Earth Priestess & Ceremony Officiant
It is a joyous honor to officiate at a wedding, or at a witchy version of a wedding (a hand-fasting). Or to create a beautiful blessing for a newborn, or a new home or business. It is a solemn honor to be invited to officiate at a memorial for a beloved one who has passed. If you are called to invite me to be an Earth Priestess for your special event, we’ll have a conversation to mutually determine if it’s a good fit, and the final cost will be determined by what’s involved, how many meetings we’ll need, my time and travel, and what kind of ceremony you are looking for.
My rituals and ceremonies will always invoke the Sacred Elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water, bringing the blessings of Nature to your sacred event. I can incorporate your family traditions into the ceremony as well. That is one of my favorite kinds of co-creation!
I am an ordained Minister of the Universal Life Church Ministry and legally licensed to perform marriages in the United States, everywhere but in New York City, where a special additional permit would need to acquired.
My First Spiritual Teachers
My first spiritual teachers, June Graham and Jim Spencer, were interfaith ministers, and so much more. They taught me so much about what love really is and how to put love first.
I was blessed to have these extraordinary people come into my life when I was in my late teens. It started when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. After she’d gone through a radical mastectomy and radiation, she heard about a course called Silva Mind Control. She decided that it might help her to heal fully and stay well, and she and my dad, who was always willing to accompany her on whatever adventure she dreamt up, left to take a four-day intensive course in what in the 1970’s was called the human potential movement.
When they returned home I was stunned at how radiant they looked. I decided, in that very moment, that wherever they had been, I was going to go. And so I did. (I wrote more about this in my first book, Healing Magic).
My mom took me to an introductory class with June and Jim and I was at the edge of my seat as the two teachers talked about the interconnectedness of all life. They were entertaining as hell, wise and witty, beautiful, charismatic, charming and deep. The course focused essentially on “how to get what you want” in life, by tuning into the way everything is connected to everything else at an “inner level” and it was very exciting and magical, but ultimately my teachers left because they knew there was more to life than “getting what you want”.
They fell in love, although Jim was 25 years younger than June and she was quite married at the time they met. When they got married, my dad walked her down the aisle on a Saturday night in the middle of one of their weekend workshops which we all attended frequently at the time. They had created their own program called “Let Go and Live” which was about illuminating those aspects of yourself you most wanted to hide from, or what Carl Jung labeled our “shadow”. This was NOT easy work. It was about running toward what most people want to run from! It likely kept them from becoming well-known in the mainstream sense, though they did teach thousands of students from many walks of life, and helped many people to live fuller and more authentic, courageous lives.
Eventually, these wonderful folks became two of my dearest friends, and after they each passed on, first June, and then Jim (I write about both of their passings in The Gift of Healing Herbs) some of their loving students created a website to honor them and their work.
You can check it out here.