5 Tips for Making the Winter Solstice Meaningful

The Winter Solstice (Dec 21-23) is a time of transformation. The return of the sun heralds the mystery of light emerging from the darkness. Give yourself a few hours for a personal “time out” from the bustle of the holidays and rededicate yourself to what’s truly important in your life. Create clear intentions to help yourself thrive not just survive!

Here are some ideas to get you started.

1. Review the past year and ask yourself: What feels complete? What needs finishing? What needs more of your attention. What no longer serves?
2. What disappointments, ways of being, people, projects, or things are you ready to release?
3. What were the gifts (inner and outer) of the past year for which you are grateful?
4. What qualities do you want to cultivate over the coming year?
5. What activities do you wish to give more of your thoughts and energy?

You can write down the things you wish to release on little pieces of paper. Turn down the lights (or better yet, go outside into the darkness) and burn them. Allow the flames to free you and the darkness to consume all that you no longer need.

Light a candle and write on a fresh sheet of paper all that you wish to devote your energy to in the coming year.  The light is symbolic of shining your inner light outwards to illuminate your life and others. Put your page of intentions someplace safe, where you can return to it as needed for inspiration.

Next year at this time, you can use it in your life review.  Mindfully letting go and mindfully setting intention in these ways really does help. I do it myself every year.  My husband Dan and I walk a candlelit labyrinth each winter solstice (click for more info) to help guide us.

Not able to take time around Solstice?  No problem… there’s always New Years. The above tips work equally well at this time of new beginnings and fresh starts!

Remembering our Dead: Part II

You may have read my recent post on leaving Rosemary or small pebbles when visiting a grave site.  Continuing on the same theme, I thought I’d share some of the offerings I’ve noticed these past few years while walking my dog through the beautiful grounds of Mountain View Cemetery.

There is such a variety of grave markers to begin with… each cultural group seems to have its own style.  Inscriptions vary widely, but share the brevity dictated by marker size. One of my personal favorites is the Victorian-era description of a widow as a “Relic”.  But I digress…

With respect to offerings left at graves, I’ve seen:

• Every flower under the sun. Bouquets small and vast.
• Teddies  (not recommended!  Stuffies look so sad after rainfall.)
• Plastic toys, soothers, jewelry,
• Photographs, sometimes framed
• Candles (I love it when I find these still burning)
• Coins
• Food, paper money, and paper furniture in the Chinese section
• Crosses, religious figurines, icons, crucifixes
• and the most perplexing of all… a gravesite that regularly has a bucketful of cigarette butts dumped on it.  And often a small empty bottle of booze. Once a shot glass.  I never seem to catch the visitor in the act… I’d love to know more.

Today I noticed two graves, side-by-side, with long stemmed fresh flowers standing on end around the markers.  Someone had inserted a sturdy wire into each flower stem and then speared them into the ground. Like a ring of flower-trees.  It looked fabulous!

Cemeteries are wonderful places to walk and reflect on the beauty, the strength and the fragility of the human life. I love reading the inscriptions to learn about lives lived. Amazing the personality that can be described in just a few well chosen words.

Far from being scary places, cemeteries are a testament to our capacity and our desire to remember those we love.

On October 30th, Mountain View hosts their 5th Annual Night of All Souls.  This is a public event for us to remember our dead in an atmosphere of contemplative beauty, with music, warming fires and fragrant teas to comfort the living.  Candles, flowers and other materials are available for the creation of personal memorials that can be added to the public shrines throughout the cemetery.

Remember,

Celebrant Michele Davidson

Rosemary for Remembrance

Several weeks ago I visited the grave of a very dear friend who passed away in a small French village.  The custom in that particular area of France is for the grave marker be a large, long slab of stone.  And so it was.

In preparation I gathered a large bouquet of fresh Rosemary branches. Not wanting to offer anything unnatural, I bound the branches of rosemary with pliable grapevine. Did you know that Rosemary is known as the herb of remembrance, having been thrown into graves by mourners in the middle ages, but also carried in bridal bouquets?

As I laid my offering of remembrance on Henk’s grave, I was curious to see a pile of small stones to one side of his name. I didn’t feel so alone in my sadness… there was distinct evidence of another visitor to the grave.  When I spoke to Henk’s wife about it, she’d wondered about the stones too.  She didn’t know who had left them; but always noticed when a new one had been left.

Returning home, I looked it up on good old Google.  Apparently leaving a pebble or stone on a grave is a Jewish custom symbolic of lasting connection. A pebble is more enduring than flowers. There are many theories to how this custom  originated… the most fascinating descriptions I found here, if you are interested in reading about it.

I loved learning about this and have decided that a sprig of rosemary and a simple stone will be my offerings of choice in the future. Both for their symbolism and their natural simplicity.

Celebrant Michele Davidson

5 Tips for Creating Moving Multicultural Ceremonies

I am blessed to live in Vancouver with its richly diverse community. Learning about different spiritual and ethnic traditions is one of the great joys of my life.  I find inspiration in seeing how others navigate the twists and turns of life.  And how different communities celebrate joys and mourn losses.

In my work as a Celebrant, I collaborate with individuals, couples, and families of all backgrounds.  My respect (and curiosity!) for other traditions seems to attract those searching for an interfaith officiant.  It must be true that what we put out comes back to us!

