraculous happenings, all.

Ceremony takes you there

I have once again been thinking about ceremony - what it is, and what it does in our lives.

Ceremony follows a path.
You begin with the leaving of some place (Where were you before this point in your life? Who, and what, lead you here? What are you leaving behind? What are you taking with you?)
--- come to this very moment, the turning point (marrying, for instance), and embrace the change
--- go back out into the community around you with a new view (of where you are, who you are, where you are going and what those people around you mean to you.)

This is why there are so often ceremonial words like bridges, and roads, thresholds - images of running water, shifting sands, and the cycle of seasons. Metaphors give tangible form to the things in our lives that are not so easily identified. And yet we instantly recognize the emotions the symbols represent, when those images are ones that connect with us.

One of the bridges is the music that carries us through our lives. You might hear a song and instantly see and smell leaves falling from red and orange maples. Maybe you think of your mother, laughing with you at some ridiculous moment. Or you hear a distant waft of a flute, or a guitar, and feel the relaxed freedom of a long ago summer's day. It's like water, my metaphorical mind can't help but saying- it's a stream flowing through life, winding its way, carrying its bugs and twigs.

Anything stored in your senses can help accompany you, and ground you, in the moments when you are setting out into new territory. The ceremony becomes yours, tells your story. It marks for those around you, and most wonderfully - for you - the whole person you are.