The Invitation

Whether in ceremonies or in everyday life, we all need inspiration. A great place to find this is in books. One of my favourite inspirational Canadian writers is Oriah Mountain Dreamer. This is a quote from her bestselling book The Invitation about celebration:
"We are having a special meal to celebrate the end of my sons' school term. You can tell it is special because we are eating in the dining room. The table has been set with the Blue Willow china - not really "good" china, but a different pattern and less chipped than what is used daily. I am in the last-minute frenzy of trying to get everything from the kitchen to the table while it is stil hot...Suddenly Taras is on his feet, grinning and moving toward me from the opposite end of the table. "God, you look beautiful!" he says...His unexpected exuberance makes me believe him. He starts singing the wordless melody of the Blue Danube waltz and dancing around the table pulling me with him as I halfheartedly protest that the food will get cold...Joy finds us and lifts us in ordinary moments like this, if we let it." (The Invitation, pages 48-49)

Celebrants in the News

I was trained as a Celebrant, first by In-Sight Books as a Funeral Celebrant, and then by the Celebrant USA Foundation and Institute, the organization mentioned in the article, with a speciality in weddings. Because I have also had training in Ceremony in the Celtic shamanic tradition with Kathleen Leeson, RH, and other shamanic studies which I can bring into my work, I call myself a Ceremonialist rather than a Celebrant. However, because my orientation is in service of the client's needs, I can also do totally secular ceremonies as well and therefore can act as a Celebrant. The following article is a great illustration of how Ceremony can be a part of anyone's life and how Celebrants particularly work to create a vast number of personalized ceremonies.


Click on the photo to enlarge it and read the article.