Over the years, I’ve had the great pleasure of creating and conducting ceremonies for amazing clients of the following backgrounds: Jewish, Persian, Chinese, Evangelical, First Nation, French Canadian, Buddhist, Catholic, Anglican, Armenian Orthodox, Indonesian, Scottish, Greek, and oh boy I surely have missed a few!!!

When the majority of guests do not speak English, or important family members do not, I work with a translator to ensure key portions of the ceremony are understood.  My ceremonies have been translated into Mandarin, Cantonese, French, and German.

We experience powerful opportunities for connection when people of differing faiths and cultural traditions come together for a marriage, birth, or death. Rather than be divided by differences, we can use the ceremonies for these occasions to foster memorable shared experiences.  Here are five tips for creating meaningful multicultural or multifaith ceremonies.

1. Look for underlying universal human truths.
2. Honour commonalities between the two traditions.
3. Research folk tales.
4. Include unifying rituals.
5. Learn to speak key words or phrases in a different language.

Look for Underlying Universal Human Truths

We all want to be loved. To feel part of a community. And to be accepted for who we are.  Happiness and joy, grief and pain, disappointment… the emotional arc of what it is to be human is experienced by us all.  Bring these universal human truths into the ceremony by illuminating experiences and emotional everyone present can relate to.

Honour Commonalities between the Two Traditions

Though two traditions may be very different in some ways, in others there is great similarity.  Highlighting the commonalities helps bring connection and welcoming spirit to the ceremony and in interactions beyond. Here’s an example: Chinese and Jewish families place great importance on family.  Speak to these important shared values during the ceremony.

Research Folk Tales

I’m a storyteller and love to share folk tales during multifaith or multicultural ceremonies.  Participants and guests appreciate the intention and effort!  Folk tales or stories bring home deeper meaning in a way that seems to resonate with many listeners.  I don’t tell LONG stories, but rather abbreviate them into a paragraph.  It is especially wonderful to share folktales from two traditions that illustrate the exact same point!  Again, it’s about celebrating what we share.

Include Unifying Rituals

All faiths and cultures have rituals intended to unify self with others and self with the sacred.  Spend time learning about these and you will enliven your ceremonies with emotional richness. See if you can combine ritual elements of both traditions. For instance, in a handfasting I once used the crowning ribbons from the orthodox Armenian crowning.  Always remember that to be resonate rituals must be relevant and suited to the individuals involved.  No rites by rote!

Learn to speak Key Words and Phrases in a Different Language

Learning how to say “Welcome” in Mandarin, “You may kiss the bride” in French, “Mazel Tov” in Hebrew, “Ashes to Ashes” in German, “Sofrey-Aghd” in Persian will endear you to guests and to your clients.  Make sure you practice!

….

I welcome your comments and would love when you share your own tips!

All for now,

Michele Davidson, Professional Celebrant & Wedding Officiant

How to Tap into the power of your life transitions

here’s a piece I wrote for a women’s journal recently. Let me know if anything in it hit home for you!

Tap into the power of your life transitions

Life is a journey.  Most of us say it, and nearly all of us believe it!  So why then are we so darned focused the next big step that we don’t honour where we actually are along the path? As women, we experience many emotional and physical changes during the course of our lives. These are our rites of passage.  They’re huge, important, and very often – ignored or trivialized. (Ever been to a bridal shower where the bride-to-be walked around wearing a paper-plate hat with streamers on it?)  Someone explain to me how that prepares a woman figure out what ‘wife’ means!

We talk about intention a lot, don’t we?  We have intention to make things happen in our businesses and to bring happiness into our lives.

How about bringing intention to how we move through our profound life experiences?  Things like marriage, career changes, becoming a mother, career changes, medical diagnosis, the death of our parents, divorce?  These are some of the signposts of a lived life. And these are the experiences that hold the most potential to transform us. And yet, many people today lack the tools to face their milestones, be they of joy or sorrow.  It certainly doesn’t help that we live in a society that when the going gets tough frequently tells us ‘get over it’ ‘let it go’ ‘move on’.

I learned something valuable about this in recent years.  In less than ten months I got engaged and married, underwent major surgery, and unraveled because of the heartbreaking suicide of my dearest friend.  And I came to see that passing by even just one signpost without truly understanding what it means, is a way of dismissing myself.

So how do we bring in intention?  Ritual and ceremony help by providing conscious, symbolic ways to honour our transitions. Taking the time to reflect upon and acknowledge the significant events of your life says something powerful about you.  It says, “I value myself. This is who I am.”  And discovering your own personal rituals and traditions will enrich your life by providing a sense of identity, comfort, and an understanding of the continuity of life.

We sometimes forget that, by our very nature, women are courageous.  You know that to be a successful entrepreneur you must tap into your incredible strength, wisdom and resilience.  Why not put the same energy into embracing the turning points of your life?

Here are some ideas to get you started.

• See your joys and losses as motivational calls to adventure. Connect and surround yourself with inspires you – poems, quotes, objects, readings, people, places in nature.
• Reflect on the missed opportunities for ritual/ceremony you experienced in your own life and how these have affected you.  What could you have done differently?
• Always remember that it’s not too late to reclaim meaning and growth from unacknowledged events in your past.

And most of all, never forget that you are the heroine of your own journey!

Celebrant Michele Davidson, Spring 2009